Holy crap, it worked! Dead video card, resurrected!

And I thought I have seen it all...until now... lmao. Nice work, glad it is operational again. wow.justwow.
 
resurrected one GTX 660ti that I gave away to a friend couple of years ago.. it came to me two days ago and the way it told me the card died I thought.. hmm maybe it was overheating and he didn't noticed, well.. proceeded to bake that same day and by today it's still working strong with solid gaming performance for what he do... (LOTRO, LOL, HoTS, WoW, and Diablo 3).
 
Would this method work with a card that is artifacting? Or is it only for solder joints?
 
People are stupid. Doesn't invalidate the point that non-lead solder has drastically increased pcb failure rates due to solder joint issues.
 
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I've found that most of the time it isn't the solder, but possibly the interconnects of the flip chip modules because I've heated a few cards a few times well under the temp needed to melt the lead free solder and those cards would usually work again for a time.
 
I've found that most of the time it isn't the solder, but possibly the interconnects of the flip chip modules because I've heated a few cards a few times well under the temp needed to melt the lead free solder and those cards would usually work again for a time.
 
And varying between the lower temps and temps hot enough to melt the solder didn't change these results. Some of them would last a year, some would only last a month. Reballing the latter cards with lead based solder rarely did anything to change this which leads me to believe that it may be the interconnects within the chips. Repeated attempts gave a lesser working time frame, even with a reball added, so it doesnt add up that it is the solder joints themselves.
 
My mom's 10 year old Gateway laptop died. I opened it up, masked the surroundings around the chipset and integrated nv graphics with aluminum foil. Heated for 60 seconds with a heat gun.

Worked fine for about 6 months, now dead again despite improved airflow (created some conduits within the case).

For reference.
 
Yep. It's basically just a bandage solution and not a fix. If you're lucky and your hardware lasts a long time, that's great. Most will not see any lengthy workmanship from this, and if you were to take that laptop and do it again, the next time, it would probably work only for a month or two, then a week, ect.

If you do this, don't be disappointed if it breaks down again very quickly.

I understand that this is usually a "last resort" because hardware is out of warranty and there is no other economical solution to fix these, but keep in mind that in those cases where it does work, you're on borrowed time and use that time to plan for a replacement.

The best results from GPU repairs came from using a doner chip from a GPU that had other problems, blown VRM's, water damage, ect. Most reputable service techs will use doner chips in this fashion rather than try to reflow or even reball a chip.
 
My mom's 10 year old Gateway laptop died. I opened it up, masked the surroundings around the chipset and integrated nv graphics with aluminum foil. Heated for 60 seconds with a heat gun.

Worked fine for about 6 months, now dead again despite improved airflow (created some conduits within the case).

For reference.

So bake this shit again! I baked my 8800 GTX around 4 times, and still sold it to someone else later, and as far as I know it trucked along for them at least another 6 months. A lot of people are quick to say "temporary fix". Yes, it is a "bandage solution", but what's the alternative?! Throw it in the garbage? I think not!

As long as your device keeps working, keep baking it, till it bakes to death one day...
 
15 more years in the future and it will be necro'd by people who have gotten some weird form of cancer. :sick::ROFLMAO::p


Don't stand next to it while it's baking, open up all windows. Don't breathe next to it.

Besides, if you wont get cancer from this, you'll get it from something else. You are very likely to get cancer in the course of your life. You should be worried more about your cellphone, taking vitamins and supplements, watching TV, using a computer, living in a city, and eating... All these can give you cancer.
 
So bake this shit again! I baked my 8800 GTX around 4 times, and still sold it to someone else later, and as far as I know it trucked along for them at least another 6 months. A lot of people are quick to say "temporary fix". Yes, it is a "bandage solution", but what's the alternative?! Throw it in the garbage? I think not!

As long as your device keeps working, keep baking it, till it bakes to death one day...

I fear that the next fix will last less than the previous one. Was that the case with your 8800?
 
I fear that the next fix will last less than the previous one. Was that the case with your 8800?


