AMD Geode/Video 1/Script

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This is a textual description of the video.

Introduction[edit | edit source]

My DOS Programming playlist on YouTube scrolls down the screen.

Voice: "I've been writing a DOS program for a while now"

The DOSBox-X home page scrolls down the screen.

Voice: "I've been using DOSBox but it would be nice to use real hardware"

A picture of an IBM PC XT taken by Ruben de Rijcke is shown on the screen with big green "IBM" text on it.

Voice: "Ideally I'd use a period accurate IBM PC"

Expensive eBay listings scrolls past. One is shown to cost $500 AUD.

Voice: "But these are really expensive"

An eBay listing titled "Vintage Advantech PCM-9375 REV. A1 SBC Single Board Computer - AMD Geode LX800" is shown. Its status is marked as "For parts or not working, sold as-is with no guarantees." It's listed as $50 AUD.

Voice: "Checking eBay I found an industrial single-board computer for $50"

The listing description is shown. It clarifies: "For sale here is an Advantech PCM-9375 REV. A1 single board computer. Previously, I was able to boot Windows 98SE from a Compact Flash card and everything worked fine. It currently refuses to output a video signal that any of my monitors can recognise, so it's being sold as-is for parts with no guarantees. For a full spec sheet, see Advantech's site."

Voice: "The very low is because the video output is broken. Without video output this computer is effectively useless."

A receipt showing payment for the board is shown. It cost $50 AUD with free shipping. It was paid on 7 November 2021 and delivered on 12 November 21.

Voice: "I decided to buy it anyway in hopes of fixing it."

A hand is shown placing the board on a table. It is an unprotected circuit board with its chips, connectors and pin headers exposed. One large heatsink covers the CPU and another smaller heatsink covers the companion chip.

Voice: "So here it is: The PCM-9375. It stars a Geode LX800 CPU and CS5536 companion chip."

A small stick of RAM is shown.

Voice: "512 megabytes of DDR1 RAM."

An empty CompactFlash connector is shown.

Voice: "CompactFlash for storage."

The side of the board is shown with four ports: A DB9 serial port, an Ethernet port, a PS/2 keyboard port and a VGA port.

Voice: "A serial port, an Ethernet port, a PS/2 port, VGA port"

A daughterboard connected to the main board is shown, with an Ethernet port on it as well as a mini USB connector. The board is unplugged already, and pliers are used to remove it entirely.

Voice: "As well as a mini USB port and a second Ethernet port. We're going to remove those for now while we troubleshoot."

Initial powering[edit | edit source]

A power supply with growing green LEDs flicker showing 0 volts and the word "off". Connected to it are two long bunched up wires that clip in to two pins on the board.

Voice: "The first thing I did was hook the board up to a current limited power supply."

A hand is shown turning the power supply on. The camera zooms closer and shows the text jumping on the display changing to 5 volts 1 amps. The amperage jumps between 0.9 amps and 1.1 amps.

Voice: "It pulled a stable load so it's not dead."

A small lapel microphone is shown next to the board's corner. A single short beep is heard.

Voice: "It made a beep! That's a good sign."

A hand is shown plugging a VGA cable in to the board.

Voice: "I connected a monitor to see what it would display."

A computer monitor is shown. Grey text appears in a box with the text "Input Not Supported" slowly moving diagonally down the screen.

Voice: "And... Input not supported."

An oscilloscope probe is shown being attached to the power wire clip followed by a rapid zoom in to an oscilloscope's view.

Voice: "So I checked the power rail with a scope."

The oscilloscope draws a flat line at 0 volts that suddenly jumps up to 5 volts and continues at 5 volts for 15 seconds.

Voice: "A major voltage drop could signal that the machine isn't booting properly. I don't see that here."

The oscilloscope draws a thin line from the bottom of the screen up to 5 volts then thickens it showing around 20 millivolts of noise.

Voice: "Likewise, no drop at all could mean the machine is dead. I don't see that here either."

