(This test was lifted from a post on bimmer.org, author unknown, thank you whoever you are!)

A while back I posted a number of messages relating to taking apart and repairing the sword. Well the repair got sort of delayed as I went abroad for a couple weeks and then moved to southern california. Anyways, I FIXED IT!!! : Here is what I did. Those of you who are thinking of trading your old sword in to programa for a core refund may not want to do this as there is no absolute guarantee this will work and it requires being quite physical towards the sword. My method my not be the best way since I am not an engineer. The steps are in order of what I tried and I tested the sword out after every step. : 1. Check all the solder joints. I resoldered all the joints on the sword part (not the hilt). No dice : Since that didnt work I tore the big heat sink off. To do this first remove the little hex nut and the plastic casing around the hilt, then drill out the rivets. Finally get some thin, sturdy, pointy, piece of wire and poke at the insulating goo until you can free up the circuit board from the heat sink. If you work on it long enough you can seperate the two pieces. Now the circuit board is free and easily inspected. : 2. Replaced all four of the resistors on the sword. these are I believe 47k ohm resistors, but all you have to do is match the colors. This will costs you about 20 cents. No dice. However, when I hooked it up the blower would sometimes not stop blowing even with the dial in the off position. : 3. Replaced all four of the power transistors ($5 a pop). I could not find a cross reference for what was on the sword. It was a siemens BUZ71S3. Nobody had this in there reference books. I opted to use a replacment for the BUZ71. I ended up using a NTE66. I replaced the transistors one at a time and checked blower operation in between swaps. After the 2nd swap (2nd from the hilt) my blower was back to normal. I was thinking this might be a fluke as the sword occasionally operates normally for brief moments. However, after many tries all was normal. However, since the heat sink was not attached I didnt want to run the blower for long durations. : At this point I plan to remove all the riveted posts and replace them with screw types. I also want to put some thermal heat transfer compound between the power transistor and the heat sink. I'll do this tomorrow and let you know how it goes after a week of operation. I dont know if I will put that insulating goo around the transistors. : I dont know if this is how an engineer or electrician would do it but I just took my time and replaced the parts that people seem to think