Leak on chip

[KrisBendix]

Hi.
A guy asked me to have a look at his "Moultrie GAMESPY DIGITAL CAMERA M80". Battery "-" contac was heavily oxidized. Cleaned it up and now power gets to PCB just fine. But it still doesn't turn on.
Some of the white stuff was leaked on PCB near and around that Zoran chip. Or maybe some water leaked in.
Simple question - Could the thing be permanently dead?

[Nusa]

Yes, it could be.

You can try to clean it, but it looks like it's under the large chips, especially the Zoran one.

My guess is that it's more likely than not that those large chips need to be removed to save it. And then reinstalled after. Takes some skills.

[Twoflower]

Can you clean the board and retake the picture? In some places it's hard to see if that's a damage or not. Especially L29 (below the cables) look like not present. And the soldering of the pins between C72 and C76. Also have a closer look at the upper left pin of the Samsung chip, could be a broken trace.

If the white stuff is a so called underfill under the Zoran-Chip you might be lucky and there's no big damage done there. But it's hard to say and some damage seems to be done on the right side of the chip.

[KrisBendix]

TP10 at the corner of the chip had green oxide too. Will check C72/C76.

[wraper]

You would need to reball the BGA to fix it (if traces are not damaged). Even cleaning in ultrasonic bath won't help with this.

[KrisBendix]

[Twoflower]

That under the chip doesn't look like underfill. It looks like the stuff was nicely collected by the BGA. I don't think it's worth to try to fix this.   

I still wonder if the L29 was mounted and fell off or if this is only mounted for special options. With the via-stitching it used to hold some current. Probably the LED-light if not the whole cam. Is there anything rattling in the case which could be a well grilled coil? If there was a short (because of the nasty stuff in there) the over-current could blow this coil from the PCB.

[KrisBendix]

I don't have the tools to do something like that anyway. I wonder if it is worth suggesting to find a fix? Who knows how much that would cost him. 

[Nusa]

Ebay says its value in working order is under $100. So unless you know someone who's willing to do it for nearly free, I'd call it dead.

[Cyberdragon]

The only thing I can think of is to try soaking it in some nasty chemicals, like de-oxit or some other corrosion remover (like stuff used to clean car battery terminals). If it survives the chemicals it might work.

EDIT: And it has to be strong stuff too, since you can't scrub under the chip it will have to rely on chemical reaction alone to remove it all. If the solder mask comes off it's no big deal; if it fixes it just dunk it in some epoxy or other insulating material.

[abraxa]

If it's already dead, then why not go the cheap route and clean it with distilled water (the white crystals are acidic, so may be conducting due to air moisture), forcing the water underneath the BGA with a lightly pressurized water jet from syringe or similar.
Then let it dry and if residue persists, clean with some isopropyl alcohol (which is useful to have around in case you don't yet have it).

If it works, it was a cheap repair. If it doesn't, you can be confident you tried what was within your capabilities and didn't waste a lot of money.

[PA4TIM]

If the stuff is corrosive there can be more damage, f.i. to vias and innertraces if it is multilayer.  But you have nothing to loose.

[Cyberdragon]

If the stuff is corrosive there can be more damage, f.i. to vias and innertraces if it is multilayer.  But you have nothing to loose.

Yep, it will, which is why I suggested using strong rust removers, maily to remove shorts. If anything has rusted away it's ruined. (unless it's a surface track that can be fixed)