Computer Hardware - Broken power pin question

[Nyarlathotep]

Evening all!

I've got a really dumb question and my google-fu is (apparently) not up to the task of figuring this out.

I've got a broken pin on the power connector of my Audigy I/O drive (Pin 2 -GND). I was planning to unsolder the broken pin and solder a new one in place. Now the question is do I need anything special to do this? Can I just unsolder the old (broken) pin, bend a paper clip, shape it and solder it as a replacement? Do I need some special space-age metal instead? I can't seem to find my digital camera so you don't get a picture (which no doubt would make things seem much clearer), but this would be the rough "diagram".


I/O Drive Power Connection

Pin 1: +5V
Pin 2: GND [broken]
Pin 3: GND
Pin 4: +12V

Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[D+1]

Evening all!

I've got a really dumb question and my google-fu is (apparently) not up to the task of figuring this out.

I've got a broken pin on the power connector of my Audigy I/O drive (Pin 2 -GND). I was planning to unsolder the broken pin and solder a new one in place. Now the question is do I need anything special to do this? Can I just unsolder the old (broken) pin, bend a paper clip, shape it and solder it as a replacement? Do I need some special space-age metal instead? I can't seem to find my digital camera so you don't get a picture (which no doubt would make things seem much clearer), but this would be the rough "diagram".


I/O Drive Power Connection

Pin 1: +5V
Pin 2: GND [broken]
Pin 3: GND
Pin 4: +12V

Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated!

My first suggestion would be to have it replaced as defective by the store/manufacturer. Second suggestion would be to buy a replacement and have done with it. Third would be to have an actual computer repair shop repair it if the replacement cost is prohibitive. But, since you're talking about soldering your power connector yourself I assume that's all been ruled out.

The ground doesn't much care what space age metal it's made of - it's just a ground, and it's grounding over a teeny little pin that isn't going to provide much resistance whether you use a paper clip or whatever. Still, if you're going to THIS much trouble to repair it yourself then I'd say solder on a whole new connector, don't muss about with trying to just do one pin.

 

[SubMensa]

First off, I'll throw in my agreement with D+1, and recommend getting a replacement if possible.

Barring that for whatever reason, I have a couple of ideas you can use at your own risk.

1: I wouldn't try using a paperclip, the metal is way too soft for this kind of thing, and you'll end up bending it, possibly shorting out another pin, causing electrical mayhem!

2: (the one I'd try) Just solder a bridge between the two grounds on the connecter.

3: It's one of two grounds that's broken, most likely this lead is redundant as ground is ground. Leave it be and see if the camera still works.

4: (and you probably don't want to do this) Hard wire everything together.

My recommendations are based off of the fact that with computer cabling redundant wires are shunted to ground for the fact that it cuts down on cross talk, and eliminated possible resonant feedback.

The two grounds are most definitely connected on the computer side, and should be connected together on the camera side.

Now this doesn't take into consideration that both grounds could be needed for power reasons. Resistance drops with increased cross sectional area. It could be that only one pin could have too high a resistance and cause heat issues in the connector, whereas two pins have a lowered cumulative resistance and higher heat dissipation ability.

Use this advice at your own risk, I aint buying you a new camera if the magic blue smoke comes out.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Heh, thanks for the replies.

To clarify:

The broken pin is on a front-panel unit for a Sound Blaster Audigy. The headphone jack wasn't working, so I pulled it out and discovered that ages ago I had broken one of the pins on the card itself. (I believe it's called a Molex connector?). The unit is not under warranty or defective, it's more of an ID10T error . Anyways, you can't buy the panel seperately, and I'm not wanting to buy a new soundcard just for that. If I can solder a new ground pin on there it would be the easiest (and least expensive) solution for me.

Not to worry though, I've done some research and it seems that I can get the proper pin from an electronic store, so I just have to pick it up and unsolder the old one and put the new one in. Should be simple! And if it blows up/starts on fire/stops the earth's rotation then no big deal, I'll live without the front panel unit. (Of course, if it does stop the earth's rotation that will be a bit of a problem, but I don't anticipate it happening )