Is there still anyone who can re-ball a ThinkPad T43?

[jelabarre59]

Just as the title says. I was given a ThinkPad T43 that powers on, then hangs at the boot logo (with the "press the Access IBM button" message). As I understand it, this means a failure in the Southbridge chip, and the fix was to remove it, reball it, and solder it back on.

It was apparently a commonly done fix some 15 years ago, but that's the newest messages I've seen on it. It may or may not be worth the cost (living off of social security and some part-time work, so the budget is limited). It would be nice to have a T40-series machine again though (I have docking stations and port replicators for T20/T40-series and various ultrabay accessories).

 

[Bentendo64]

Do you have a hot air gun? As a last resort, you could always just try to reflow it yourself. squeeze some no-clean flux under it and hit it with some heat.

To do it more properly is more complicated than that, but my own mentality is, "what's the harm in trying?"