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

Since soldering is my everyday job I thought I'd ring in.

I work for Esterline in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and I see electronics all day. 4 SMT lines, 4 Selective Soldering lines, and countless 2nd Operation and Final Assembly lines. I'm amazed this trick works so well. Usually reflowing of solder (specifically lead free which is my specialty on Selective Soldering line #1) requires some sort of flux, oa (organic acid, water-soluble) or no-clean, in order to reflow properly. Using a home oven is ghetto at best but hey, if it works it works and its free!! Just be careful at how high of temperature you guys use. I hear a lot of arguing in here about what solders reflow at certain temps. I can say with confidence that lead solder will flow at 190°C and lead free will flow at 220°C. But that's minimum. In order to reflow properly we are talking 260°C for lead and 290°C for lead free and that includes flux application.

I'm happy to hear that so many of you are having success with this. Just be careful and don't expect miracles.
 
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Ehren8879 said:
I've overheated my 360 twice to bring it back from the dead, but has failed again within days of doing it. Think I'll try the oven trick and report back.
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Yeah if you could tell us whether it was successful or not i would really appreciate it. Also at what temps you tried it at :). I've pretty much taken apart my 360 and planning to try this, but I need to get a hold of a t9 screwdriver to take the mobo apart from the metal tray.
 
Count me in on those who tried this and it worked on a 6600GT that was completely dead but I hadn't thrown away. Baked it at 385 for 10 minutes. Cooled overnight and dropped into a computer. Started right up at bios screen and kept on going. I too will try it again on any board that just quits. Can't lose anything since it's not working anyway. Thanks to all.
 
moogle said:
Yeah if you could tell us whether it was successful or not i would really appreciate it. Also at what temps you tried it at :). I've pretty much taken apart my 360 and planning to try this, but I need to get a hold of a t9 screwdriver to take the mobo apart from the metal tray.
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Please see my post here. Not everyone would do higher temps, but if you're very careful and patient with your work, everything will be fine. :)

e-geek said:
Worked for my 8800ultra so why not try a non booting motherboard i have :)
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I need to try on a motherboard too, but I'm afraid the PCI slots will melt, no? Can anyone comment?

I think that some PCBs (especially large ones) go through hot ovens to get most of the components on, and then go through slightly cooler ovens for the ports and whatnot. So if I want to reflow the solder that requires higher temps, the stuff that works with lower temps might melt. =/
 
thanks godman, I will try your steps :) I'll do lower temps I guess since I'm not that experienced.
 
didn't work on my old 1900xtx

and since it was broken anyways after I put it all back together I went ahead and put it in the oven again to see what would melt, surprisingly only the heatsink shroud, and the sticker come off pretty easily after that, and you know what I found under it? ANOTHER STICKER!
 
Godman: I put the motherboard on at 200c - 392f for 8 mins and nothing melted, although the motherboard's still dead, lol.
 
e-geek said:
Godman: I put the motherboard on at 200c - 392f for 8 mins and nothing melted, although the motherboard's still dead, lol.
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I set my oven to 385F, once it hit 385, I placed my motherboard in the oven. After 4 mins I saw a little bit of smoke coming out of the motherboard (still don't know from where) and smelled it a bit. My girlfriend was there with me in the kitchen and I felt really bad b/c she was about to cook us Mexican pizza in the oven.

So 4 min is all I heated the board up b/c I got scared off from the smoke... should I have left it in there another 4 min? I keep thinking to myself that I should have left it in there... I guess the smoke and smell is part of the process... I know solder smokes when melted when I'm soldering something.
 
Just curious godman, has your xbox 360 been working fine with no problems ever since you baked it? And did you wrap the bottom of the motherboard really well with clothing and foil, or does the bottom not matter as much?

Also, I think im going to use some rope twine that's meant for tying down thanksgiving turkeys instead of metal twine LOL. It's all i got in the house :p. Still haven't gotten around to getting myself a t9 screwdriver ugh. Thanks!
 
moogle said:
Just curious godman, has your xbox 360 been working fine with no problems ever since you baked it? And did you wrap the bottom of the motherboard really well with clothing and foil, or does the bottom not matter as much?

Also, I think im going to use some rope twine that's meant for tying down thanksgiving turkeys instead of metal twine LOL. It's all i got in the house :p. Still haven't gotten around to getting myself a t9 screwdriver ugh. Thanks!
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My 360 worked for about a week and today I turned it on and while trying to join a lobby in Gears 2 I got artifacts all over the place.

I already have other plans. I'm going to bake it again, only this time I'm going to do this mod:
Team Hybrid's Ultimate X-Clamp Fix

I might BUY a few of the kits. If I buy 3 it'll cost me about $30. I have 3 xbox 360s that get the 3RLOD that I want to hopefully fix permanently. I've revived 2 of the 3 (still have to open up the 3rd), but you need to fix the mount.

