Should you Oven Bake Retro Video cards?

erek

[H]F Junkie
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Baking video cards to repair 'em isn't a long-term or reliable fix at all. I've done it a few times and basically they don't really last too well.

 
using a hot air station to selectively reflow components is one thing, but baking the whole card seems like a bad idea. a lot of those older cards have electrolytic capacitors which won't be happy at all about the heat.

I got a mobile 6800 to work for a few extra months doing it, which let me hold off on replacing the laptop that much longer. Permanent fix? Yeah, no.
 
I always cringe when people recommend putting any PCB in an oven in an attempt to fix it. Not only will it never fix the part, it will outgas hazardous substances into your house. The heat burns off residual flux and other chemicals that will whaft out the oven vent and into the house.

Baking a card may give the mistaken impression it fixes the card, but it's only temporary because the joints are not reformed that have failed. It actually makes the problem worse because heating solder joints without flux further oxidizes them and makes them even more brittle and prone to failure.

Using a hot air station or completely reballing the chip is the proper way to fix video cards with failed BGA joints, though it won't work in all cases. One example is the Nvidia G84 and G86 series video chips, like the 8x00M where they had a defect that caused the bond wires inside the package to break. No amount of reworking or reballing will fix that.
 
I wouldn´t cook food in the oven after you´ve used it to bake toxic components.
Also as GIGaBITE mentioned, releasing poisonous fumes into your house isn´t advised
 
Baked a PS3 mobo twice and got a few extra years out of it.. Baked the video card in our 2011 27" fully decked iMAC about a year ago, still going strong, but I have a backup video card for it when the baked one fails..

Reflowing is usually not the answer (but can be), it is usually the substrate in the chip that actually fails many of the times.. Baking seems to get the chip working again for an indefinite amount of time, or not at all.

Some people have gotten 3-4 extra years out of baked video cards, some a few days to months, and some nothing.. it is a coin toss.. You can only bake so many times to where the trick does not work anymore.
 
Let's break down "baking."

First, what exact component is failing that baking fixes?
What components will never benefit from baking?
What temperature is the actual ideal temperature?
For what duration?
 
I fixed an HD 4870 once doing this. Never had problems with the card again (eventually sold it years later).
 
Retro video cards that are getting rare and expensive need to be professionally repaired. Baking in the oven was just a cheap fix 15 year olds did for their 360 RROD. Don't do it on something nice.
 
I always cringe when people recommend putting any PCB in an oven in an attempt to fix it. Not only will it never fix the part, it will outgas hazardous substances into your house. The heat burns off residual flux and other chemicals that will whaft out the oven vent and into the house.

Baking a card may give the mistaken impression it fixes the card, but it's only temporary because the joints are not reformed that have failed. It actually makes the problem worse because heating solder joints without flux further oxidizes them and makes them even more brittle and prone to failure.

Using a hot air station or completely reballing the chip is the proper way to fix video cards with failed BGA joints, though it won't work in all cases. One example is the Nvidia G84 and G86 series video chips, like the 8x00M where they had a defect that caused the bond wires inside the package to break. No amount of reworking or reballing will fix that.
You do realize this is exactly how they solder surface mount parts to begin with... They do it in a much more controlled manner of course, but they reflow the entire board. If you've never read a spec sheet with a solder profile graph, you probably aren't alone. Best part is most components have a different requirement, so it's really some trial/error with a little bit of lowest common denominator. I have some plans to make an MCU controlled reflow station (basically a small toaster oven with a bit more intelligent control) so I can do some more surface mount stuff at the house. Agreed you can get some nasty fumes, I prefer not to do this kind of stuff in the oven I cook food in. Localized heating with a hot air station for sure can be safer, but not everyone has one... Most do have an oven.
 
They make outdoor ovens too, or you can use a pellet smoker as one. Alternately if your house came with or if you installed dual ovens and never use the lower and and don't have any disabled or short people that cook in your kitchen, why there is an otherwise useless oven consuming cubic feet in your kitchen and well...
 
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You do realize this is exactly how they solder surface mount parts to begin with... They do it in a much more controlled manner of course, but they reflow the entire board. If you've never read a spec sheet with a solder profile graph, you probably aren't alone. Best part is most components have a different requirement, so it's really some trial/error with a little bit of lowest common denominator.

Reflow ovens have far more direct control over heat zones than a home cooking oven. Heat inside a home oven is very uneven and poorly controlled because it uses a simple mechanical thermostat for a large volume of heated space. Gas ovens probably have better thermal stability over electric though since the heating elements take time to heat up and cool down, while gas is instant.

