For 2 days ive been practicing soldering by the tips here, Ive spent 40-50$ on equipment, I got 60/40 rosin .062 and 96/4 .032 solders, some kind of flux stuff thats a paste a 15/30 switchable iron, 30 awg kynar a spnge fine tip the whole nine yards. So I put solder all over the tip so its nice and shiny, the i take the wire and put some solder on it (which seems to clump up) i tinned the shit out of the wire i guess (but only a tiny bit of solder just did it a ton of times! I put flux on the hole im trying to solder to (network card hole about the same size as d0) i stick the wire in the hole, grab just a tiny bit of solder and touch it to the wire. Nothing happens the solder just stays in one spot. I sat there for 10 minutes holding it to the wire as my fingers are burning. So I take the iron and jab at the hole hoping it will grab some solder and it dont grab shit. Im soooo frustrated at this point im about to throw my box, nic iron the whole shooting match out the window and forget I even thought of this project. Am I doing something wrong? Or are other people having the same problem? Please help before I lose my mind! Thanks a ton!

WTF mate.... soldering is pretty easy, just understand how it works... solder heats up and liquifies, then it cools down and solidifies....

why are you rubbing solder on the tip? it being that hot for so long will make it mess up... you only need to heat it long enough for it to melt then take away the heat and let it harden....

Just fill the LPC holes first then touch them with the iron and stick the damn wire in. When you do d0 just put the wire on top of it (alt do) and put the iron tip on top of the wire untill the solder melts.

The solder will not stick to the board. Or even go close to the board it stays way up on the wire. When I try to move it with the iron tip it sticks to iron. I just dropped my iron on a plastic bag to very nice this is going so well for me lol. I understand that solder heats then cools but how to get it in that hole? It wont go there no matter what i use.

why are you putting the solder on the wire?

it really takes 3 hands to solder, 1 hand to hold the iron, 1 to hold the wire, and 1 to hold the solder, i always put the wire where i wanted it and held it with my pinky/ring finger, then held the solder with my pointer/thumb, touched the solder to the wire to the contact point on the hardware, then touched the solder with the iron, let it melt, removed solder and iron, and watched the melted solder stick to the wire/board

i haven't had any problems doing it that way and i've soldered many things working at best buy for 2 years... never an xbox tho

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The solder will not stick to the board. Or even go close to the board it stays way up on the wire. When I try to move it with the iron tip it sticks to iron.

Thats because solder is blah, blah conductive (funny I cant remember the term), meaning it follows heat. It sounds like your trying to solder onto the coating of the box motherboard which solder will not stick to. Try scraping some of the coating off but careful..careful, when your working with something the size of d0 its easy to remove all the solder and be left with nothing to solder to at all.

Just out of curiosity what are you trying to do?

Maybe im looking at it wrong. The wire has to go "in" the hole or just on top of it? If it goes in can i kick it and lay solder across the top? I guess im trying to get it in the hole maybe and thats why its not working? Like I said ive been practicing for ever and reading a ton of stuff. Im wondering how to hold the wire, iron, and solder at the same time so the solder has to go somewhere so i can set the solder down and goto work correct? Thanks guys!

Well I looked at d0 and then compared the hole to a hole that is on a network card so im practicing, erm killing, a perfectly good nic card lol. Also I will be doing a wired install on a v1.0 with a xenium.

In, out, up, down it doesnt matter as long as there is a connection made they become the same point electrically. Well assuming a good connection is made that is. The easiest method Ive found when working with a point like top d0 is to scrape (carefully) the coating off, solder more solder onto the point, then put the wire on top of the point and put the iron on top of the wire until the solder melts but YMMV.

You gotta be careful with those small points though

Good luck

So drip a bit onto the hole first? Then put wire on hole melt solder and whamo? Ill give that a try, but seems like my iron might be toasted doesnt want to heat much now that ive put it against a plastic bag =(

No, dont drip. Solder is thermal conductive so by the time you get enough solder on the iron to drip itll be a big- ass- mess of a drip. What I do when the point is that small is too CAREFULLY scrape the crap of the point first so the solder has something to stick too. Then I CAREFULLY touch and melt the scraped point while applying more solder (it wont take much more but takes enough to make it easier). Then I CAREFULLY put the wire on the new, bigger point and put the iron on top of the wire until the wire joins with the solder.

Im not quite sure what your trying to do but YOU MUST BE CAREFUL. If your going after d0 and arent quite sure of your abilities I would suggest you use the alternate, bigger d0 on the back of the mobo. Ive never fucked up d0 but I once fucked up a point smaller then d0. I hit the point to long and BAM no more solder on the point to stick to and had to get a new mobo.

Shop around, get more opinions.

ya ill go after alt do but how to scrape? According to some others, flux was supposed to fix that. Not quite sure what it does. The other problem how do i heat the hold and put solder in at same time? my tip takes up the whole hole.