You see... the one I baked that lasted a week... I did the 12v fan mod, I cut out the fan grill in the back of the case with a dremel, I cleaned the GPU/CPU thoroughly with ArctiClean, I put AS5 on there, I did the X-plate mod (the original), and on top of all of this I run the 360 caseless... with the DVD player outside of the case and a 120mm fan blowing over the GPU heatsink...

I have a feeling the team hybrid mod is the last solution left. If that doesn't work, I'm giving up on fixing 360s b/c they ALL come back to the same problem...
 
g0dM@n said:
My 360 worked for about a week and today I turned it on and while trying to join a lobby in Gears 2 I got artifacts all over the place.

I already have other plans. I'm going to bake it again, only this time I'm going to do this mod:
Team Hybrid's Ultimate X-Clamp Fix

I might BUY a few of the kits. If I buy 3 it'll cost me about $30. I have 3 xbox 360s that get the 3RLOD that I want to hopefully fix permanently. I've revived 2 of the 3 (still have to open up the 3rd), but you need to fix the mount.

You see... the one I baked that lasted a week... I did the 12v fan mod, I cut out the fan grill in the back of the case with a dremel, I cleaned the GPU/CPU thoroughly with ArctiClean, I put AS5 on there, I did the X-plate mod (the original), and on top of all of this I run the 360 caseless... with the DVD player outside of the case and a 120mm fan blowing over the GPU heatsink...

I have a feeling the team hybrid mod is the last solution left. If that doesn't work, I'm giving up on fixing 360s b/c they ALL come back to the same problem...
Click to expand...

hey if that doesnt work, try torching just the heatsinks. that way you dont have to worry as much about the rest of the system getting too hot and you can really heat up the solder alot more. my friend says his 360 still works 3 weeks later...
 
Smiththers2 said:
hey if that doesnt work, try torching just the heatsinks. that way you dont have to worry as much about the rest of the system getting too hot and you can really heat up the solder alot more. my friend says his 360 still works 3 weeks later...
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Where do you aim the torch? I have a portable propane torch that I use to heat up the coal for my hookah. :) Apple flavor baby!!
 
g0dM@n said:
Where do you aim the torch? I have a portable propane torch that I use to heat up the coal for my hookah. :) Apple flavor baby!!
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i wrapped some solder around the copper heat pipe, and just moved the torch around the heatsinks for a while on and off. i did it long enough to melt the solder and then for a few minutes after that on and off.
 
:(! Now I'm debating whether I should just bake it first or try to get this dude I found on craigslist who fixes xbox360's with a bga reflow station. Oh I'm too indecisive!!! But thanks for all your info godman, but I might just go with the reflow dude, and hope that it might be a "permanent" fix.
 
moogle said:
:(! Now I'm debating whether I should just bake it first or try to get this dude I found on craigslist who fixes xbox360's with a bga reflow station. Oh I'm too indecisive!!! But thanks for all your info godman, but I might just go with the reflow dude, and hope that it might be a "permanent" fix.
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What does he charge and what's his guarantee?

Remember, a reflow is half the battle (the easier part). The HARD PART is PREVENTING it from happening again.

His reflow may fix the 360 and make it work, but remember that the engineering of the 360 is still JUNK and it WILL mess up again and any given/random moment... maybe it'll last a few months, but it WILL mess up again due to the design of the system as a whole.

You have to mod something different into the system to even think you have a chance at preventing the RROD. Trust me...
 
g0dM@n said:
What does he charge and what's his guarantee?

Remember, a reflow is half the battle (the easier part). The HARD PART is PREVENTING it from happening again.

His reflow may fix the 360 and make it work, but remember that the engineering of the 360 is still JUNK and it WILL mess up again and any given/random moment... maybe it'll last a few months, but it WILL mess up again due to the design of the system as a whole.

You have to mod something different into the system to even think you have a chance at preventing the RROD. Trust me...
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He charges $40 and has a 30 day guarantee which isn't that bad I think. But I totally agree with you on modding the clamps of the 360. I will probably try that too if and when I get the time to have that guy reflow it. I hope the hybrid fix like you mentioned fixes the design flaw though. Let me know if you do it! :D
 
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Hey !

Im new at Hardforum...

I have 2 cards.

One is a MSI 8800GTX OC :(

And the other is a x1650PRO 512mb ddr2 :p


Thing is, the 8800GTX was ¨working¨ fine for a lot of time, sometimes i had like some weird black and white micro lines on screen when i was playing or when i finished playing, at desktop, and the card just locked up. So i restart the system and the problem was out. All fine again.

Yesterday, it started to artifacts even more at BIOS, like weird characters, red, blue, yellow rectangles... and at OS selection is like a lot of lines , kinda some channel that is not well tuned.

Now the artifacts dont go away... doesnt matter if i turn off the pc and on like in the past.

Other new symptom is that sometimes when i turn on the pc the vga cooler spins a lot and there is no vga signal, and sometimes spins a lot and calms down and i get signal, but with the mentioned artifacts, wtf is going on with this one???