I have some plans to make an MCU controlled reflow station (basically a small toaster oven with a bit more intelligent control) so I can do some more surface mount stuff at the house. Agreed you can get some nasty fumes, I prefer not to do this kind of stuff in the oven I cook food in. Localized heating with a hot air station for sure can be safer, but not everyone has one... Most do have an oven.

Not sure how large of boards you're making, but there are commercial IR reflow ovens on the market designed for prototyping for just a couple hundred dollars. You'd probably end up spending close to that with a DIY solution.
 
Reflow ovens have far more direct control over heat zones than a home cooking oven. Heat inside a home oven is very uneven and poorly controlled because it uses a simple mechanical thermostat for a large volume of heated space. Gas ovens probably have better thermal stability over electric though since the heating elements take time to heat up and cool down, while gas is instant.



Not sure how large of boards you're making, but there are commercial IR reflow ovens on the market designed for prototyping for just a couple hundred dollars. You'd probably end up spending close to that with a DIY solution.
Thanks for the suggestion, it's been a while since I looked into it. I already have all the parts needed that I've gotten for free or close to it, but I'm sure it won't be as accurate so I'll see what hate available before I waste any time/effort. I only need smaller things done, hand placed. No plans yet for a pick and place, lol. Most of the time I use my desktop CNC to route out a through hole board but would like to get into surface mount a bit. Will most likely us one of the cheap board houses to get them made as my CNC isn't that accurate at really small features.
 
i baked a 8800GTS that was failing. Brought it back to life and it worked for another 4 years before giving up the ghost.
 
I reflowed LEDs for a while in a cheap small oven (as to avoid the aforementioned out-gassing issues and toxicity of your own oven..).
For stuff like this it depends on how much you like the card and how long you'd like to keep it. Hot air rework station and some reballing stencils (with good old leaded solder) is a better way to go long term.
 
Yeah, to add my own thoughts and echo what some people have already said,

1.) Some components don't like the heat, selectively reflowing certain problem areas is a much more effective and safe technique

2.) Household ovens have surprisngly poor temperature control, and will oscillate all over the place. Not the best instrument to use for this.
 
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I send my old video cards to Scotland for 'reflow' repair. They coat them in chocolate and then deep fry them for minutes... possibly hours.
 
I baked a GTX 7950m after looking at a thread on this site. I think it was 385f for 10 mins.
Baking it fixed it for about 1 year. Then I baked it again lol.
Baking it the 2nd time fixed it for about 6 months.
I can't remember if baking it a 3rd time fixed it again or not though...

I tried using the bake method for a bricked LG G4, but I think I made it worse lol. It basically turned into a hand warmer when the battery was in the device. But I was still able to get all the data off of the internal storage eventually (dang pictures).
 
I tried baking a gtx 260 core 216 back in 2013 or so, both of mine in sli were artifacting heavily (even when I tested only one connected at a time.) Followed a guide here, was very careful. After re-assembling the water block and puttign it all back together, I now had no video output. The motherboard never detected that card again. I didn't bother trying with the other card.
 
did this with my xbox 360 after it rrod but used the towel trick instead. Once it was good I replaced the mounting gear for the heatsink to get more pressure and it lasted another 8 months before dieing for good, but by that point the xbox one and ps5 had come out.
 
Not to be pedantic, but I'm gonna be pedantic - those are old video cards, not "retro" video cards. :)
 
First time I tried was in the oven and some of the capacitors exploded and some other components just fell off the video card. Second time I tried I instead covered the entire video card in an aluminum foil heatshield with a single square cutout of exactly where the gpu chip was and heated the gpu itself with a propane torch. Not very scientific, had no idea what temperature it reached, and just sort of carefully waved the torch back and forth to get an even heat on the gpu chip for like 10 min. Actually fixed it. Don't remember how long it lasted.

Can't really recommend either method as a good fix, but if you have failing components that you don't care about might as well try.
 
I baked a gtx580 but it only worked for a week. Started artifacting under any kind of load. So it became a donor card to it's sli brother.
 
With any components that are a decade old (or older) and see regular use, I just replace the caps if a replacement can't be found [for a reasonable price]. I've brought a lot of car components and household items back to life this way for no more than the cost of a decent temp. regualted soldering iron (paied for it's self after fixing one ECU) and several bucks worth of capacitors. I wish I could say the same for PC parts, but I upgrade rather than fix those since it's a great excuse to do so.
 
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