100% Working repair for Gateway XHD3000 30" LCD monitor

I followed the advice of rtangwai and I installed an additional fan to expel the air generated by the power supply and ensure proper air circulation.

I chose to use a silent 120mm fans Noctua placing it over the power supply :

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I drill the hole with the jigsaw, T118B blades and CRC Supercut.

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I supported the metal shield to the back cover and executed 4 dowel holes:

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I covered the back of the cover with adhesive tape and trace the outline of the larger fan of a few mm

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The fan will be fixed with anti-vibration silicone joints to reduce the noise:

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Here's what the supply bay:

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installation completed

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I temporarily connected the fans to an external power supply.

When I get time I will fulfill a PWM controller with ARDUINO and temperature sensors respectively connected to the power supply and the HARDCOPY chip .
 
I still think you would be better off getting rid of the TIM and going direct contact.

The ALTERA chip is in direct contact with the heat sink.
I reused the TIM only to counteract the pressure generated from the heat sink and also dissipate the heat generated from the opposite side of the PCB....

The power supply instead has a small cooling fin on the inside that combined with the cooling fan ensures optimum heat dissipation.
 
Have to remember that power supply mod - it would be useful for people who choose to put a heatsink on the RF shield over the scaler chip instead of cutting it away.
 
Personally think that the first step of cooling may be only a fan that sucks air from the top of the monitor directed outwards.
Without making any drastic changes, a single fan eject most of the heat generated.
 
Getting back to the deconstruct stages again for being away for a week or two. Any suggestions on getting those two black cords off the the altera board? One had a little pinch release switch that made it a piece of cake. The other, white, I can't seem to get off without applying enough force that I'm worried about breaking it.

Thanks.
 
Okay, so I am almost to the point of heating, but when I got to the final stages, I took the cage off but have the smaller circuit board attached still and I'm not sure how to get the cage off of it to get at the other side of the board like in the photos. Also, what are thermal pads?

Also, I think I'm going to try the heat gun method as my friend has one and is fairly fluent with it. Where in the post is the best information on how to do this if I can get that smaller cage off of the board?

Thanks guys. Just can't wait to play bioshock infinite for the first time after preordering if I can only get my monitor working again. :)
 
Okay, I went back to the pictures and they have that smaller cage removed before removing the brown cables very gently. I took the smaller cage off, but the circuit board came with it and I don't know how to detach them from each other to access the altera chip.

Thanks for any help.
 
Bad news everyone, my order for a replacement scaler board was cancelled by the company. It seems that it is impossible to get a NEW scaler board from anyone. So I am writing my beautiful monitor off.

Anyone who would like to buy an XHD3000, plus its speaker bar, minus its scaler board (well it includes the broken one) (also minus the beautiful aluminum VESA stand if the price is too low) reply to this posting (no direct messages, please, I want the community involved). Alternatively, if anyone has any better ideas about what to do with it or where to try to sell the 1600p panel, let me know. If you are trying to repair your monitor and need parts, be sure to note that because I will give people who need the parts preference over those who are trying to repurpose them or make money (in that order).

Thanks for all the help!
 
Why don't you buy a used one off eBay and use a better oven to bake it if necessary?
 
Try this guy, at least one [H] member has used him with good results:

http://www.theneighborhoodnerd.net/samsung-305t-xhd3000-video-repair/

It's a bit pricey (though cheaper than buying a new 30" monitor), so you might want to try fixing it yourself. It's a lot easier than it sounds and if you have a Samsung 305T/305T+ you can take a quick peek inside to see if you have bad caps that have to be replaced as well. How are you with a screwdriver and soldering iron?

Well I sent my monitor to those guys for repair and the green is gone but I have a random screen shaking again. Did something get overlooked? :mad: Thanks, David
 
I registered with this forum primarily to express my gratitude for the advice in this thread for self-repairing the Gateway XHD3000 30” monitor.

I’ve been one of the lucky ones with my XHD3000, running it for at least 15 hours every single day since I purchased it new in September 2008 for $1458. About a week ago, the screen image began jittering and tearing. There were no warning signs of impending malfunction, it just started in the middle of the day. Then it cleared up for a couple days, then began jittering all of the time. I quickly determined that it wasn’t video cabling or my PC’s graphics card.