The camera pans to the power supply displaying 5 volts and a steady around 1.065 amps.

Voice: "Everything looks fine power-wise."

RAM testing[edit | edit source]

A hand pulls out a stick of RAM and places another in.

Voice: "Bad memory can cause all kinds of issues so I tried another stick of RAM."

A different monitor is shown with the text "Input Not Support" appearing after a second of being blank.

Voice: "Same result. Input not support."

A hand is shown removing the RAM stick without placing another in.

Voice: "I removed the RAM to see if it was being used at all."

The video cuts to the microphone pointed at the buzzer again.

Voice: "The BIOS gave these beeps."

A set of long beeps can be heard.

The monitor is shown again with the text "No Signal" displayed.

The board is shown with a chip marked "V1.18" removed from its socket.

Voice: "I removed the BIOS chip to see if it would still beep. It didn't."

Battery testing[edit | edit source]

A screwdriver forcefully removing a coin battery is shown, making the battery jump across the board. A hand using pliers attempts to pick up the battery but it keeps slipping away.

Voice: "Next I looked at the clock battery."

A multimeter is shown with its probes touching the positive and negative sides of the battery. It displays the value 198 millivolts.

Voice: "My multimeter showed it was around 200 millivolts. Completely dead."

A close up of the battery being held by pliers is shown. The brand name RAYOVAC and the text "LITHIUM 3V BR1632 USA" is engraved on the chip.

Voice: "Perhaps a dead battery corrupted the BIOS settings somehow?"

The second monitor is shown again, this time with an orange plastic frog glowing on the desk near it. The monitor still says "Input Not Support".

Voice: "Running without the battery didn't help."

Keyboard testing[edit | edit source]

The board is shown powered in the background as a dusty and grimy keyboard comes in to frame and laid on the desk.

Voice: "I wanted to know if the machine was frozen or just waiting for me to do something. So I connected a keyboard to see what would happen."

A finger presses the caps lock key and the caps lock key light on the keyboard is shown to turn on and off.

Voice: "It handled toggling caps lock."

A finger rapidly presses the F1 key.

Voice: "It even made noises when I pressed keys."

The finger keeps pressing the F1 key but slower.

With each keypress heard a small beep can be heard in response from the computer.

Voice: "So it must be doing something."

A ginger female cat is shown on the desk with only one eye. She makes a high pitched meow and moves towards the camera.

Voice: "Surprise cat visit!"

The cat jumps up on to the window sill behind the desk and looks out the window curiously.

Voice: "This is my brother's ginger cat. While we appreciate the cat I'd like to talk about the sponsor of this video."

The cat peers out the window then jumps back down on to the desk to leave the room.

Voice: "Just kidding, I wanted to fill time in the voice-over to show off the cat. Back to troubleshooting."

Ethernet testing[edit | edit source]

A hand plugs an Ethernet cable in to the board. After a second or two a green light on the port lights up.

Voice: "I plugged in an Ethernet cable. Maybe if the machine was booting over the network I'd see some packets."

Wireshark is shown on a computer monitor. The only incoming packets come from fe80::250:b6ff:fe1d:d419.

A terminal is shown on the monitor. It lists the machine's IP address on enp2s0f0u4 as the IP from before.

Voice: "I did see packets but they were from my machine. Not very helpful."

Serial testing[edit | edit source]

A breadboard is shown with jumper wires connected to various ports on the DB9 serial port.

Voice: "I made a null modem cable on my breadboard out of jumper wires."

An oscilloscope probe goes in to one of the breadboard holes.

The oscilloscope screen shows a signal at 0 volts raising to 5 volts briefly then dropping down to -5 volts.

Voice: "Probing it showed the serial line was initialized, but it wasn't outputting anything."

Broken off jumper wire connectors are shown stuck attacked to the serial port. The wires they belong to are shown with their copper strands exposed at the end. Pliers come in to frame and pull them out.

Voice: "I lost a few jumper wires doing all this so... It wasn't worth it."

