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Enabling the "Disabled" Card Interfaces?
An Anonymous Coward asks: "Has anyone else noticed how often different versions of what are essentially identical products often differ only in what connections are available on the card? Take for example the GeForce 2 MX... some cards include a TV-Out, others don't. Often, the traces that go to the missing connector are still on the board, only the plug/socket is missing. Has anyone ever tried adding these ports 'after market'? If so, what kind of success rate could one expect, adding something like an MPEG-2 audio connector to their TV tuner, or a DVI port to their Prophet?" An interesting thought, but is soldering on the missing connecter all you need for that extra functionality? Wouldn't firmware changes also be required?
S/PDIF for AudioPCI
A friend has soldered a S-Video outonto his GForce2GTS 64Mb version and used the firmware off my Leadtek card,(same type) and it worked perfectly but i can't remember which brand his card was. I have seen outside boxs you can plug inbertween cards and moniters that offer other video-ou modes too.
In general, simply soldiering the new jacks onto the board won't work. The actual circuit board is common to all revisions and features simply to reduce cost. Each "original" board costs far more, but additional boards are relatively cheap. This is why you see the leads and sometimes even empty sockets.
Even if you do soldier on new jacks, you may also have to soldier on surface-mount resistors, capacitors, etc, to get it to work. And there's still no guarantee. It's quite possible that particular chips are missing (NTSC generator for video out, etc), or even that the major chips are completely different from the more expensive version.
If you're really set on doing this, find a way to compare the cheaper and more expensive versions of the card. If the chip numbers are identical, and there doesn't seem to be any other major differences, then you're probably able to get the features working. And as always, be careful when soldiering onto a PCB--keep animals and small children away.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
this is a very common tactict in the electronics industry, because it costs less to fab more of the expensive board, than fab 2 seperaate boards.
A few years back some company released several printers, the only difference between the printers was the model number printed on the front, and the drivers in the box, you could download the better driver off of their website and you had the better printer.
The USA version of many nokia cellphones dont have IR ports, while the EU models do, the difference is simply a plug in module, and the firmware.
There was a ahrddrive a few years back(can't remember who made it) that you could open and remove one piece, and get 20% more space.
I have 2 dell towers that i use as servers, one has on board ethernet, the other one doesnt, but the one that doesnt has the place to solder on the jack, has the controler chip, and appears to have a jumper to turn it on.
I have heard this is also common with kitchen appliances.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
Although you may have to add extra chip(s) - polish up those SMT soldering skillz...
On a project I help out with, hacking the Acer NT-150 (see above link), on the majority of our boxes we had what appeared to be pads for a serial port, and we could plainly see empty pads for the serial driver IC - problem was we didn't know what IC.
A few people started doing tracing and such, and thought it was a Maxim part - since they did the free-sample thing on the part, one individual who had experience with SMT rework got what he thought was the right part, soldered it in - and it didn't work.
Soon thereafter another individual posted on our mailing list that he thought he had an NT-150, and had hooked up a serial mouse and a NIC - which we thought was absurd, since the thing didn't have a serial port that we knew of - he posted pictures of his box (a USWest Webvision box or something), and sure enough, he had a serial port. We had him post the part number for the driver IC, and it was a Maxim part, but it wasn't the one our other guy used. He ordered that part - _unsoldered_ the wrong one, and re-soldered the right one in, and "voila", free serial port to add a mouse, or anything else.
In the course of doing that, we have a few tutorials/notes on doing SMT rework with a low-wattage (15 watt) soldering iron, and plenty of patience, if you need to do such things.
Follow the traces back from where the connector should go - see if there are any breaks where resistors, caps, transistors and such might go. Sometimes they mount these, but not the connector (in our case, we had pull-up resistors already mounted next to the serial driver pads, just no chip). Other times, they don't. The other thing to keep in mind is whether the board is dual trace PCB, or multi-layer - if it is multi-layer, and the connector is soldered through the hole, it might actually connect with a middle layer as well (a layer you can't see). I don't know how you would connect with such a middle layer, except maybe to tin the connector, insert, and solder, and the reheat would melt it.
The key to most homebrew SMT rework is patience, and a steady hand (very steady). There is also a certain type solder you need to use, not 60/40 - it is a special solder meant for SMT work, and is a bit more expensive than the regular stuff. Also, apply heat very sparingly, to avoid lifting pads (which is VERY easy to do in SMT rework, from what I understand). If you are really intent on attempting this, I would go out and get some junk boards (drive controller boards from old hard drives are good for practice, to get a feel for working in a tight area, old ethernet cards is you want to practice for more space, and old sound cards sometimes have lower pin count SMT ICs to practice on) and practice removing and replacing components first, to get the hang of it.
Good luck!
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Back in the '60s (?, maybe 70s) IBM had a mainframe printer that could to 50 or 100 (units, but I can't remember if it was cps or pages or whatever) the only difference was where a belt was set, and you could buy an upgrade which amounted to a tech coming out and changing the belt.
In that case, the faster version was running right on the edge of what the pritner could do, and so you paid extra for the upgrade because IBM has to deal with a lot more warrentie work on the faster model.