I attempted to contact Gateway support, then learning that Acer acquired Gateway. Acer blocks all communication for Gateway products out of warranty, as well as their own products out of warranty. But you can pay for support, which I find insulting when I have a clearly malfunction product of the company and am willing to pay for product repair. This led me to assume that my Gateway monitor was effectively unrepairable, even if I was willing to pay for repair. This also indicated that Acer products may not be a good to purchase given its pay-for-support only policy. At any rate, I was ready to let my XHD3000 go to the recycler’s somewhat happy that I got a nearly 5 years hard labor from my unit.

While Googling for current 30” monitors, I decided to search for repair options. That’s when I ran across this thread. The proposed DIY repair was hard to believe that it could be that simple. But, I figured I had nothing to lose since it was clear there were no viable repair services that I could find. So I took out the logic board and baked it in the oven at 375 degrees for 8 minutes. That became the joke of the day in my house. Imagine repairing an expensive monitor in your home oven, something that should have never been required in the first place. I then reassembled the monitor enough to power it up. I was delighted to see the logo display with no jitter. I then installed a heat sink and fan to keep the Altera BGA chip as cool as possible. The monitor has been running fine for the last 2 days. I’ll post here again if the monitor fails again to indicate how much time I bought myself. Even if it fails in 30 days, I’ve bought enough time to study available 30” monitors on the market (I can’t live without a 30” monitor because I am a software developer, photographer and occasional gamer). What’s interesting in that the feature set of this XHD3000 is better in many ways than current market options in the 30” category, of which there are very few. So hopefully my XHD3000 has plenty of life left in it.

So thanks to revtech who started this thread way back in June of 2010 and for his/her generous gift of time and detailed instructions. Thank you revtech! And thanks to all who posted their own repair results in this thread. Also thanks to bammbammfran on YouTube who provided an excellent and detailed disassembly video of the XHD3000 which proved to be of immense help getting the monitor apart. The Internet sets us free from corporations who would leave us high and dry despite our loyalty to their products.

Thank you everyone!
 
I am with some of the other posters here - I resurrected (for now) my Samsung 305T with the baking method and am very grateful to have found this resource. Thank you everyone.

My pics are here for those interested:

http://imgur.com/a/XVfXl
 
I am still looking for some help from anyone who has successfully repaired their monitor. I have everything apart, but I can't get the last cage off of the board with the altera chip. I have the board loose from the monitor, but I can't actually see the chip with the last cage still attached to it. How do I get that last cage off to access the chip? Still waiting to play Bioshock Infinite that I preordered. :)

Thanks guys.
 
The large cage of the control board in the center must be lifted first, that will allow the smaller cage to be lifted once it's own screws are removed. Watch this YouTube video from bammbammfran http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eLrXHiqOnk Also watch his 2nd and 3rd video. Use extreme caution when lifting that smaller cage that you don't damage the ribbon cables, which must be disconnected before lifting the cage.
 
Found what I need at about 2:45 on video #2. He has to apply a little force to get the board out of the cage. I thought I had done that, but I guess I'll try wrenching on it a little harder to see if I can get it to get off of that heat pad.

I think I've been pretty gentle so far (apparently why I didn't get this last cage off?) but can I 'see' if I've done anything to those ribbon cables before putting it all back together to make sure it works? By damaged cables you mean they tear or bend wrong something you can see as a clear 'oops'?

Thanks as always.

Wish me luck separating the board without cracking it in half! :)
 
I'm going over to a friends house to try to heat gun and foil method tonight. Any advice on the oven method if the heat gun doesn't work or lasts only a few weeks?

Setting it on foil balls? (where, how many)
375?
8 minutes?

Anything else?

Hoping the heat gun does it for me.

Thanks guys.
 
It's not likley the heat gun will work. Go for the oven @ 375 for 8 mins. Best to not subject the board to any more repair attempts than neccessary, plus the removal, reinstall, removal. Mount on allum foil balls under each screw hole of the printed circuit board.
 