VGA probing[edit | edit source]

An oscilloscope probe is shown entering a hole on the VGA connector.

Voice: "At this point I figured it was time to check the VGA signals."

An oscilloscope screen shows a 0 volt signal with shorts jump between 6.80 volts and -2.56 volts.

Voice: "I started with vertical sync, this signal pulses every frame."

The camera zooms in to show the frequency of the signal is 60.00 hertz and the period is 16.67 milliseconds.

Voice: "Around 60 times a second."

The oscilloscope shows a a 5 volt square wave with cursors measuring the wave. The wave is around 5 volt, peaking at 5.57 volts on the leading edge and dropping down to some unknown voltage on the trailing edge. The time a pulse of the wave takes is 40 microseconds, or 24.75 kilohertz.

Voice: "Looking at a single pulse we can see that it's a 5 volt square wave lasting for around 40 microseconds."

The oscilloscope shows the leading edge of the square wave. It peaks at 6.64 volts and takes 228 nanoseconds to settle to 4.64 volts.

Voice: "The pulse seems to peak around 6.6 volts and takes around 230 nanoseconds to settle. This all look fine to me."

An oscilloscope probe is shown entering another hole on the VGA connector.

Voice: "Next is horizontal sync."

The oscilloscope shows a 0 volt signal with longer jumps between 6.64 volts and -2.40 volts. The camera zooms in to show frequency is 75.05 kilohertz and the period is 13.33 microseconds.

Voice: "This signal pulses every row of pixels. Around 75 kilohertz in our case."

The oscilloscope shows a 5 volt wide square wave with cursors measuring the wave. The wave peaks at 6.55 volts at the leading edge and -2.41 volts on the trailing edge. The time a pulse takes is 1.45 microseconds, or 692.0 kilohertz.

Voice: "Looking closer we can see the pulse is the same voltage as the vertical sync and it lasts around 1.45 microseconds."

The oscilloscope shows the leading edge of the square wave. It peaks at 6.60 volts and takes 197 nanoseconds to settle to 4.86 volts.

Voice: "The pulse takes 197 nanoseconds to settle high"

The oscilloscope shows the trailing edge of the square wave. It drops to -2.51 volts and takes 307 nanoseconds to settle to -51.20 millivolts.

Voice: "and 307 nanoseconds to settle low. This looks completely fine as well."

An oscilloscope probe is shown entering another hole on the VGA connector.

Voice: "Ok, red signal"

The oscilloscope shows a flat line with a max voltage of 280 millivolts and minimum of -360 millivolts.

Voice: "I don't actually see any signal"

The camera zooms to show a max voltage of 200 millivolts and minimum of -120 millivolts.

Voice: "It just stays around 200 millivolts."

An oscilloscope probe is shown entering another hole on the VGA connector.

Voice: "Okay, green"

The oscilloscope shows a flat line with a max voltage of 160 millivolts and minimum of -80 millivolts.

Voice: "Same thing but it's around 160 millivolts this time."

An oscilloscope probe is shown entering another hole on the VGA connector.

Voice: "What about blue?"

The oscilloscope shows a flat line with a max voltage of 280 millivolts and minimum of -160 millivolts.

Voice: "It's the same thing as red and green. These all should be much higher."

The underside of a PCB is shown with the VGA connector's solder joints visible.

Voice: "Just to be sure I wasn't missing something obvious I took a look at the VGA section of the board."

The top of the PCB is shown with a probe pointing at an area containing various tiny components next to the connector.

Voice: "I didn't see any visible issues at all."

SD card adapter[edit | edit source]

An IDE to SD card adapter is shown on the table, with an SD card inserted. Its circuit board is black and yellow and the main chip on the board has a "QC Passed" sticker that changes colour based on the angle.

Voice: "I did try to connect an IDE to SD card adapter so I could boot from it."

A single Molex to two Molex cable is shown with the power supply's wires attached to the single connector.

Voice: "I managed to power it using a Molex splitter."

