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Please please please do not advise people to go and "give this a try." If you want to, fine, but for most people, this is not a good or easy thing. I could give you at least half a dozen names of "respected" members on this board who attempted to socket their own board and failed. It looks easy, but just wait until you get there - it's a whole different story. Everything is covered in conformal coating, so it's not just a matter of desoldering and pulling the eprom off unless you're planning on destroying the traces under the EPROM. The actual solder is tough to get off too ... I've desoldered a number of computer components including motherboards and various floppy/cd drives, but the solder on the ECU does not easily come off. It will come off if you heat it enough, but by that time, you risk melting traces, VERY nearby solder components and other parts of the board. I'm not saying it can't be done ... especially by someone who has done it before and/or is very good at soldering. But, for the average TT.net member who doesn't even own a soldering iron, it is NOT WISE to pick up a soldering/desoldering set at radio shack and give it a try. 90% will fail the first time and fry the board. Of course there's also the whole static problem which could fry the board, etc. On top of all that, the work of a professional will hold up to the test of time whereas a novace's work may come unsoldered, corrode as a result of failing to recoat in conformal spray or clean the soldering tip etc. For $50 including shipping, having a professional socket a board for you is more than worth it for all but about 10% of the people on here. If you're one of those 10%, great, but please don't give everyone the impression that it is in fact "easy" unless you have done a number of them. I have socketed 3 boards - they are not easy ... even the third time. Also, the chip is an EPROM ... not an EEPROM. A person can build an EPROM burner for about $23 from mail-order electronics parts, but few have the ability to read the schematics to put one together from parts like that. Additionally, the software to burn the things is hardly "user-friendly." Most of the freeware progs require heavy hex editing of the binary file etc. Now, if the chip were an EEPROM like you posted, you could easily program it using an average PCI network card, but that is not the case. The cheapest "commonly available" EPROM burner will run you between $100 and $150 which is another reason to invest a whole bunch less money and time and have someone do it for you. On top of that, people who are unfamiliar with the antiquated eprom chips used on the eariler boards may have trouble locating an acceptable replacement. Even if you find a replacement, most of the available ones aren't as fast as the OEM chip which could potentially cause ECU errors. Again, I'm all for saving money and "custom fabbing" whatever I can, but the ECU is an area where a little money invested will save people tons of headaches.
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