Razer laptop motherboard repair video showcases superhuman hand-soldering skills — PCB damage appears to be the result of a misplaced screw hole on a motherboard that one repairer says has 'a fatal design flaw'

An electronics technician stars in a video showing an intricate repair of a Razer gaming laptop motherboard by hand. This is one of the most challenging PCB repair tasks we have seen come to a successful conclusion. The repair fixes damage that appears to be the result of the same underlying issue outlined by another repair tech, who asserts that Razer’s Blade 14 mobo has “a fatal design flaw.”

It is definitely worth spending two minutes and 48 seconds watching this, even if you watch it at 2x speed, but you then need to remember to pick up your jaw from the floor.

Being adept at electronics repair is an enviable skill. Moreover, as components are continuously miniaturized, such highly skilled work pushes the bounds of human-level ability. In the above video, we see an unnamed technician work on a severely damaged Razer laptop motherboard.

The video begins with a close-up of the laptop motherboard, showing a chunk of its structure around a screw hole that is obviously missing. We'll discuss the potential causes of this damage later...

As a first step, the technician uses a grinding pen and takes away material at an angle. This work provides improved access to the multiple conductive layers of the PCB, enabling them to be addressed separately during upcoming soldering repairs. Think of this task a little like how ancient rice farmers would terrace the side of a mountain to provide workable paddy fields.

Pausing the video, we can see the deft grinding pen work makes more than 10 PCB layers distinguishable. Once they are happy with the layer exposure, the technician moves to the intricate cleaning of circuit traces at the chosen level to prepare them for reconnecting using hair-thin enameled wiring.

The technician deftly solders the first target PCB layer with their iron and ultra-thin connecting wires. With the first of several layers now considered fixed, solder mask is applied to insulate and add structure where it is currently missing. This meticulous work was repeated across several layers, restoring the damaged PCB both electrically and structurally.

Finally, the job is complete: the laptop cooling assembly is reattached, and the machine is reassembled. As ‘proof’ of a successful job, the video ends with a brief clip of the purported same laptop running FurMark – the (in)famously punishing benchmark and PC stress test. At this stage, we see Simplified Chinese text in the Windows UI, hinting that this repair was done in China.

Is this Razer laptop design prone to cooler screw-induced damage?

This particular issue with the Razer Blade seems to be more common than it should be. There is a screw hole in the PCB near one of the cooling fans. Our research indicates that this particular hole is a little bit too close to a high-power voltage trace. Thus, maintenance, where this screw is removed/inserted, can cause electrical arcing and result in difficult-to-repair damage. This video covers what seems to be the same underlying issue, and asserts that Razer’s Blade 14 mobo has “a fatal design flaw.”

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