One end of a green and blue IDE cable is shown next to the IDE port on the board. The IDE cable is slightly larger than the port on the board. A hand tries to plug it in without success.

Voice: "But the IDE connector on the board was too small to connect it."

Molex USB adapter[edit | edit source]

An eBay page showing a cable with a Molex end and a USB end is visible. The item is listed as "5V USB Power to 4Pin Molex(2Pin Wired) Cable 50cm". The price is listed as $8.59 AUD. The image has arrows pointing to the USB and Molex end, subtitled "USB Power 5V" and "Molex(2Pin wired) 5V" respectively.

Voice: "As an aside I bought a USB to Molex adapter for powering the board."

The adapter plugged in to the Molex splitter is shown. A screwdriver gestures at how when connected the 5 volts red wire of the adapter is connected to the 12 volts yellow wire of the splitter, instead of the 5V red wire on the splitter.

Voice: "But it connects the 5 volt USB pins to the 12 volt Molex rail."

A hand is shown holding the adapter and pushing one of the female metal contacts out of the adapter by sliding the screwdriver between the plastic of the adapter and the metal contact. The hand then pulls the contact out from the back of the connector.

Voice: "With some work this is fixable. Step one: Use a screwdriver to unlock the pins and pull them out through the back of the connector."

A hand holds the removed female contact and uses a screwdriver to bend back out the small locking hooks that were pushed in by the previous removal step.

Voice: "Step two: Bend the side locks on the pins back in to shape using a screwdriver."

A hand hold the end and the end of some pliers is being forced in to the female contact.

Voice: "Step three: Use the pliers to make the pins round again."

A hand is holding the adapter while a screwdriver pushes the contact back in to the adapter in a different hole.

Voice: "Step four: Push the pins in to the correct sockets."

The adapter is held front on showing the female contacts.

Voice: "Step five: Check that it looks good."

A hand plugs the adapter in to the single-board computer and the USB end in to a USB power supply. It has a screen showing the current voltage of the port which is 5 volts, but quickly switches to 1 amp when the board powers on.

Voice: "I connected the board to a USB power supply as a test. It seemed to boot fine to me."

A hand holds the adapter which is still plugged in to the supply. Pliers are inserted in to the pins on the adapter. The screen on the power supply is blank. Removing the pliers causes the screen to turn back on. The pliers are re-inserted which turns off the screen.

Voice: "Make sure to use a decent USB power supply, something that won't explode if you short circuit would be a good idea."

USB power meter[edit | edit source]

The power supply is shown upside down. A USB power meter is inserted with the adapter cable connected to it. The meter shows the voltage as 4.97 volts and amperage around 1.1 amps.

Voice: "Just for fun I plugged the board in to a USB power meter."

The meter shows a graph of the current consumption. The graph starts at 0.9 amps and fluctuates between 1 amp and 1.4 amps before settling down to 1 amp.

Voice: "It verified the system hangs around 1 amp with 1.5 amp peaks."

Reading manuals[edit | edit source]

A manual is shown titled "PCM-9375 3.5" SBC w/AMD LX800, VGA, LCD, LAN, USB2.0 and SSD User Manual"

Voice: "Without any obvious faults I decided to look at the user manual."

A page is shown mentioning section 2.1.5 TV "enable (J5)" with a table showing that you can enable or disable the TV setting with a jumper, but by default it is enabled.

Voice: "It mentions a TV enable jumper, but on my board that just stopped it booting."

A page with section 4.4.1 "Display type" is shown, explaining that the board can be configured as a CRT, flat panel, or both. Dual display is default. Changing the setting requires entering the BIOS or contacting Advantech's technical support center.

Voice: "The VGA section says I need to use the BIOS to configure the video output."

A page with default BIOS settings is shown, with the "Output Display" option defaulting to "CRT".

Voice: "The BIOS section says it's configured to use the VGA output by default."

A page with a table for connecting wires between a Sharp LQ121S1DG31 LCD and PCM-9375 board to get LCD output is shown.

