I know you can rip chips off a motherboard by heating up the ends on the backside of the board, but will all the heat required to do so damage the chip? Is there a safe way to remove a chip from a board without damage? Thanks.
Are you talking about Surface mounted chips or Thru-hole leaded chips? To remove Surface mount Ics of any size is quite tricky without proper tools - a hot air gun will do it eventually, just don't expect to use either the chip or the board again! Thru-hole parts are easier and just require patience and time with a soldering iron and either desoldering braid or a solder sucker. My real question would by WHY???? But i'm sure you have your reasons
if its an old pcb (ie one or two sides) you can remove chips use a temperature controlled iron, desolder braid and pump. If you want to use the chip again, make sure it is fixed to a really big heatsink. If it is a modern, multi-layer motherboard, sorry, but without an SMD desolder device you've no chance
removing surface mount chips are easy when they only have pins on two sides (not on all four sides) just heat up a big blob of solder on one side that covers all the pins on that side then place a razor or whatever under the chip and bend it up and away from the board. Then do the same on the other side. I've extracted many a chip that way and none of them were ever fried. As for chips with pins on all four sides - you'd probably want to use the blow torch method (heat up the back with a blow torch). I warn you though - it smells AWFUL if you burn the PCB. Definitely do it in a well ventilated area. Good luck!
I was removing some ISA connectors from an old motherboard yesterday, used a heat gun, worked well. Although the connectors were so hot I couldn't pick them up when they came off, so I doubt it's wise to use that method for chips. http://www.avrfreaks.com/Freaks/Articles/ColinSMD/intro.php Found that the other day, gives some good methods of removing and soldering SMD stuff, you have to register though.