No, it wasn't. It lasted at least as long and possibly much more. I cant site remember now. It was like 8 years ago or more.
 
No, it wasn't. It lasted at least as long and possibly much more. I cant site remember now. It was like 8 years ago or more.

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll try it again. Mom will have her youtube fix again ;)
 
The other caveat of this "bandage fix" is that a normally repairable item that was fixable is no longer, and the repeated heating degrades otherwise good components. And for one claim that reflowing it a 2nd time made it work longer than the first would be followed by 90 others that said that it didn't. There are people out there who will replace the GPU chip for a reasonable fee. These people are hard to find, but they are definately out there.

Did anybody actually learn anything when this shit went big during the 360 RRoD fiasco? First it was people saying that others were using improper heat, and then it was said that those people who were using a IR setup were the only ones that were properly fixing them, then it was about reballing, then to finally using donar chips. Every step of the learning process, there were always folks who wanted to flame others to promote their own flaky service as "a working solution" when in fact, it wasn't. The bad thing is that there were businesses opened that banked on these techniques, and told people that if we cant do it, then it was perminantly screwed to begin with. This shit has been a very shady area for years, and all the wonky services offered from people and their false claims didn't help anything either.

Then you got the people who read this shit and try it, and if it doesn't work, send it in for warranty or a reputable technician and have to get an answer that they are basically SOL because they melted all the caps on the board...

How many of you are actually using a proper way to read temps, and are using flux?
 
The other caveat of this "bandage fix" is that a normally repairable item that was fixable is no longer, and the repeated heating degrades otherwise good components. And for one claim that reflowing it a 2nd time made it work longer than the first would be followed by 90 others that said that it didn't. There are people out there who will replace the GPU chip for a reasonable fee. These people are hard to find, but they are definately out there.

Did anybody actually learn anything when this shit went big during the 360 RRoD fiasco? First it was people saying that others were using improper heat, and then it was said that those people who were using a IR setup were the only ones that were properly fixing them, then it was about reballing, then to finally using donar chips. Every step of the learning process, there were always folks who wanted to flame others to promote their own flaky service as "a working solution" when in fact, it wasn't. The bad thing is that there were businesses opened that banked on these techniques, and told people that if we cant do it, then it was perminantly screwed to begin with. This shit has been a very shady area for years, and all the wonky services offered from people and their false claims didn't help anything either.

Then you got the people who read this shit and try it, and if it doesn't work, send it in for warranty or a reputable technician and have to get an answer that they are basically SOL because they melted all the caps on the board...

How many of you are actually using a proper way to read temps, and are using flux?

Honestly, I just used my oven temp and trusted that the temp was close enough to do the job. I don't even remember how long or what temp I used at the time, cause we're going on like 5 or 6 years since I last did it. It worked for both my 8800 GTS, and my 7900 GS. They each lasted about 6 months before issues cropped back up, at which point I'd just bake em again and get around another 6 months out of em. I did that for about 2 years until I eventually replaced them. It's not supposed to be a proper fix, it's like fix-a-flat, when you have no other options it's what you go with. You can go and go and go on it, but in the end, we all know it's time for a new card. I'd only recommend it to people that don't have a shot at warranty service, cause at that point it's a paper weight anyways. Both my cards were from BFGTech, which went under right around the same time my cards went tits-up, leaving baking the only solution that didn't cost anything for cards that weren't worth the cost to have fixed properly at that point in their life.
 
I've done this for a number of cards, including an artifacting gtx 570 and a no-display 680. I just recently went through the process with one of two non-posting 780s that I still need to test.
 
My mom's youtube laptop died again recently, second time.

Opened it up today, disassembled the cooler, made a nice tin foil shroud with a square cut out for the GPU (6100go) and gave it a solid 90 seconds of the hot air gun on half power.

This time round I've removed the thermal sponge thing and just placed a shim made from tin foil, super glued to the radiator. And a dot of thermal grease.

