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Baked a 7900 Go GTX

post #1 of 49
6/22/09 at 3:38pm
Thread Starter 
So a friend of mine has a Inspiron E1705 with a 7900 Go GTX. His original 7900 Go had a heatpipe failure so we picked up the GTX as a replacement.

Well, the other day, the GTX began to artifact like crazy and wouldn't run the drivers anymore at all. Seemed clear to me that we had a BGA solder joint failure.

So, I removed the card from the notebook and baked the damn thing at 425F for about 10 mins.

And now it works perfectly again. (dunno if it'll last, but hope so)



On another, related note, my sis had her Inspiron w/ 7900 Go fail like this 3 times. Her 3 year warranty got her an entirely new Dell Studio 17 notebook the other day.
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post #2 of 49
6/22/09 at 6:25pm
what kind of seasoning did you use?? lol
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post #3 of 49
6/22/09 at 8:59pm
Is this legit? I have a couple dud cards I might want to try it with.
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post #4 of 49
6/22/09 at 10:28pm
Thread Starter 
Yes I am serious. You can google video card "baking" and see some results for yourself.
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post #5 of 49
6/23/09 at 11:11am
They sometimes call this "baking" reflow/reflowing And yes, many many reported success.

cheers ...
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post #6 of 49
6/26/09 at 7:35pm
I did that to my XPS M170's card and now it won't even power up.
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post #7 of 49
6/27/09 at 10:16am
Baked it too long lol

heating up a circuit board can also cause the pins to lift from the board.
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post #8 of 49
6/27/09 at 10:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dave-p View Post
Baked it too long lol

heating up a circuit board can also cause the pins to lift from the board.
Is this why one needs an oven thermometer?
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post #9 of 49
6/29/09 at 5:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by awentz View Post
I did that to my XPS M170's card and now it won't even power up.
It is a pretty delicate process.

I know someone who doesn't bake the BGAs. He uses a special heat gun (it's about 100dlls) and then blows hot air with it to the BGA in circles for about 2-3 minutes. He clamis he has a 75% sucess ratio.

As I said, it is pretty delicate. Too much heat or too much time and you will end with bigger problems than those you had.
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post #10 of 49
6/29/09 at 7:28pm
the way we did it was using a microscope, and grounded soldering station.

usually a careful exam under the scope can reveal the poor joints

Soldering over the joint, then using a solder wick to remove the excess

Not an easy chore to perform
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post #11 of 49
6/29/09 at 7:54pm
But would a totally ruind card prevent the system from even powering on?
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post #12 of 49
6/29/09 at 10:20pm
yes it is possible
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post #13 of 49
7/3/09 at 7:46pm
I have 2 cards (1 dud and its replacement which stopped working). I baked the dud and it would power on, but with severe lines, even after repeated bakings: not good enough but far ahead of where it was. The second card appears to be working fine at the moment, after using a heat gun (outlet temp quoted at 400 F, verified with laser thermometer).
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post #14 of 49
7/4/09 at 10:03am
Just to prove that one can only do so much with a bad piece of hardware.

cheers ...
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post #15 of 49
7/5/09 at 9:18pm
Yeah, kind of a bummer for that one card, but it worked for the other. I have no illusions that the card could easily fail again, but I'm happy with the results. Thanks for the suggestion!
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post #16 of 49
11/10/09 at 9:30pm
I had 7900GS with single-pipe heatsink so I bought an artifacting FX2500 with dual-pipe, took heatsink off it and slammed it on my 7900GS. Temps dropped from 65C to 43C . Would go up to like 49C under heavy load..
Today I stumbled on this thread and decided to bake FX2500, which wouldn't boot in any OS and would have lines all across the screen. 425F for 8min and guess what? IT WORKS! Boots fine into Windows or Ubuntu and drivers work great! It still has some one-pixel artifacts (they look like stuck pixels, about 60 on 1200p screen) which aren't permanent and seem to move around the screen. I guess I've underbaked the card so I'm pre-heating the oven again Baking some chocolate chip cookies on the way too
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post #17 of 49
11/11/09 at 7:25am
Very good. I do like chocolate cookies .. pics?

cheers ...
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post #18 of 49
11/11/09 at 12:34pm
I wish I knew this when I threw my 7950 away
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post #19 of 49
11/11/09 at 3:11pm
I'd be willing to try this with me 8800GTX as the card is gone and I don't mind whether it works or not. But it's still under warranty and I don't want the Dell engineer to walk away when he eventually arrives.
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post #20 of 49
11/11/09 at 5:26pm
don't mess with it if it is still under warranty
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