How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
To the OP, as someone in this hobby less than a year, I understand. If you need anything done with the boards, I would probably simply recommend sending them off for repair. I had my HS board repaired and it only cost me like $60. I had spent hours trying to do something I don't know much about and got really frustrated.
Take it slow. You can post specific issues here on the site (include photos if possible) and people WILL be able to help you. I have fixed a number of issues that one year ago I simply thought would be impossible for me to do.
That being said, there is still A LOT I don't understand and am gravitating toward newer machines which, hopefully, won't have as many issues. (Well, maybe...I'm looking at picking up a few older ones in the next week or so )
Good luck figuring your issues out. Oftentimes it seems like fixing one little thing can solve numerous issues.