If you have nothing to lose...BAKE YOUR CARD

2009-06-02 22:01:48

#1

Stubbee: Religions Hate Facts, Questions and Doubts; +223|7006|Reality

i want to give antipesto93 from ocforums.com the credit for this, he is the one that gave me the idea!

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=606658

my 8800gtx died a little over 3 months ago. went ahead and ordered a new video card because i figured the card is completely dead without having to pay to send it in and get it repaired because i didnt register it when i bought it initially(dumb, i know...). anyway, i am posting this message running off my 8800gtx!

i got the idea from another forum, because some guy in the UK bought a dead 8800gtx off of ebay that had red vertical lines through the screen...my card had the same symptoms...one day it locked up on me, rebooted, then locked up on me even quicker...rebooted, red lines all over the screen and windows wouldnt even boot. i tried the card in a friends computer with the same result...

sooooooo, i removed all bits from the card including the i/o shield and placed it gpu side down with the card raised up on 3 sides by tiny balls of aluminum foil and placed it on a very thin cookie sheet. i preheated the oven to 385f, put the card in and waited around 8-10 minutes. i carefully removed the cookie sheet and placed it on top of the oven to cool down naturally. waited about an hour and voila!

supposedly this is similar to a trick used to fix dead xbox 360s. some sort of electrical connection gets frail and it eventually fails because of some tiny micro-fractures in solder joints or something....anyway heating the components up helps melt the solder and form new joints.

im now torn as to whether i should sell this card for cheap to someone or keep it as a backup...

SOURCE

The US economy is a giant Ponzi scheme. And 'to big to fail' is code speak for 'niahnahniahniahnah 99 percenters'

2009-06-02 22:19:59

#2

Catbox: forgiveness; +505|6979

i just microwaved my 8800gtx and the microwave is smoking...lol j/k
thats cool that it worked out for you...

Last edited by [TUF]Catbox (2009-06-02 22:20:53)

Love is the answer

2009-06-03 00:11:36

#3

Freezer7Pro: I don't come here a lot anymore.; +1,447|6460|Winland

No, that's a VERY dangerous thing to do. Silicon can take bad damage at around 150°C, so sticking it in a 200° oven might not be the brightest idea. Sure, the technique can work to redo a bad joint or two, but the risk of finishing the card off even more is overwhelming. Not to mention all the capacitors, cables and plastic bits on the card that might start taking damage even lower down.

The idea of any hi-fi system is to reproduce the source material as faithfully as possible, and to deliberately add distortion to everything you hear (due to amplifier deficiencies) because it sounds 'nice' is simply not high fidelity. If that is what you want to hear then there is no problem with that, but by adding so much additional material (by way of harmonics and intermodulation) you have a tailored sound system, not a hi-fi. - Rod Elliot, ESP

2009-06-03 00:13:20

#4

FatherTed: xD; +3,936|6763|so randum

but if you've got a replacement already, sure is worth a shot.

It does work on the 360 apparently, and that's basically a very shit PC

Small hourglass island
Always raining and foggy
Use an umbrella

2009-06-03 03:07:36

#5

GC_PaNzerFIN: Work and study @ Technical Uni; +528|6677|Finland

WTF.

NUTS.

Don't do that. Just put the card in freezer for night if you want to try MacGyver.

edit: if there is enough temperature to melt the soldering, what do you think happens inside the silicon

Last edited by GC_PaNzerFIN (2009-06-03 03:09:27)

3930K | H100i | RIVF | 16GB DDR3 | GTX 480 | AX750 | 800D | 512GB SSD | 3TB HDD | Xonar DX | W8

2009-06-03 03:18:36

#6

Brasso: member; +1,549|6893

lol, that's my haunt. i just decided not to post it here because of the reactions by both freezer and panz.

from what i've been reading on there, the success rate is very high, with a few cards that are still broken. others magically work like new. if you're SOL and have no warranty anyway, what do you have to lose? just go for it.

and ted's right, a similar technique works on the 360. overheating it (2 rings) for 2 minutes, applying more pressure to the die, and letting it cool down has fixed >10 xboxes perfectly so far for friend and i. if you want to be slightly more cautious, just use a heat gun or a hair dryer.

