The Solder Plague is a bit hard to define. Initially when lead-free solder started being used (around 2006), the same equipment was being used that used to use leaded solder. The only difference in production, in other words, was that the solder changed. Lead-free solder melts at a higher temperature than leaded, and, as such, must be treated differently. This caused countless devices to be affected by The Solder Plague. Heck, I’ve seen things as new as a Radeon HD 7850 fail from solder issues, so this proves that the solder plague, technically speaking, still isn’t over!
Here is a list of affected devices. Note that there are very likely to be more, and similar models to those listed are very likely to also be affected for the same reason. Keep in mind that not every single device of a certain model is doomed to fail (or has failed in the past), as sometimes, you get lucky. It’s been years since a lot of these computers were made, so if you have one of these that works, it may never fail from this issue.
Devices that have affected dGPUs (dedicated GPUs):
- HP Pavilion dv2000 (w/dGPU)/dv6000/dv9000
- Dell Inspiron 1×20
- Dell XPS M1x30
- Lenovo Y400?
Devices that have affected chipsets (aka ALL machines of said model are affected):
- HP Pavilion dv2000/dv6000/dv9000 (w/o dGPU)
- Dell Inspiron M5030
- Toshiba L50xD (maybe L55xD too), Toshiba L6xxD
- Acer Aspire 5551