Hi guys - sorry to report that the 305t I purchased less than 6 months ago started acting up yesterday.

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This seems to be the dreaded chip problem. Is there any chance that this could be the power supply caps or something else? The thing that baffles me is that this monitor already had a heatsink + fan mod made and everything was working nice up until now. I don't know how good was the repair done though but I will know more once I get this baby open.

Looks like I will have to open the monster up, take out the board and do the oven trick. So preheat the oven to 200C and put the card in for 8 mins. Chip facing up or down ? Also why is this method more recommended than a heat-gun ? Not that I mind... as I have an oven and don't have a heat-gun, but I am just curios.

Thanks
 
"Also why is this method more recommended than a heat-gun?"

An oven is more even temp across the target part, temp is regulated, could well be higher temp than a heat gun could acheive, hands off with no chance of moving the board during treatment and lastly, the malfunctioing part could be other than what you think - the oven treatment is not chip specific. Keep in mind that any extra time we get from these failed products is a bonus - don't expect to restore to as-new condition, just be happy to buy some time.
 
Well in this particular case ... we don't even want an "AS-NEW" condition since it came with the heating/design flaw problem from the factory :))

So any advice on how to place the board in the oven ? I got the 4 foil balls thing - but would it make a difference with it facing up or down ? Also is 8 min @ 200c correct ?
The particular oven I will be doing this has the ability to go higher if needed. I know some guys say they went to 300+ with the heatguns on these things but for shorter time.
I will preheat the oven to 200c and place the board when it reaches that. Placing the board inside from the start would mean the board will not stay for 8 mins since it takes the oven 3-4 mins to achive that temp.
 
"we don't even want an "AS-NEW" condition"
Point being to not expect new working condition.

"but would it make a difference with it facing up or down"
DON'T bake upside down - components may fall off printed circuit board.

"I know some guys say they went to 300+"
Stick with what has worked for others. 375 degrees for 8 mins.

"oven 3-4 mins to achive that temp"
Preheat oven to 375, THEN place board in oven
 
Well in this particular case ... we don't even want an "AS-NEW" condition since it came with the heating/design flaw problem from the factory :))

So any advice on how to place the board in the oven ? I got the 4 foil balls thing - but would it make a difference with it facing up or down ? Also is 8 min @ 200c correct ?
The particular oven I will be doing this has the ability to go higher if needed. I know some guys say they went to 300+ with the heatguns on these things but for shorter time.
I will preheat the oven to 200c and place the board when it reaches that. Placing the board inside from the start would mean the board will not stay for 8 mins since it takes the oven 3-4 mins to achive that temp.

Hey buddy, I have a 305T myself I was experiencing flashing and odd distortion. Place about 6 foil balls under the board (altera chip on the top facing the sky) preheat your oven to 375F (190degC) and wait eegerly, when letting it cool down give it AMPLE time. last thing you want is to bump it when it's still really hot and screw up your board. Plus cooling it in a pan/tin won't work so well as the pan will still warm the bottom of it causing it to warp so MAKE SURE to let it cool for a long time i.e. when 8min is up open the oven door and leave it open to cool. I did this today and it worked AWESOME! I used a thermocouple to check my temperatures too so use something like that if you can as ovens are the most accurate machines when they get older.

Easy to muck this up if you try and get ahead of your self so take it nice and easy and you'll be right ;)
 
Ok so I postponed the "cooking" because the blue stripes were only visible when the monitor was cold for some reason. They only showed up for the first 30-40 sec and then they were gone so I thought I'd be best to wait and use it as is.
1 week pasted, and now they won't go away - no matter how long the monitor is on so I bite the bullet - open it up and pulled out the board. I've preheated the oven to 200C - put 6 balls of aluminum on a pan, got the board in and left it there for 9 minutes ( chip up ).
Also worth mentioning that the paste that was initially installed between the chip and heatsink was now very hard and a bit tricky to remove so I figured that must be one of the reason why the fix eventually failed. Also the other 2 smaller black chips that are situated under the main Altera chip had thermal pads on them. The other black chips had small heatsinks also so whoever did this the first time, did it good. I have cleaned off all chips from the hard paste - replaced everything with new paste. I have also added 2 thin striped of thermal pads on the 2 black chips under the main one to be of the same height as the Altera one so the heatsink would cool these also. Of course I have added thermal paste on both sides of the pads so everything should have been tidy.
As long as the monster was open, I also checked out the power supply board for blown caps. All caps are branded CapXon and they ALL looked in very good condition. I have also tried checking the bottom with a flashlight - and as much as I could see - all of them are in good condition. They are original and most likely nobody ever replaced anything in there because everything looks untouched.

