Yeah, cold solder joints is a problem with newer electronics. I know a guy that purchases Costco returns from a company that has an agreement with Costco, he only buys the electronics that fail and do not work. He says that about 15% of them have cold solder joints, and that your exact trick works on the motherboards. Great tip by the way for other people to try in re purposing electronics that are not working.
I think though, that rbrooks715 was referring to corrosion or decomposition, not cold solder joins which are not caused by corrosion but instead came from the manufacturer that way, or were caused when plugging into sockets too hard and breaking the soldered connection, or it might also be possible that some components heated up hot enough to cause the solder to melt away from the contacts, but I don't think heating it up again would have fixed that problem, but make it worse instead.
Anyway, thanks for the tip, great point, I hope other people post about the method it seems like it would have merit and value.
Scott
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