MBP Processors REALLY Soldered?

[nikhsub1]

Well, I've had my logic board out before, not an issue for me. I have a SR MBP that had WAY too much thermal paste. Anyhow, now that Penryn is out and available for purchase (the CPU alone I mean), I've been doing searches on the CPU upgrade of the MBP's. Everything I have read thus far just says, "No you can't it is soldered in". OK, sounds to me like everyone is just repeating what they have heard. Anyone have PROOF of this? IIRC to solder all 775 points between the bottom of the CPU and the logic board would be impossible - there are no solder marks directly BELOW the CPU on the flip side of the motherboard. What I DID note however is that there is some clear GLUE on each edge of each chip, the NB, GPU and CPU. CPU is far right in picture BTW.

Again I am not looking for conjecture here, just anyone with any kind of verifiable information would be great. Here is the best picture I have to show the glue that I am talking about, perhaps this is all that is holding these in place? (Don't mind Apples horrific thermal paste application )

For a much larger version click below.

http://www.anonforums.com/builds/mbp/largebefore.jpg

 

[mrwizardno2]

The way they're soldered on the board is a little different than using a soldering iron. I'm pretty sure they float in a pool of solder with special paste applied to make it stick to the areas it's supposed to. I don't remember what the process is called, but I've seen a video of it.

My guess is they are indeed soldered in. I could imagine glue becoming weakened / unstable with the heat fluctuations and coming loose.

 

[MacDann]

OMG! Is that how they apply thermal paste? Who are they using to do this, chimps?

Now I can understand why people had so many problems with CPU cooling and thermal paste, if that is typical of how they apply it during manufacturing.

Yikes.

MacDann