Tips for reverse engineering and customization of a high speed PCB - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: Sleep Deprived Tommy
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 10, 2025, 01:48:48 pm
content: Hi there, I'm a guy interested in reverse engineering and being able to grasp the ideas of the professionals who design high speed PCBs where there are a lot of ways that it can get real ugly real fast. and up until now, i just tore apart non working stuff, scuffed the PCBs, delayered them and basically just looked at it and tried to figure commonly occurring design patterns and then throw the board out. this time however I've got a different idea, it might be stupid and pretentious at first sight but i finally had the courage to ask a community of guys who are interested in it and possibly thought of doing something similar before. (Skip to the * part if you don't care about me rambling about my laptop)I've got a Microsoft surface laptop go 2 for about 2 years (You already know where this is going). Moral of the story USB port stopped working for absolutely no reason and so did the webcam, i noticed it got very slow after not that long of basically doing nothing and just watching videos and scrolling through PDFs, i changed the thermal paste, it got a lot better, and mousepad started glitching out of nowhere, long story short I'm done with this thing but this is the only laptop I've got and I'm not willing to just throw it away and buy a new one*I'm going to have a whole summer break plus two extra weeks to dedicate to this project and since i will be waiting for my college decisions all that time, I literally have nothing better, more exciting and more amusing to do with my time and I'm willing to dedicate it all to this project.The idea i have in my mind flows exactly like this:take out the PCB>> desolder everything and measure their values >> take tons of high resolution picture of different parts of the PCB using a digital microscope and automate the process using a 3d printer as a x-y axis for photoshoots >> combine them into a single image along with relatively high accuracy reference scale (0.01mm) >> rinse and repeat for all layers >> evaluate the board design and take note of things to consider >> create the schematic >> route the PCB almost identical to the original one >> make any customizations that i may have in mind while considering the overall signal integrity principals >> run a few simulations on allegro to confirm the hypotheses about certain customizations, send it to a PCB manufacturer along with requesting for assembly of certain SMD components that would otherwise be impossible for me to do >> after the board arrives, reball the BGAs on the major components from the original laptop >> assemble, test and confirmthere are a lot of other things that i want to do like: messing with firmware and try to get a custom UEFI/BIOS setup GUI based on a open source project to work on it, design a case that will be fully milled out of aluminum, improved thermal solution, add a custom keyboard, ... .But i somehow feel like that beyond the scope of this topic and further requires its on discussions.I'm open to hearing any sort of recommendation, personal experience, professional perspective, ethics of this sort of things, and basically anything that can help me in any sort; this was my first post on this forum and I apologize in advance for any sort of inconvenience in the post and also inconsistency in my writing style and the clarity of communication, thanks for taking your time to go through this day dream of mine for a very very long time and thanks in advance for your contributions and views on this post.Sincerely, Tommy

author: Crsus
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2025, 03:59:27 am
content: Combine them into an image and a relatively high-precision reference scale (0.01mm). May I ask how to do this? Can you share your experience? I happen to be on a reverse circuit board in my hand.

author: Vovk_Z
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2025, 11:09:26 am
content: If you looked carefully and don't see any mechanical problem then 99 % its some semiconductor problem, like some large IC is going to die or unsoldered pins or etc. I mean if you make a new PCB you'll get the same (but probably worse).

author: MariuszD
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2025, 11:51:36 am
content: A lot of work. Very little to learn. Very small chances of success. You probably don't have the tools to diagnose why the system doesn't work if it doesn't work.Don't assume that you'll be lucky and it will work without additional effort. I know a person who did a full reverse engineering of a four-layer board. It took him three months. It wasn't a board with fast signals nor was it densely populated. He spent another two months searching for a bug; I know because I helped him to find it. Your board is presumably 100 times more complicated. Tell me again how many years you want to dedicate to this obsolete computer?

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2025, 11:22:07 pm
content: I don't understand why you'd spend time delaminating boards. Watch some basic laptop repair videos, google the problems for that model, see if anyone else has reported similar issues.I don't think schematics are public but plenty of schematics exist for other motherboards if you want to study them.https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/16vtrm0/surface_go_4_service_guide_not_as_repairable_as_i/https://github.com/microsoftdocs/devices-docs/blob/public/surface/surface-service-and-repair.md