So , i tried the oven system :D , i used the same aluminium... i sitted the vga at the second ¨floor¨ inside the oven, the highest part.

I dont know exactly what temp is my oven since it doesnt say it.

But when you people says 385F you mean 196 Celsius right?

I guess i did the method only at 90, 110 C tops... so the card was hot after 10 mins yes, but the artifacts still comes out, the same, nothing changed.

When the vga is connected i touch the Memory controller , is a little chip in the back of the vga, and the screen goes nuts, i guess is that part that needs better soldering am i right?


I will try at way more celsius to see what happens.



The X1650PRO in the other hand, i used a bit more hot i guess because i tried it after the 8800GTX, that card was DEAD, no video, no nothing. And it worked for 5 mins... DAMN!

i have no luck...


then i guess i should try more celsius.... right? thanks in advance.
 
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I'm about to try this on my "oxidized" Gigabyte motherboard. Does anybody have any tips for me? I'm highly doubting this will work since it's not a solder/joint problem... but ya never know.

I think I might try 420 degrees for 5 min. Let's see how that works...
 
The thread has gotten so large, has anyone tried it on a laptop? I saw some mentions of it but dunno if anyone was successful doing it. I imagine depending on the model it may be more/less complicated to disassemble it to the point where you can yank the bare mobo out of the chassis, but still... I've got a friend's dead laptop (video suddenly flipped out one day during video playback and it wouldn't turn on afterward) that's out of warranty, might as well try if there's a glimmer of hope.

It's very plausible it had similar issues as some of the cards mentioned in this thread as it had other weird issues before it died, a non-working USB port and a WiFi adapter that randomly disappeared from Device Manager for instance.
 
i am going to bake my gateway 7322gz board and see if it will fix it if it dont oo well but its worth a try
 
Impulse said:
The thread has gotten so large, has anyone tried it on a laptop? I saw some mentions of it but dunno if anyone was successful doing it. I imagine depending on the model it may be more/less complicated to disassemble it to the point where you can yank the bare mobo out of the chassis, but still... I've got a friend's dead laptop (video suddenly flipped out one day during video playback and it wouldn't turn on afterward) that's out of warranty, might as well try if there's a glimmer of hope.

It's very plausible it had similar issues as some of the cards mentioned in this thread as it had other weird issues before it died, a non-working USB port and a WiFi adapter that randomly disappeared from Device Manager for instance.
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http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034193228&postcount=315
 
Has anyone tried this with a RedBaron Pizza? I have one in my freezer, and I wanna see if this will do the trick :)
 
It's not good, but I don't think it's harmful... someone mentioned because all these cards are ROHS compliant that they can't have anything harmful. (Lead-free solder is commonly used, even those it's an inferior quality and probably the reason a lot more electronics today are failing.)
 
Well, I baked a broken Gigabyte 965P DS3. 380F for 8 minutes.

I booted it up and it POSTed the first time. I got into the BIOS for a minute then it froze. After that it wouldn't POST. :(
 
TS28 said:
Has anyone tried this with a RedBaron Pizza? I have one in my freezer, and I wanna see if this will do the trick :)
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I think it should work, just be sure to keep a close eye on it. lol

This also brought my x1650 back to life. Very Pumped!!!!
 
I wish I didn't send my DFI Mobo back for an RMA so quickly. I could of tried this :(

I also wish I didn't toss my artifacting FX5500 (shit card i know, but it would of been useful in my PCI only backup rig lol)
 
I've removed the heatsink and fan. Do I need to clean the old epoxy or grease off before doing the baking? If I do.. I have no epoxy to reapply.. but I do have heatsink grease for cpu's. Would that work or is the HSF not attached well enough for that?
 
OrAnGe said:
I've removed the heatsink and fan. Do I need to clean the old epoxy or grease off before doing the baking? If I do.. I have no epoxy to reapply.. but I do have heatsink grease for cpu's. Would that work or is the HSF not attached well enough for that?
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Remove it. And when you put the heatsink back on, put the CPU grease on (as long as it isn't AS5
 
definitely remove the TIM(paste, grease) from the part you are baking. you want it completely stripped as much as possible. down to a bare minimum.

the closer u can get the card/part the way it was initially done in the first place, the better...
 
Haste266 said:
definitely remove the TIM(paste, grease) from the part you are baking. you want it completely stripped as much as possible. down to a bare minimum.

the closer u can get the card/part the way it was initially done in the first place, the better...
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What's the harm in having the TIM on, though... not that I don't clean mine anyway b/c I like a fresh TIM on everytime...
 
g0dM@n said:
What's the harm in having the TIM on, though... not that I don't clean mine anyway b/c I like a fresh TIM on everytime...
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because im guessing TIM isnt designed to withstand 200c temps...please correct me if im wrong. i dont know for sure...just assuming.
 
I tried this with an old Socket 754 motherboard. After about 5 minutes at 380 degrees, the capacitors started exploding like popcorn. One actually blew itself off the board. Needless to say, that board is now "fixed".
 
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