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Baked a 7900 Go GTX - Page 2

post #21 of 49
11/11/09 at 8:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dave-p View Post
don't mess with it if it is still under warranty
So true.
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post #22 of 49
11/12/09 at 10:55pm
I tried baking mine 6 times, a few times at 400F 10-15 mins, then increasing steadily up to 425 for 10 minutes... I see the artifacts patterns changing on bootup (but it got worse), now reading this thread you guys make me want to go try out again.

I was careful to put other solder to see that it melts but doesn't boil (i.e all the parts would fall off) I'll give it another shot with the heat sync on to apply pressure on the BGA, maybe I'll get lucky, else I'll just get the chip out and reflux it with a heat gun.

No ****ing way I am paying 300$ for that off ebay just to see it blow up again.

Tried with a E1505 card, but I had to drill in the laptop because one of the screw-in for the card was in the way, and had to drill the video card slightly as well for the top right screw holder that was in the way as well (few mm from the edges). Stupid card has more than VCC and Ground routed at the edges, so I think I killed it and can't tell if this hack would work or not and not really interrested into paying another 50$ to try this out... heh.. anyways let's go cook that shit pie once more..
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post #23 of 49
11/12/09 at 11:10pm
you can get the card rebuilt for around $ 150.00 but I think you baked it too much already lol
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post #24 of 49
11/12/09 at 11:14pm
Yah, still, 150$ for 30 days warranty, I wouldn't have paid that much..
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post #25 of 49
11/12/09 at 11:17pm
I'd love to hear the electrical engineering explanation for why baking a card would fix it.
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post #26 of 49
11/12/09 at 11:21pm
it really only works out of luck than anything else

if the card has a cold solder joint heating up the card may help re-flow the solder enough to correct the problem. At least for a short time.

Most of the issues with these cards are due to heat.
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post #27 of 49
11/12/09 at 11:34pm
My card busted 2 weeks post-warranty (extended 3yrs....) I wasn't doing a lot of gaming with it so that's why I probably got lucky having it lasting for so long (computer was on about 18 hours a day average).

I tried with heat sink on, copper facing up, 8 minutes 425 with little bump at 430 for 2 minutes at the end and left it 1 minute post-melting of the sample solder on it, it's slow-cooling right now (oven door only crack-open so that it doesn't got down more than 3-5F per second. Will update...
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post #28 of 49
11/12/09 at 11:52pm
Well... got worse... now I can barely read the dell logo at the beginning.. so I guess I'm ****ed. Can anyone confirm it's the NVIDIA GPU BGA that causes most of the problems? because I can only see that or a defective connection to the memory. The pattern at the beginning was a repeat at every 16 pixels so hinting that a connection was screwed somewhere (bits) so either the GPU or one of the memory module. Now its everywhere there is graphics (dell logo) has shitloads of white dots, mostly static but changes a little as temperature get hotter

Where thereès not graphics, it's all black.

Then on the dos prompt no character is readable, like if the ascii table was shifted... pointing again to a bit problem... man... I'm sure it's something so stupid, i.e. pin x of the BGA or whatnot...

I feel like nuking it with the heat gun...
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post #29 of 49
11/13/09 at 12:16am
I'd rather see you try to throw it in the freezer first then plug it back it. It'd make more sense that the copper would conduct slightly better at the freezing temperatures and would also contract a bit, potentially closing some gaps.

This feels like a mythbusters episodes: myths to fix a vga card. If all else fails we'll try some c4 and gasoline right?
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post #30 of 49
11/13/09 at 1:52am
interresting, Tried this, now the card is ****ed vertically as well in the black areas... when I move the cart (i.e. try to flex it a little) I see reaction according to the bending... can't quite figure out if its the GPU or within the board itself tho... I'll experiment a little more this weekend.. I never got a clean image tho, was just moving the garbage around... but in an ordered fashion showing there's bad contacts on the board and not only one...

Starting to wonder if it's not a capacitor somewhere that might have screwed up too... too linear to be a simple contact on off issue...
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post #31 of 49
11/14/09 at 1:14pm
One of my 7900GtX cards used to make everything go green, or blue, or red. It was due to the connection on the bottom to the motherboard. If I raised it a bit, no problems, screwed it in, or pushed it down so the card is properly connected, it went green. Any other card is fine though.

Maybe the fault you have is a fried GPU, plus a possible connection fault, hence the funny colours?
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post #32 of 49
11/14/09 at 5:48pm
if you have strong magnifying glass look at the board carefully and check for lifted contacts justfor the fun of it.
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post #33 of 49
11/14/09 at 5:55pm
Bad solder spots would have refluxed with the heat,

I will inspect it I got a 60-100x portable mag gadget with a led on it so you can trace anything visual with that, but I suspect if that would be the problem, it would be within the layers, looks like a 4 layer PCB.

the other thing is under the card, very hard to trace stuff live with touching and seeing a reaction on the screen, pressing the GPU makes changes, but I suspect it is due more to the pressure on the PCB than the GPU being not well connected; when I try to shear it sideways it doesn't apply the same kind of pressure to the board and I get 0 reaction.

Anyways if heat is the issue, then I suspect the capacitors right under the GPU on the other side of the PCB since in theory, this should be the second hottest place on the board when under load.

Thanks for the idea will look at it...
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post #34 of 49
11/14/09 at 6:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boboche View Post
Bad solder spots would have refluxed with the heat,

I will inspect it I got a 60-100x portable mag gadget with a led on it so you can trace anything visual with that, but I suspect if that would be the problem, it would be within the layers, looks like a 4 layer PCB.

the other thing is under the card, very hard to trace stuff live with touching and seeing a reaction on the screen, pressing the GPU makes changes, but I suspect it is due more to the pressure on the PCB than the GPU being not well connected; when I try to shear it sideways it doesn't apply the same kind of pressure to the board and I get 0 reaction.

Anyways if heat is the issue, then I suspect the capacitors right under the GPU on the other side of the PCB since in theory, this should be the second hottest place on the board when under load.

Thanks for the idea will look at it...

Heating the card may not always fix a problem with a lifted pad or pin.

I have seen the legs from the devices lift right up off the board from the heat.
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post #35 of 49
11/14/09 at 6:05pm
on GPU cards or in general? If you've seen that on a GPU card, could you point me in a specific area of the board, that would help out
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post #36 of 49
11/14/09 at 6:11pm
Both

But I have not had one of those cards around in some time.

best to start in the areas of high heat - sometimes yu can see the discoloration on the board from the heat - start there
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post #37 of 49
11/14/09 at 6:28pm
What kind of video card are you trying this on again Boboche?
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post #38 of 49
11/14/09 at 9:44pm
go7900 taken from a E1705/9400 Dell inspiron
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post #39 of 49
11/14/09 at 11:08pm
if you have the single pipe version - you miht want to consider a dula pipe card for your next one should you go for a replacement
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post #40 of 49
11/15/09 at 7:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dave-p View Post
if you have strong magnifying glass look at the board carefully and check for lifted contacts justfor the fun of it.
Yep yep. Take some pics also

cheers ...
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