After getting everything back together - I have also replaced the 80mm fan in the back with a brand new one which is a lot quiter now. However the 2 blue striped are still there. On the other hand, I used to hear a slight buzz every time I was looking at a folder full of photos in thumbnail mode - now that buzzing is gone so apparently SOME good was done.

Do you guys think maybe 200C for 9 mins wasn't enough? Should I repeat the operation at a slightly higher temp or longer time? Should I go out and find someone with a heatgun and try that instead ? There stripes look a bit different from what others have experienced when the chip board started to go mad. Is it possible that the chip isn't the issue ? What should I do now ?
 
I would say that your particular problem is not related to reflowing the soldier. It is quite possible that you have a malfunctioned part which cannot be repaired by reflowing. At this point, since the monitor is not of much use to you in it's condition, you could try reflowing again, but go into it with low expectations. You might also want to consider buying another 305T off an ebay seller for parts. Good luck.
 
According to an official Altera doc file found here : http://www.altera.com/literature/an/an353.pdf?GSA_pos=1&WT.oss_r=1&WT.oss=an353

"The lead-free alloy used for BGA solder balls has a melting point of 217°C. This alloy
requires a minimum reflow temperature of 235°C to ensure good wetting. The
maximum reflow temperature is in the 245°C to 260°C range, depending on the
package size. This narrows the process window for lead-free
soldering from 10°C to 20°C"

Doesn't this mean that 200C is way too low to make something work ? Should I bump up the temps a bit more on my next reflow attempt ? Maybe the oven is not even perfectly calibrated so it might even be lower than that. I don't have any choice but to try and re-do the procedure I guess. There's probably no way for me of finding someone else with another 305t and swapping on of the 3 main boards ( logic/input board, chipboard or supply board ) to see which could cause the problem.
I suppose this could not be caused by bad caps on the supply part as it doesn't "seem" to be a supply problem.
 
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So - after a second attempt at reflowing the board - it went completely dead. I tried 220C for 9 mins this time and seems that the board is now done.
I have a feeling though that the wide plug that connects the board with the input board ( the one that has 2 "clips" on the sides ) might have gone busted because the wire goes in harder than before so it might be that - I might take it to an electronic expert, the ones that repair cell phones around town to see if they might have an attempt at it.

What are my options for purchasing another board ( reflowed or new ) ? Ebay seems dry at this moment... what else is there ?
 
I've got a different problem than any of the 3 main issues, I bought one of these off craigslist for $140 knowing it was broken but the seller had a new board he had bought from ebay, he installed the board before I picked it up so I'm thinking my problem could be just him not putting it back correctly, but when I power it on and plug in my DVI cable to it the screen is 100% white i can hit the menu buttons but i don't see anything on the screen, I tried google but couldn't find this issue on this monitor others I've found said that it could be a chip not plugged in completely, or a cable not plugged in correctly, some even said they had to let their monitor warm up for a couple minutes and then try power cycling it 4-5 times. has anyone else had this problem or can anyone lead me in the right direction?
 
http://www.theneighborhoodnerd.net/syncmaster-305-gateway-xhd3000-repair-cooling-mod/

Found this guy pretty close to me, going to call tomorrow and see how much he charges since I can't get mine to show a picture. Great tutorial if you actually get yours up and running, solves all the problems. Applies pressure to the chip (heard that helps on this type of chip) while dissipating heat very well and keeping it nice and clean for the most part.
 
