Quick Forth Question

At 08:43 AM 1/24/06 -0500, you wrote: Absolutely!!! Especially if the sockets are made of different material than the pins OR if they've been stored in anything less than bone-dry storage. The two different materials set up an electochemical reaction just like a battery and the more active material is actually consumed (same as a battery). Water (humity) and trace amounts of dirt, dust, etc forms the electrolyte. Scott Mueller's book Upgrading and Repairing PCs actually has a good description of this. Scott says to only use gold pins in gold sockets and tin plated pins in tin plated sockets. I don't think that's absolutely necessary as long as the system is kept in a DRY area and you only expect a few years of service out of it (ala modern PCs). If I really wanted maximum reliability and life then I would do as he suggest. OTOH if I wanted MAXIMUM reliabilty and life then I'd solder everything together but that would adversely affect the repairability of the system. This is one of the most compelling resons NOT to use IC sockets. I've never had this type Of course. What happens is that gold is very porous and the metal under the gold will be eaten away and leave the film of gold holding everything together. At least until you touch it or try to remove it from the socket and then everything falls apart. FWIW I've fixed irreplacable ICs by putting them in a wire wrap IC socket and then soldering the nubs of the leads to the socket and then plugging the socket and IC back into the circuit. You'll be soldering right up against the body of the IC so you have to be carefull not to over heat it. Clean the IC lgs/nubs and socket connectors good then use low temperature solder and a good tempature controlled soldering iron. I use wire wrap sockets with machined sockets because the legs are much stiffer then stamped out sockets and I can plug them into the original IC socket on the circuit board. Joe pins