Voice: "The LCD section just shows how to connect a particular display."

A manual is shown titled "AMD Geode LX Processors Data Book".

Voice: "Let's look at the Geode data book."

A page of the manual shows a complex block diagram explaining how the video processor module works, with arrows exiting the module and pointing to an 'output devices' block with the elements "VIP, TV Encoder, CRT DAC (3x8 bit), TFT Panel, AMD Geode Companion Device" listed in it.

Voice: "The VGA display seems to be driven by the video processor block."

Another page of the manual shows that YUV444 or RGB888 or RGB data is mixed and blended then send to the DAC then to the CRT.

Voice: "The video signal is output by an 8-bit digital to analog converter."

A page shows a table of signals and their types, including HSYNC, VSYNC, DVREF, DRSET, DAVdd, DAVss, RED, GREEN.

Voice: "The DAC needs a 1.235 volt voltage reference and a 1.21K ohm current setting resistor."

A page shows a download page of the file XO-1-Schematics.pdf with the description "Schematics for the C2 version of the XO-1 Laptop".

Voice: "I looked up other schematics online for boards that use the Geode. I found the OLPC XO-1 board."

A screenshot of schematics relating to the DVREF, DRSET and DAVdd and DAVss pins is displayed. In order to generate 1.235 volts a resistor divider is used based on the 3.3 volt rail, with various bypass capacitors smoothing out the 3.3 volt rail and feeding it to the DAV pins. The DRSET pin has a 1.21 kiloohm resistor connected between it and ground.

Voice: "Looking at the schematic I figure if anything's going to break it would be the voltage divider used for DVREF."

Finding DVREF[edit | edit source]

Various shots of multimeter probes touching ends of resistors on the board are shown.

Voice: "I looked for this divider on my board, which was difficult given it might be broken."

Tweezers pull back a sticker containing the MAC address of an Ethernet chip. Underneath is the Realtek logo that looks like a crab.

Voice: "I even checked the Realtek crab logo."

Some components near the board are shown, including resistors and a shunt. A multimeter probe touches the shunt.

Voice: "Eventually I didn't find the divider but I did find a 1.22 volt voltage reference."

A diagram showing how the components fit together is shown. DAVdd connects to the LM4041AIM3-1.2 voltage reference. From the 1.22 volt reference a 0.25 nanofarad capacitor and 10 kiloohm resistor in parallel run to DVREF. The 1.21 kiloohm resistor follows from the DVREF capacitor and resistor to the DRSET pin.

Voice: "I made this diagram of the general area for reference."

Probing BGA signals[edit | edit source]

A manual page is shown of the BGA pins under the Geode chip. Along the left outer edge is a series of pins: DAVdd, DAVdd, DVREF, DRSET, VAVdd, DOTREF.

Voice: "I noticed that most of the signals here are on the outside of the chip."

A mess of junk is shown on a desk. A lamps shines light on the board. The power supply runs cables to a molex splitter which run to the board. A contraption used to hold things has a circuit board of a webcam attached pointing at the board, with plastic to insulate the holder and a USB wire trailing away. A pair of tweezers pokes under the CPU on the board with one end and connects to an oscilloscope probe from the other end. The tweezers are held open by a plastic craft knife cap. The scope probe balances on a spool of magnet wire, with its ground wire connected to the Molex splitter too. All of this is cramped and barely holding together.

Voice: "So I set up a makeshift BGA probe on my desk and scoped the available signals."

A close up webcam shot of tweezers poking a ball under the chip is shown. An oscilloscope shows a line with a voltage around 3.36 volt DC, the RMS value being 3.28 volts.

Voice: "The first DAVdd ball hung around 3.3 volts which is correct."

The tweezers move to an adjacent ball under the chip. An oscilloscope shows a line with a voltage around 3.44 volts, the RMS value being 3.28 volts.

Voice: "The second DAVdd ball did about the same."