Following news... After the failed attempt with the oven, I decided to give it a last shot and found a guy in my town that does professional reballing. Now, a first condition of the guy to even attempt anything would be that the card should not be repaired or even tried to be repaired, but I convinced him to give it a go. He lifted the chip, and reballed it - the baby is back to life now. I honestly didn't expect much considering the "cooking" it took last night. I am absolutely amazed about this guy's work. He's very detailed and careful about his work. Also he mentioned that simply adding a thermal paste on the chip and just attaching a heatsink to the chip only to be held there by the thermal paste is not a very good idea. The heatsink NEEDS to be held tight against the chip in order to make the necessary thermal transport. Now he will try and figure out a way to make a system to keep that heatsink pressed tight on the board and I should have my baby back tomorrow.
He said he used a "regular" lead-solder and this will hold for a long time. I also have a 6 months warranty from the guy. By cooking these boards or even using a heatgun, we're just reusing the lead-free solder and these, by definition are not of a very good quality when it comes to sudden temperatures switches. Same thing happened to the 07-09 nVidia GPUs that were failing by thousands by the day.
If I wasn't relatively this far away I would help anybody interested to get their boards repaired by this guy as he seems to really know what he's doing.
I will keep you posted once I get the monster back these days and hopefully nothing crazy occurs in the next period but I reckon if cooking + adding a not to awesome cooling system keep these babies working for so long, I would imagine a complete re-ball with a better solder plus a more adequate cooling system would keep these running for a hella longer time.
Also - after a lot of successfully video card oven fixes in the past ( I had a Dell laptop with a separate video card * thank God * that I had to cook every 3-4 weeks ) I would suggest everyone not to attempt fixes on these boards as I could see on my own that 200C did nothing and 220C completely fried it. Best thing is to find someone that can do a reball for a decent price that would assure a lot better and way longer lasting results. I've learned my lesson.
 
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Following news... After the failed attempt with the oven, I decided to give it a last shot and found a guy in my town that does professional reballing. Now, a first condition of the guy to even attempt anything would be that the card should not be repaired or even tried to be repaired, but I convinced him to give it a go. He lifted the chip, and reballed it - the baby is back to life now. I honestly didn't expect much considering the "cooking" it took last night. I am absolutely amazed about this guy's work. He's very detailed and careful about his work. Also he mentioned that simply adding a thermal paste on the chip and just attaching a heatsink to the chip only to be held there by the thermal paste is not a very good idea. The heatsink NEEDS to be held tight against the chip in order to make the necessary thermal transport. Now he will try and figure out a way to make a system to keep that heatsink pressed tight on the board and I should have my baby back tomorrow.
He said he used a "regular" lead-solder and this will hold for a long time. I also have a 6 months warranty from the guy. By cooking these boards or even using a heatgun, we're just reusing the lead-free solder and these, by definition are not of a very good quality when it comes to sudden temperatures switches. Same thing happened to the 07-09 nVidia GPUs that were failing by thousands by the day.
If I wasn't relatively this far away I would help anybody interested to get their boards repaired by this guy as he seems to really know what he's doing.
I will keep you posted once I get the monster back these days and hopefully nothing crazy occurs in the next period but I reckon if cooking + adding a not to awesome cooling system keep these babies working for so long, I would imagine a complete re-ball with a better solder plus a more adequate cooling system would keep these running for a hella longer time.
Also - after a lot of successfully video card oven fixes in the past ( I had a Dell laptop with a separate video card * thank God * that I had to cook every 3-4 weeks ) I would suggest everyone not to attempt fixes on these boards as I could see on my own that 200C did nothing and 220C completely fried it. Best thing is to find someone that can do a reball for a decent price that would assure a lot better and way longer lasting results. I've learned my lesson.

Hey,
I bought a new card for mine, but I would like to get the old one re-balled as a spare. How much would he charge and how would we get in touch with him?
 
I would suggest everyone not to attempt fixes on these boards as I could see on my own that 200C did nothing and 220C completely fried it. Best thing is to find someone that can do a reball for a decent price that would assure a lot better and way longer lasting results. I've learned my lesson.

I agree! Now that WE can no longer find these boards, STOP PUTTING THEM IN THE FREAKING OVEN EVERYONE!

Get someone who knows what they are doing.

Instead of using TIM, I used a metal epoxy from Home Depot. Strong and I know the surfaces are completely bonded and will NEVER separate.
 
