Holy crap, it worked! Dead video card resurrected!

Originally Posted by Trombe

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?

nope. i only took off all the bits that had screws excluding the ones around the heatspreader itself.


went ahead and re-enacted the baking so i could get some pics up for anyone interested. i edited my first post

may wanna clean that oven

Wow, I'm really impressed and that makes total sense about fixing the tiny fractures in the soldiering. Great work!

Does a resurrected video card eat brains?

lol attempt to reflow solder

Only comment I can think to add is 385F is on too low to make solder reflow. However the oven may spike higher. Also 8-10 minutes is a long time so keep a close eye on the board. Preheating the board 120C then careful use of a heatgun might be safer. Glad it worked and just wanted to add some thoughts on this may, or may not, be done more reliably.

Originally Posted by unrealsword

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

This method might wok better. A heat gun could blow the solder over to areas where it doesn't belong, whereas the over just reflows the solder.

Congrats on the fix.

Ok... That is just awesome!

Nice trick!

I would be careful about this though. Heating up, melting down or burning electronics can release toxins into the air that could cause brain damage and/or death.

I bought 2 8800GTX cards back in 2007 and 3 months back one of them died on me. Computer froze and crashed, but since I had them running in SLI some times it would work for a few mins. Anyways I figured it out by taking the cards out and putting them in one at a time. Found the one that casued red lines and glitches all over the screen and RMAed it to BFG (got to love 100% life time warrenty).
So I get it back and what happens... 1 month later the other card has the same death! I sware to god I think they build these things to fail on purpose. Any ways sent the other card RMA and now I am happy to say both are back to running at 100% SLI happiness.

I would have never thought to try to do this to fix a card, but now I know what to do when these cards die on my again and if it doesnt work, RMA again I guess. Awesome Post!

awesome work. that's pretty much the same way i, along with other fixers, fix 360s. you're right about that.

btw, do you have the link to the original suggestion?

Sell it to a folder for cheap. They will use everything that card has left.

Originally Posted by stealthy123

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

Yum, can I get some?

Another success story and I'll toss in my old X850XT that recently took a big dump. WTF, it's useless as it is now.

Sorry, there will not be any pics of my oven...

I might just have to call horse chunks on this one.


Edit: The most common forms of solder flow at 370F. I recant my "horse chunks". I think this worked.

do you think this method will repair my GeForce Go 7800 GTX? take a look at this particular damage:

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthre...post1335896806


[Tomorrow I will be oven baking my card]

Originally Posted by mtrupi

Only comment I can think to add is 385F is on too low to make solder reflow. However the oven may spike higher. Also 8-10 minutes is a long time so keep a close eye on the board. Preheating the board 120C then careful use of a heatgun might be safer. Glad it worked and just wanted to add some thoughts on this may, or may not, be done more reliably.

this was my thought too. IIRC solder takes about ~700F to flow

Originally Posted by ALL4AMD

this was my thought too. IIRC solder takes about ~700F to flow

wiki says under 400F.

i could definitely see this working, and seems like a fantastic way to reseat all the connections. i know the same method(more or less) is used successfully on rrod 360s.

good job OP!

one has to wonder how many cards could have been saved with this method.

Originally Posted by biztyke

wiki says under 400F.

i could definitely see this working, and seems like a fantastic way to reseat all the connections. i know the same method(more or less) is used successfully on rrod 360s.

good job OP!

ok so i was thinking something else which is why i said IIRC