The tweezers move to the next ball. An oscilloscope shows a line with a voltage around 1.32 volts, the RMS value being 1.22 volts.

Voice: "The DVREF ball hung around 1.22 volts which is about right."

The tweezers move yet again. An oscilloscope shows a line with a voltage around 40 millivolts, the RMS value being 0 millivolts.

Voice: "The DRSET ball was around 40 millivolts which is a bit high."

The tweezers move again. An oscilloscope shows a line with a voltage around 3.36 volts, the RMS value being 3.32 volts.

Voice: "The VAVdd ball hung around 3.3 volts which is fine."

The tweezers move again. An oscilloscope shows a 48.08 megahertz sine wave peaking at 3.92 volts, the RMS varying being 2.40 volts and 1.92 volts.

Voice: "The DOTREF ball had a 3.3 volt 48 megahertz sine wave on it. It should be a square wave I think but this might be a scope artifact."

A somewhat close up shot of the board is shown with a focus on the area just inspected.

Voice: "Overall though everything seems fine."

Booting Linux[edit | edit source]

A CompactFlash card is held to the camera. On one side it says "Memory Card" with space to write the description, on the other side it says "CompactFlash Digital Memory Card 16 GB Memory Card". No branding is visible aside from "Copyright 2003 Memory Technology Company" is shown.

Voice: "My CompactFlash card finally arrived."

A DB9 cable is shown connected to the board with the text "NULL" scribbled on it in marker.

A screen shows the text "Loading bzImage... ok" and ''Loading initramfs-fc2+...ok"

Voice: "So with the help of a null modem cable I was able to boot Linux."

The screen starts to print a bunch of text, such as "Linux version 5.16.0-rc2+ (jookia@titan) (gcc (GCC) 11.1.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.36.1) #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Nov 29 17:34:47 AEDT 2021"

Voice: "Specifically, Alpine Linux with a custom built kernel with the Geode video driver enabled."

Another screen is black but then blinks on, with the text lines "Welcome to Alpine Linux 3.15", "Kernel 5.16.0-rc2+ on an i586 (/dev/tty1)" and "localhost login: " visible in the bottom left, with the first few letters of each line cut off.

Voice: "After a little white booting we get... VGA output?"

The camera cuts closer to show the bright white text.

Voice: "It's a wrongly positioned login prompt?"

A shot from later shows the text barely visible against the screen's backlight black colour. The text shimmers with analog interference of some kind.

Voice: "Thought after a few minutes it starts to fade."

A shot from even later shows a faint outline of the text despite the image being manipulated heavily to show the text.

Voice: "Eventually it fades enough to become invisible."

Probing VGA again[edit | edit source]

A scope probe touches a soldered pin under the VGA connector.

Voice: "I took a look at the red signal under an oscilloscope."

An oscilloscope shows a flat line with a voltage peak of 180 millivolts and RMS of 0 volts.

Voice: "It looked the same as before with no signal."

A hand zooms the oscilloscope to view things at the millivolt level, showing some signal that has noise and regular pulses.

Voice: "But zooming in shows there's something clearly there, it's just very very weak."

The scope shows the signal has a peak voltage of 15.60 millivolts and an RMS of 6.80 millivolts. The signal regularly jumps up and down. The scope zooms out to show a larger length of the signal revealing a square wave.

Voice: "The signal even looks like it's bouncing but changing the time scale shows it's actually a square wave."

The scope pauses on a snapshot of the square wave. The frequency is 51.58 hertz, with a peak of 15.20 millivolts.

Voice: "A 15 millivolt square wave that runs at 51.58 hertz. Wow."

Soldering disaster[edit | edit source]

A somewhat blurry webcam shot shows the section of the board near the VGA connector, with a small inductor covered in rosin flux.

Voice: "At this point I figured something in the video section of the board was pulling the signal low."

Tweezers hold the inductor and a comparably large shaky soldering iron enters the frame, heading for the inductor.

Voice: "So I decided to desolder parts of the circuit to see the signal directly."