Obviously it came back to life. But the good part is it doesn't heat up the keyboard area at all, I think the shim drives the heat away from the GPU effectively enough for the first time in this laptop's 12 year history. Today was a good day.
 
I told one of my co-workers about this method. She had a dead Kindle Fire tablet. I told her that you might be able to save it by baking it. A couple days went buy and she returned to me telling me that it didn't work. Then showed it to me. She didn't take it apart and baked the whole thing. It now looks like a piece of modern art. :D
 
Well, mom's youtube laptop died yet again after just one day. It didn't even get a chance to heat up much.
Shame because I've also spent a lot of time glueing some broken casing fragments, cleaned it, changed thermal goop to MX2, the works.
My MO has always been the same, with one GPU lasting as long as 5 years, so it's not the timing or heat level.
I don't think I'll be going for a third fix as the laptop is kind of a pita to disassemble. Much harder than a gaming MSI laptop with a 200W power brick which I'm repairing the power socket in currently.
Oh well.
 
I need to try this on a GTX 570. was there ever a consensus on whether baking vs heat gun was the preferred way to go?
 
I need to try this on a GTX 570. was there ever a consensus on whether baking vs heat gun was the preferred way to go?

the heat gun will be only necessary IF you know exactly where the "issue" really is, it depend on the kind of fault the card it's presenting doesn't boot? generally the GPU die, artifacting? generally vRAM.. that's why baking always result faster and better because everything will reflow, you don't have to make guesses and trial and error methods.

also you have to remember that with that GTX 570 (and all fermi cards) you have to delid before bake, nvidia in those cards have an integrated heat spreader (pretty much like CPUs) with a TIM inside that should be properly cleaned before bake.
 
I need to try this on a GTX 570. was there ever a consensus on whether baking vs heat gun was the preferred way to go?

Heat Gun (Death Ray!) requires no additional disassembly. You can mask the space around the component.
Faster. Less dangerous IMHO and it does work just as well.

This link: Diagnose video card problems by comparing with example corrupted screens

Can help you distinguish between the memory modules and the GPU itself that's causing the problem.

My father proposed an interesting trick to use with this method. We took some high proof spirit and dissolved a bit of rosin in it. Then, we filled a syringe with this and injected the solution underneath the element and made sure it travelled all the way around those little balls.
Then, while heating, the rosin helped to 'refresh the solder balls/pads.
 
Used to do this to PS3's with YLOD. Heatgun to the CELL processor for 30 seconds, put it back together with better TIM. Worked every time. Got another few months out of it!

Obviously not a permanent solution, but better than simply throwing it away...
 
Had this work on R9 280x that was artifacting, was excited to be able to crossfire it with its brother again. =)
 
so... The thermal pads pretty much all crumbled and fell off when I removed the heatsink. Will the card live long if it put it together without them?
 
so... The thermal pads pretty much all crumbled and fell off when I removed the heatsink. Will the card live long if it put it together without them?

you should order up new pad, or salvage some out of a burnt up audio amp or inverter or something
 
The ghetto but interesting method is super glueing a shim made of folded up tinfoil (secured so that it won't shred and cause a short). Drives heat away better than the pads and presses on the modules more.
 
you should order up new pad, or salvage some out of a burnt up audio amp or inverter or something

Yep do it the right way will always be our answer.;)

The ghetto but interesting method is super glueing a shim made of folded up tinfoil (secured so that it won't shred and cause a short). Drives heat away better than the pads and presses on the modules more.

Sounds like I should suck it up and run to Microcenter for some thermal pads then... I don't have any foil so that option would require a run to the store
 
Unreal! I can't believe I haven't heard of this or tried it before.

So here's what I want to try it on, and would like some advice on the 'right' way to do it. I have two g.skill ddr 1gb modules that a friend sent to me. Unfortunately, during shipment, someone two of the modules heatsinks knocked of a resistor from each module. :( I have the resistors, but they are too tiny for me to solder. So what about baking them back to life, and if so how?
 
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