Z77 Bake, heat gun, thoughts?

P

pdinc

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 19, 2006
Messages
413
I have a Asus P8Z77-M Pro that's been chugging along since Jan 2013, but suddenly decided to stop booting on me (Turning on power turns all fans on, RAM LED on, but using known good stick of ram in multiple slots with all other devices disconnected still doesnt POST).

I've since moved on to another Z77 board I picked up on eBay, but I'd like to give fixing this motherboard a shot. I do have a heat gun and an oven, but I'm not sure what's the better option. Is there a specific part of the mobo I should consider focusing on? I'm thinking that there's a solder joint issue, as the motherboard only failed on me when I tried to move it into a different case, but not sure where it'd be.
 
Well, the motherboard's working now, but it's worked fine in the past right upto when it didnt. Still looking for suggestions on fixing it given that it's out of warranty.
 
Might as well go with the oven method since there isn't any clue where any solder might have broken.

Got nothing to lose right?
 
silent-circuit said:
What makes you think it's a BGA issue and not bad caps or BIOS corruption?
Click to expand...

Caps look physically okay. I had the board in a very compact SFF case and since it was working until I tried to transfer the board, I think the minor flexing involved with moving the board may have borked the BGA connections. Could very well be bad caps. BIOS is fully updated, but I do have the issue that clearing CMOS and leeting it sit for 5+ minutes results in it booting fine (but requiring to go into BIOS) - future boots then refuse to post until I repeat the CMOS clearing. The fact that I'm able to get into the BIOS fine in some situations makes me think that's not the issue here.
 
Can I please ask people not to put motherboards in an oven and then attack them with a heat gun! Modern motherboard's are usually between 6 and 12 layers and can easily delaminate if heated incorrectly and most surface mount components have a specific temperature rating for reflowing. The components also need a decent quality smt flux to be applied before they are reworked. This especially applies to bga ic's.
 
If you have a small electronics repair shop in town with a proper reflow rig the service is usually not that expensive.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top