So I got the "monster" back and boy oh boy - life's great in 30" and 2560 x 1600 again :)
I simply can't believe what a huge difference this baby does compared to a shitty 19" Philips I borrowed from a neighbor these days. And it's not just the size and resolution - viewing photos on the small Philips was just something laughable ( I am a Photographer ). Everything looks nice and tidy - and the guy said he's confident that there will never be a de-soldering chip problem again. Hopefully everything else will also last a lot of time. As far as I have read - the caps in the power supply could go bad at one point but that's cheap and easy to get replaced so hopefully I can squeeze some decent years out of this baby as I don't think I will feel the urge to buy anything else as this has fantastic image quality even by 2013 standards.
Apparently he's been working on a huge amount of laptops and video cards with the famous nVidia issue which have pretty much the same problem as our Altera chip thing - the beginning use of lead-free ball solders in 2006/2007 as per International Heath Laws. He says the main problem with these things is not HEAT per say, but because of big temperature differences between on and off time of the monitor in our case, makes the shitty lead-free solder they used on these board and of course on the dreaded nVidia GPUs crack and so problems like this appear.
Seems that A LOT of electronics that were built in the 2006 - 2009 range and contain chips that operate at high-temps HAVE this issue - for example I had this issue on a Dell Precision Laptop which cost $3000+ , also there are TONS of Macbooks that use nVidia 8600GT and 9600GT GPUs that have this problem and the list goes on and on.
He sais our Altera chip is not something as powerful as a GPU unit, nor it gets as hot as these, and that's true because GPU units get close and sometimes beyond the 100C mark when in full-load WHEN cooled off with efficient heatsink + fan combo. Whereas the Altera chip gets that hot without any cooling. So he is VERY confident that the original cooling solution ( the pad + silver cage or whatever the original monitor had ) is more than enough to cool it effectively as long as a re-ball is used with good quality solder materials. Thing is I don't have the original metal cage thing, I already purchased the monitor with a video card flat heatsink + 80mm Fan mod, and so he was forced to use these again but said this is waaaaay too much and it's really not needed - but hey I keep my 80mm fan on full-blast. You get burned once, you become paranoid. This guy seemed to know what he is talking about and I have seen how crazy he is about his work so I kinda trust him.

The whole re-ball would go around 100 Euros - it's not that cheap - but considering the price of this monitor, and the fact that it offers 30" with 2560 x 1600 resolution along with absolute amazing colors and performance, I didn't think twice about forking this amount considering this SEEMS to be a permanent fix for the crazy ALTERA board. He doesn't seem like a forum/internet freak kinda guy so I could be the intermediate between whoever would be interested and him. It's not a big deal for me. Thing is, I live in Romania and so there would be some shipping costs involved and maybe I can work out a cheaper amount from him if a lot of people are interested, maybe 100 Euros including the return shipping anywhere in Europe cause its not that expensive. I guess all you US guys can just try and find someone locally that does this type of work.

First order of business - DO NOT attempt any more candle, lighter, fire torch, oven or even heat-gun repairs if the board start to act up. It seems that because of the extensive heat that these methods imply, the board can BEND - even if by a little bit and any future re-ball attempt would be close to impossible and would probably mean the death of the board. In order to make a successful repair - the board needs to be PERFECTLY FLAT. Crap thing is - these boards are not being produced anymore so they will be very hard to come by from now on. I was very lucky to get mine fixed... or I would have had to start looking under rocks. I really don't dis-respect the people here that find conventional repair methods and so a lot of people successfully "repaired" their monitor. I've been doing the oven trick for 1 year with the GeForce card in my Dell - I think I "cooked" it about 15 times - but each time the fix was temporary and was needed more and more often until after the last one, it simply refused to start completely so I had to replace it all-together. Maybe I was unlucky with the oven fix on this board but I would really think twice about blowing up a board that's very hard to come by these days. I wouldn't want to risk bricking a monitor that would cost A LOT to be replaced by something even remotely similar.

I will keep you guys informed if ANY problems occur from now on, hopefully I won't have anything bad to say until 2025 :p
 
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