The inductor is now half lifted off the board with tweezers not even holding it. The iron manages to bounces the inductor off on to a nearby transistor. The bottom pad of an inductor is lifted up in the process.

The camera cuts to the pad being completely gone and tweezers pushing a smaller capacitor while a hot air gun blasts it with air. Two of the capacitors are desoldered this way.

Voice: "I ripped a pad desoldering an inductor so I switched to desoldering the tiny capacitors instead."

Despite the hot air the third capacitor isn't coming off. Instead, tweezers remove an inductor with the help of the hot air.

Voice: "But I couldn't get the last capacitor desoldered. So I desoldered its inductor instead."

An oscilloscope probe touches the various pads that previously held the desoldered chips.

A screwdriver completely covers the area with rosin flux.

Voice: "Probing the unloaded signal showed the same result. So time to solder things back on."

Tweezers place an inductor and the soldering iron solders it in to place.

Voice: "Putting the last inductor back was fairly easy."

The tweezers place a capacitor and the large iron attempts to solder it in place, with this process repeating multiple times with no success. The area gets increasingly dark from burning the flux.

Voice: "But the capacitors were a different story. I spent too much time trying to get these back in to place. Using a webcam as a microscope and a giant soldering tip didn't exactly help. It's also worth noting this was my first experience microsoldering. I was not prepared at all."

The soldering iron heats up and pushes away the third capacitor.

Voice: "I gave up putting the capacitors back and tried to remove the last capacitor."

The iron attempts to solder somewhat thick magnet wire to the spot the capacitor was in, with lots and lots of fumes escaping. This is repeated multiple times with some success.

Voice: "Then I started running magnet wire directly to the inductors. This didn't go too well, mainly because I couldn't position the tip correctly."

Wire cutters cut the end off the soldered wire revealing a small lump of wire and solder.

Voice: "I did manage to get it soldered though and cut to some reasonable length."

The soldering iron melts the lump and the wire disappears. A burned looking sticky liquid is present over the work area.

Voice: "But soldering the other end just desoldered the wire. At this point I just had burned flux all over the board."

A liquid is sprayed over the section of the board and a cotton wool tip is shown cleaning the area with the board looking nice again.

Voice: "I managed to clean all this up using some isopropyl alcohol and cotton wool tips."

The soldering iron attaches magnet wire to an inductor. Tweezers hold it in place while the wire is run to where a capacitor was. Wire cutters cut the wire.

Voice: "I kept trying to solder the wire but I just didn't have any luck."

A shaky soldering iron attempts to solder the wire to the capacitor pads, but manages to desolder and remove the wire altogether.

Voice: "This is probably because the wire I was using was too big and stiff. Something like wire from a flyback transformer would probably work better."

The surface is once again stained with burned flux. Tweezers attempt to move the first desoldered inductor back in to place. The soldering iron manages to pick up the inductor on its tip and take it away from the board.

Voice: "Eventually I gave up on the wire and just decided to put the first inductor back."

The soldering iron once again tries to solder the capacitor but manages to rip away the pad it was soldering to.

Voice: "This ended up with me ripping the only other pad I had left." followed by groaning noises.

A cleaned board is shown with no soldered equipment visible.

Voice: "I decided it was better to quit while I was ahead."

Outro[edit | edit source]

A title card is shown on the screen: "That's all for now! At least I didn't make things functionally worse..." The word 'functionally' is made smaller to clarify that things are worse, but functionally the same.

Voice: "And that's all for now! At least I didn't make things functionally worse."

A title card is shown: "See the video description for details left out of this video"

Voice: "See the video description for details left out of the video."

A title card is shown: "Ideas? Leave a comment. No ideas? Leave a comment anyway"

Voice: "If you have any ideas on what to do next please post them in the comments"

A title card is shown: "Thanks for watching! Stick around for the follow-up video when I make it"

Voice: "Thanks for watching and stick around for the follow-up video. Bye!"