"people in ny have a general idea of how to drive. one of the pedals goes forward the other one prevents you from dying"

2009-06-03 03:24:00

#7

GC_PaNzerFIN: Work and study @ Technical Uni; +528|6677|Finland

This has pretty slim chance of working.

Anything following can be broken irreverrsibly:

GPU
Memory
PWM component
PCB

It would have to be exatcly GPU soldering joint problem for this to even have slight possibility to work.

3930K | H100i | RIVF | 16GB DDR3 | GTX 480 | AX750 | 800D | 512GB SSD | 3TB HDD | Xonar DX | W8

2009-06-03 03:50:58

#8

Finray: Hup! Dos, Tres, Cuatro; +2,629|6051|Catherine Black

"If you have nothing to lose"

2009-06-03 04:41:28

#9

FatherTed: xD; +3,936|6763|so randum

i really don't see why the chance is so slim, it really does work on the xbox, and as far as im aware that uses PC components too...

ofc you'd never try it as your main option, but;

Finray wrote:
"If you have nothing to lose"

Small hourglass island
Always raining and foggy
Use an umbrella

2009-06-03 06:41:04

#10

GC_PaNzerFIN: Work and study @ Technical Uni; +528|6677|Finland

If the soldering job is terrible in XBOXes, of course it has higher chance of being the problem. But soldering job of the GPU is not the single issue with graphics cards.

3930K | H100i | RIVF | 16GB DDR3 | GTX 480 | AX750 | 800D | 512GB SSD | 3TB HDD | Xonar DX | W8

2009-06-03 06:53:52

#11

max: Vela Incident; +1,652|6830|NYC / Hamburg

I thought about posting this but was afraid that Finny would bake his PC to get it to OC better or something.

_{once upon a midnight dreary, while i pron surfed, weak and weary, over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot xxx galore'. While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour, " 'Tis not possible!", i muttered, " give me back my free hardcore!"..... quoth the server, 404.}

2009-06-03 06:55:23

#12

Bertster7: Confused Pothead; +1,101|6844|SE London

This is one of the most foolish things I've ever heard.

The only thing it'll potentially fix is solder joints (which are exceedingly unlikely to be the cause of any problem). Why not use a soldering iron and not have a ~90% chance of destroying the ICs?

Anyone choosing to do this is so retarded they shouldn't be allowed out on their own.

2009-06-03 07:49:04

#13

Brasso: member; +1,549|6893

i'm still laughing. you all keep saying it is stupid and won't work, but it has on probably 90% of the already dead cards on [H]...

"people in ny have a general idea of how to drive. one of the pedals goes forward the other one prevents you from dying"

2009-06-03 08:22:02

#14

Finray: Hup! Dos, Tres, Cuatro; +2,629|6051|Catherine Black

max wrote:
I thought about posting this but was afraid that Finny would bake his PC to get it to OC better or something.

lololstfu

2009-06-03 09:28:36

#15

GC_PaNzerFIN: Work and study @ Technical Uni; +528|6677|Finland

haffeysucks wrote:
i'm still laughing. you all keep saying it is stupid and won't work, but it has on probably 90% of the already dead cards on [H]...

90% of dead G80s?

Do you realize what you are saying. That would mean 90% of card failures are soldering faulty which is ridiculous assumption.

Ppl seem to think this is some kind of miracle cure to revive all dead G80s...

I have had 2 faulty G80s, one had faulty PWM, not fixable. Other had faulty memory, not fixable. Usually when GPU core starts acting up, its because of silicon fault, and baking such a chip does absolutely nothing.

edit: This also seems too desolder all other components including ram chips. now if even one of them moves a tiny bit, the card is dead for good. Same goes for many other components of the card.

edit2: Just read the whole [H] thread. Was expecting to see that 90% success and 16 pages of win, instead found average of one or 2 success/ page opposed to rest of them being fail/just talking about trying it. Many of the successes were not G80, rather some other electronics or gfx cards. Many fucked up the card totally doing this. Much talk....

