Holy crap, it worked! Dead video card resurrected!

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! =D

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...


pics of said baking(re-enactment)


naked!



side shot propped up on foil




another angle



in the oven












akashi_tm has been kind enough to provide a short, easy to follow video tutorial for the baking process. i would like to remind everyone please do this with utmost caution, care and patience.


Xtreme Bakeover - baking your video card to fix micro-fissures

link to akashi_tm's original post about the video




EDIT FOR LAPTOP BAKING!


it has been a good week for baking...

I bought a laptop with borked video because i was fairly positive it could be fixed by baking...

It is working now after 7m 45s @ 385f in a conventional oven. i noticed a heavy solder smell when pulling the board out of the oven.

PICS!

EVERYTHING WAS REMOVED FROM THE MOTHERBOARD! All protective covers/plastic.























gdonavan was able to get his broken 37" LCD tv to work by baking the mainboard. check out his post!

Oven? Jesus christ. Use a heat gun next time and do specific parts.

Aluminum foil?
Oven?

Are you sure these directions aren't about cooking a baked potato?

Hey, the card was dead, who gives a shit about the method. Kudos to you Haste. Take pictures next time!

Originally Posted by unrealsword

Oven? Jesus christ. Use a heat gun next time and do specific parts.

i think the card would be prone to more damage if a heat gun was used. how would you even know where to point it and for how long? i have no idea which exact part of the card was busted... at least an oven is a temperature controlled environment.

Originally Posted by Biskquik

Aluminum foil?
Oven?

Are you sure these directions aren't about cooking a baked potato?

what else could i use that is cheap and handy to support the card so it doesnt physically touch anything hot inside the oven? its not like the foil was touching any sensitive electronic parts...

Originally Posted by Kyle_Bennett

Hey, the card was dead, who gives a shit about the method. Kudos to you Haste. Take pictures next time!

thanks. unfortunately i thought of pics after...doh! all i have left to take pics of now is the foil balls.

your story is hilarious and awesome. congratulations, seems like some solder did indeed get separated from a critical joint.. what a crazy fix~!

Totally laughed.... I believe you that this worked but man!

Boyakasha !!!!

Those of you freaking out about sticking it in an oven have evidently never been in a manufacturing plant that builds automobile electronics.

The machines apply solder paste, place all the parts on the board, and then the whole board goes through an oven to melt the solder and form the electrical connections.

IF the oven isn't quite hot enough it can lead to premature failure. Stress or flexing of the boards can mess up solder joints as well.

Sometimes boards that are inspected and have poor solder joints are stuck through the "reflow" oven to remelt the solder in order to make the connections better.

I recently had an 8800GTS do the same thing to me. I guess instead of using it as a paper weight I'll give this a shot. lol

interesting way to fix it. glad this worked out for ya.

I used a heat gun on my PS3 To fix it, but i knew which chips to apply heat to. Kudos for your fix!!!

Originally Posted by Biskquik

Aluminum foil?
Oven?

Are you sure these directions aren't about cooking a baked potato?

The oven makes a lot of sense, how do you think they solder on those BGA( Ball grid array) integrated circuits such as the north bridge and south bridge and video card ram? they put it into an oven just like this guy did.

This is strangely awesome and I might resort to it soon enough. Did you also have to remove the headspreader off the core to pull this off?

Modder of the year award for the OP.

Hmmm,
I may have to try this w/ my 7800gt when I get back to school, it was having similar problems to this.
Awesome story Haste, congratulations on the success!

I will be baking a fresh batch of 1950xtx this evening because of this thread.

Wow.
What an insane repair method.
Good job!

haha grats on the fix!! you should post a worklog next time with some pix

lmao