Caught a cold solder joint on a 12 year old router with my bare hands

Was reflowing a Netgear that kept dropping connection every 40 minutes or so. Thermal pad was cooked, no big deal. While I had the board out I ran a finger along the back of the Ethernet port pins just out of habit and one of them moved, like a loose tooth. Pulled out the loupe and yeah, classic cracked solder joint, probably from years of someone yanking the cable. Fixed that one pin with a bit of fresh flux and it's been rock solid for 3 days now. The reflow probably would have worked for a week but the real issue was that mechanical stress point the whole time. Anyone else ever find the actual problem by accident while chasing something else? I feel like half my bench time is just stumbling into the right answer after doing all the wrong stuff first.

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paulnguyen12d ago

Bet that cracked joint was the ground pin, those always go first.