On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 20:22:58 -0400, "George" wrote:


It might be easier written than done, cutting though the leads without
gouging something or pulling up pads and traces. It would seem that given
the spec sheet, only a few of the leads would need pulled up from the
pads, presumably the power and one or more bus lines, then the chip could
stay on the board.

Usually that isn't enough. I have seen production designs, in production
for over
a year and shipping, that have had no power to one or more ICs where the
unpowered
IC pretty much worked (just with weird levels). You need to remove the
entire IC
and shouldn't have problems cutting the leads with diagonal cutters
(recommended)
or a Dremel (for the more adept) assuming that you take your time with the
Dremel
and hold the board in a vise and remember not to pull at all with diagonal
cutters. But
caution about lifting pads and traces is always worth extra attention.



It would take some fairly high-precision cutters to cut traces on most
modern audio chips, might be as expensive as a another motherboard,
especially considering it's age. Do you know of a good source for
affordable micro-tools?