Last edited by GC_PaNzerFIN (2009-06-03 09:48:41)

3930K | H100i | RIVF | 16GB DDR3 | GTX 480 | AX750 | 800D | 512GB SSD | 3TB HDD | Xonar DX | W8

2009-06-03 10:36:52

#16

Drykill: I Like Waffles.; +47|6955|England

My mates PS3 died and could be fixed with the heat gun trick however he doesn't have a heat gun so he stripped it down and stuck it in the oven. It did work and he was able to use it but it would crash in some games. Got a replacement from Sony a few days later hence the suicide oven attempt.

2009-06-03 11:40:07

#17

Brasso: member; +1,549|6893

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:
haffeysucks wrote:
i'm still laughing. you all keep saying it is stupid and won't work, but it has on probably 90% of the already dead cards on [H]...
90% of dead G80s?

Do you realize what you are saying. That would mean 90% of card failures are soldering faulty which is ridiculous assumption.

Ppl seem to think this is some kind of miracle cure to revive all dead G80s...

I have had 2 faulty G80s, one had faulty PWM, not fixable. Other had faulty memory, not fixable. Usually when GPU core starts acting up, its because of silicon fault, and baking such a chip does absolutely nothing.

edit: This also seems too desolder all other components including ram chips. now if even one of them moves a tiny bit, the card is dead for good. Same goes for many other components of the card.

edit2: Just read the whole [H] thread. Was expecting to see that 90% success and 16 pages of win, instead found average of one or 2 success/ page opposed to rest of them being fail/just talking about trying it. Many of the successes were not G80, rather some other electronics or gfx cards. Many fucked up the card totally doing this. Much talk....

i didn't say anything about the G80s...just older "broken" cards in general. i saw a bunch of 6 and 7 series cards in particular that had been miraculously fixed. as for the rest of the components, i think someone in the [H] thread had been talking about the actual temperature needed to get that solder to reflow. it was in the 200s. 385F was probably overkill, and he's lucky the rest of his card didn't break in the process, but a 200-something F degree bake shouldn't be too bad. another person had covered all but the die(s) with aluminum foil so that they would experience less radiant heat as well.

and about the 90% win, that's a success rate on the people that actually tried it, as opposed to talking about it...you can't count the people talking about it as a failure for the method because they didn't even try it.

Last edited by haffeysucks (2009-06-03 11:41:19)

"people in ny have a general idea of how to drive. one of the pedals goes forward the other one prevents you from dying"

2009-06-03 11:46:35

#18

GC_PaNzerFIN: Work and study @ Technical Uni; +528|6677|Finland

haffeysucks wrote:
and about the 90% win, that's a success rate on the people that actually tried it, as opposed to talking about it...you can't count the people talking about it as a failure for the method because they didn't even try it.

I count falling off components, making issue worse, onlyy partially fixing the problem and work for couple hours as failure.

edit: and the problem is very case specific: over 80% of gfx card failures are caused by something else than soldering failure.

Last edited by GC_PaNzerFIN (2009-06-03 11:48:53)

3930K | H100i | RIVF | 16GB DDR3 | GTX 480 | AX750 | 800D | 512GB SSD | 3TB HDD | Xonar DX | W8

2009-06-03 12:00:10

#19

GC_PaNzerFIN: Work and study @ Technical Uni; +528|6677|Finland

haffeysucks wrote:
i think someone in the [H] thread had been talking about the actual temperature needed to get that solder to reflow. it was in the 200s. 385F was probably overkill, and he's lucky the rest of his card didn't break in the process, but a 200-something F degree bake shouldn't be too bad.

200F-300F is 93.333-148.888c degrees. I don't think soldering reflows in that temperature.

3930K | H100i | RIVF | 16GB DDR3 | GTX 480 | AX750 | 800D | 512GB SSD | 3TB HDD | Xonar DX | W8

2009-06-03 12:14:41

#20

Brasso: member; +1,549|6893

i know shit all about solder so i just took a guess. currently waiting on a response from a guy about a 6800GT and 7800GT. $14 for both shipped. not much to lose there so i'll tell you how it goes...

