How to learn to repair PC components?

Question

Electronics

Good afternoon.
I wanted to know what it takes to master the repair of PC components: motherboard, video card, power supply.
I used to work in a service center, but I was not involved in soldering. Now I work as a system administrator, there are many components that are out of order. Google on the problems of some gives a message similar to - check the north bridge, or remove the voltage from the "board section".
I would like to understand what to do in such situations.

I would be very grateful if they describe to me an approximate path on how to get from a beginner in microcircuitry to a level where, with minimal time and the necessary tool, identify the cause of the malfunction and eliminate it.
I'm not in a hurry, I have free time, I can start from the basics and gradually move on.

I looked at the toaster, they advise the book - Rudolf Svoren "Electronics. Step by step." But, if I understand correctly, these are the basics of circuitry and soldering, where to go next? How to learn to understand where the problem lies?

PS
I understand that I described at length, but I do not know how to convey the idea. I worked with software all the time and realized that reading books on programming, or on the principles of operation of the OS, are the foundations on which the processes in the brain of a computer are based, therefore, having this knowledge, you can guess how to solve a problem, or build an alternative solution, sometimes even without going online.
If you do not know these basics, then you will have to grab solutions from the Internet, apply them without understanding their meaning, and besides, these solutions may not work, because I did not take into account some nuances that I simply did not know about.

I would like to find similar basics in repairing components, so as not to surf the Internet on forums where they say - "solder 100 capacitors on the board, it might work", but to understand why they need to be resoldered and which ones.

Answer 1

Go to rom.by, there is the Repairman's ABC, and much more - and even just read topics on the forum.
And also remont-aud.net, and a bunch of other forums.
And it just won't work out that way - there is no ready-made recipe "to learn how to fix everything." You can start with power supplies - this is the basis. Understand what PWM is, how it works, different types of circuitry, PFC APFC, etc. At this stage, you already need to learn how to use the basic instruments - a multimeter, an oscilloscope, an esr-meter.
Next, take on something else, for example, monitors. Circuitry, which parts are responsible for what, how they interact. At any stage, it is imperative to know English at the level of reading documentation! repairing equipment at first without reading datasheets will not give progress in learning. Got a monitor - look at its service manual (if we find it), find a faulty section (usually they recommend replacing something there - like they found a faulty board, we change it), changing boards is not our way! We look at it and find out the marking of elements - microcircuits, transistors, etc. On it we find datasheets and study how it should work. Further work with the head and measurements.
Next - take, for example, PC motherboards (laptops - then!)
Everything can be easier there - the main thing is on rom.by. But you need more tools - a soldering station (hair dryer, or IR), a programmer, socket testers are required. And watch! Sometimes a close inspection is half the repair, you can often find knocked down components, broken tracks, swollen capacitors, bent contacts in the socket ...
For laptops - forum laptop1 (ascnb1.ru/forma1/), and others.
Video cards - IMHO, now they do not need to be repaired by beginners. For even stupid transistors cannot be changed, a 100W soldering iron does not have time to warm up the board, you also need lower heating at least. And the Chinese at every step slip a re-marked leftist - you buy a transistor for 80A, and at 10 it already releases smoke.
And it would be nice to have a person who can prompt and show something.
I got by without it. Now, on the contrary, I turned off the path of repair, with the equipment and the remnants of spare parts and parts, I don’t know what to do yet ... etc.)
That's how I left to work as a system administrator. And in general, he should not be worried that there are faulty pieces of iron lying around somewhere - this is the problem of the owner of the equipment and there may be an enikey worker who will be strained "do something about it." For small offices, most often the system administrator will work for two or three, and repair the hardware, and pull the network, and set up the server. It's interesting, of course, but boring. I'm tired here.

Answer 2

I used to work in a service center, but I was not involved in soldering.

What is it like?
Serious knowledge and experience are needed to repair complex equipment such as motherboards, video cards, etc. The pig does not give such knowledge, experience for sure. Also, diagnostics requires complex, expensive equipment. But even if you have all this, where are you going to take the components? Any "north", "south" bridges, memory, etc. are not sold at retail, the price will be commensurate with the cost of the board.
But the coolest thing is, why? Electronics of this class is made very reliable, if it does not fail within the first 3 months, it will work for years. So the MP is more likely to become obsolete than it will break.
It's better to go the other way. I am sure that in addition to old MPs and video cards, you have printers, scanners, etc. There is a lot of value in all this garbage: engines, guides, etc. From all this, if you wish and have free time, you can make a lot of useful (or useless, but cool ) gizmos. And just in this case, the book of Swarren will come in handy for you.