"people in ny have a general idea of how to drive. one of the pedals goes forward the other one prevents you from dying"

2009-06-03 12:18:02

#21

GC_PaNzerFIN: Work and study @ Technical Uni; +528|6677|Finland

haffeysucks wrote:
i know shit all about solder so i just took a guess. currently waiting on a response from a guy about a 6800GT and 7800GT. $14 for both shipped. not much to lose there so i'll tell you how it goes...

ask him what the artifacts are like. If they are vertical/horizontal single colour lines, there might be hope. But if the whole screen is mosaic/fulll of box artifacts/multicoloured lines; its likely dead end.

3930K | H100i | RIVF | 16GB DDR3 | GTX 480 | AX750 | 800D | 512GB SSD | 3TB HDD | Xonar DX | W8

2009-06-03 12:19:54

#22

Brasso: member; +1,549|6893

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:
haffeysucks wrote:
i know shit all about solder so i just took a guess. currently waiting on a response from a guy about a 6800GT and 7800GT. $14 for both shipped. not much to lose there so i'll tell you how it goes...
ask him what the artifacts are like. If they are vertical/horizontal single colour lines, there might be hope. But if the whole screen is mosaic/fulll of box artifacts/multicoloured lines; its likely dead end.

i'll just take a stab at it anyway

the 6800GT artifacts and crashes, and the 7800GT just doesn't display last time I checked.

"people in ny have a general idea of how to drive. one of the pedals goes forward the other one prevents you from dying"

2009-06-03 13:03:45

#23

Defiance: Member; +438|6934

And he spoke, upon the second coming, even simple things will perform miracles.

2009-06-04 03:57:43

#24

Bertster7: Confused Pothead; +1,101|6844|SE London

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:
haffeysucks wrote:
i know shit all about solder so i just took a guess. currently waiting on a response from a guy about a 6800GT and 7800GT. $14 for both shipped. not much to lose there so i'll tell you how it goes...
ask him what the artifacts are like. If they are vertical/horizontal single colour lines, there might be hope. But if the whole screen is mosaic/fulll of box artifacts/multicoloured lines; its likely dead end.

That wouldn't tell you anything.

Those sort of artifacts could be caused by bad bumps on the VRAM chips (or GPU for that matter). Nvidia are renowned for having shedloads of bump problems (because they often like using high lead bumps not eutectic ones) so the idea that a great number of faults could be solder related is not as ludicrous as it sounds. The toll the temperature will have on the GPU and RAM ICs is the big concern - even at 0 voltage those sort of temps could easily fry the ICs and WILL dramatically shorten their lifespans to some weeks/months, not years.
Normally, BGA reworking would be done using IR lamps and highly senstive temperature monitoring equipment after X-Raying the joints to check for imperfections. It is a very difficult, very precise process. I find the idea that you can reliably replicate the results using a normal oven, laughable. You're not even supposed to use proper reflow ovens (which are very fancy - not like a normal oven at all) after the joint has been soldered, because added precision is required.
As well as damaging the ICs, it could also oxidise the solder in the joints. All of these things essentially mean it's game over.

The best thing to do if you have a card that fails and you haven't registered it is to try and RMA it anyway. It'll probably work.

Another thing to point out is that pre-heating the oven is a very, very bad idea. Where's the ramp up rate? Temps should be increased in 1C increments.

Last edited by Bertster7 (2009-06-04 04:03:35)

2009-06-04 05:18:25

#25

ghettoperson: Member; +1,943|6912

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:
WTF.

Just put the card in freezer for night if you want to try MacGyver.

Rectally?

BF2S Forums If you have nothing to lose...BAKE YOUR CARD

Finray wrote:

max wrote:

haffeysucks wrote:

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:

haffeysucks wrote:

haffeysucks wrote:

haffeysucks wrote:

haffeysucks wrote:

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:

haffeysucks wrote:

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:

haffeysucks wrote:

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:

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