HOW TO: repair your dead graphics card in your alienware!

*****WARNING*****

Before attempting the following procedure, make certain that you have exhausted ALL available methods of determining that you graphics card is truly bad. Performing the following procedure on a good graphics card could render it useless. I accept no responsibility for any damages this technique may cause so use at your discretion.

I have been seeing stories about people putting their defective ( non functioning) graphics cards in the oven, cooking them and getting back a fully functioning graphics card.

I know, I was shaking my head too. Since I have an Alienware M9750 with a non functioning 7950m GTX primary graphics card, I figured I had nothing to loose.

I've got to tell you, I was more than a little surprised when I finished the procedure to find that my once dead GPU was now perfectly functioning!!

O.K., here is my how-to guide. I hope this will help!


*THE PROCEDURE*
Preheat your oven to 385F. Place four "balls" of aluminum foil on a cookie sheet. Now place your defective GPU on the cookie sheet with one of each of the four balls of aluminum foil holding up a corner of the card. Make sure if you have any plastic washers, that you set them aside.

Once the oven is fully at 385F, place the cookie sheet with the Graphics card on the middle rack of the oven and set the timer for 8 to 10 minutes.

When the 8 to 10 minutes are up, shut off the oven and crack the oven door open for about ten minutes. Then allow the card to further cool ( at a slow rate) for another 20 minutes removed from the oven.

That's it. Now install your card in your rig as you normally would and enjoy your newly repaired graphics card.




*THE WHY*
I'm an engineer by trade so I was more than a little shocked when I first heard the suggestion. Then I realized exactly what was happening. Many printed circuit boards are soldered just like the procedure outlined above. Of course in a more controlled environment. Needless to say, it's not always the best method and can lead to tiny cracks in the soldering that can't be seen by the naked eye. When we perform this method at home, we're every so slightly melting the solder enough to repair the fine cracks.

*MY M9750*
My M9750 just shut down one day while surfing the web. I won't go into all of the diagnosis and trouble shooting as that's an entirely seperate and long topic. With that said, I did exhaust all avenues to diagnose and repair my rig and in the end I was able to determine the problem was a faulty primary graphics card.

I am happy to say it all worked like a charm and I'm writing this post on my M9750! I really didn't know if I would ever be able to use it again.

I'm sure there are some third party resellers of graphics cards that may not want people to know this can be done.

I don't know how many time I've read a post where someone had a card fry and couldn't find a replacement or couldn't afford one. I hope this technique will at least halp some of them.

I am compelled to remind all those that will consider doing this that you must ensure you have done everything possible to determine that the card in question is in fact bad.

Good luck!

EDIT: I'd like to thank Engadget for providing the link to OC Forums about this procedure. And Beatsiz linked them too.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=606658

 

so you read engadget too?

 

Wow, that's really cool and I'm glad to hear it worked! What a crazy and simple soultion lol

 

Yeah, it just sounded so, "no way" till you think about it.

I am soooooo happy my M9750 is working again.

Well the wife is too now that it's her's since I got the M17. I got it because My M9750 was dead. lol

 

lol as if you tried this! way to go, plus rep!

 

Should try it in a Microwave Oven next.

 

OY! we haven't annoyed you yet...

 

Season to taste? Haven't had a gpu die on me yet *knock on wood*.

 

You haven't needed to. 404 Error is doing a good job of it by itself.

 

It tastes pretty darn sweet compared to paying almost $500 for a new one! lol

 

Wow, loving your crediting skills

Not 100% sure if I'm right but yeah

 

haha that is absolutely crazy... glad it worked for you and hopefully for some other people aswell!

 

awesome...

but i find it ironic that you can bake a video card for 10 mins adding for cool down time at a temp of 385, but get nervous at a temp of 90 for gaming...seems odd...

 

I found that very odd as well. Especially since I started digging deeper into this whole "easy bake oven" thing, and have found a pretty decent success rate doing this.

I think a possibility, is that a lot of the time the actual GPU isn't getting fried, but micro fractures develop rendering the card useless.

The high temps that shut things down until reboot might be a micro fracture starting, then the cooling allows the fracture to close enough that contact is restored.

Who knows?

 

lol yea that is kinda funny

 

fine...go aheaad and come up with one explination for it...

makes sense in a way, but seems futile if the crack consistantly returns...

 

That's why I'm hoping this is a permanent fix.

 

Pretty cool, you can save time by looking at the PCB under a high powered magnifying glass. You can just fix the traces that way.

I wonder if this works in convection ovens, I would think it wouldnt. Only because the fan could potentially shift solder.

K-TRON

 

this one remind me of xbox360 3 lights of death that using towel cover up entirely so that the heat build up inside. i think the heat causes the solder and pins of PCB(printed circuit board) reworked

 

You might be able to save time that way K-TRON. I think I'd get lost! lol

 

nice recepie

 

Nothi'n says lovi'n like somethi'n from the oven!:laugh:

 

Actually you may be right, I am going to try this on two older motherboards this week and see if I can fix them

K-TRON

 

Hey, thanks again for the help you gave me many months ago troubleshooting that rig!

Let us know how it works on those mobo's.

 

a mobo in the oven? with the plastic clips and such?
dont think it will be that great an outcome...lol

 

The guys over at OC Forums did it with a desktop card. They had to have plugs in the plastic connectors so they didn't become deformed.

Don't know about anything else on the mobo.

It will be interesting to see the outcome.

 

hmmm - so they removed the plastic clips that lock the RAM in?
did they remove the I/O unit from the board?
not saying at cant be done, but just curious...lol

 

Hey, just wanted to go back to the idea of why it doesn't malfunction t 385 degrees Fahrenheit vs the 90+ in your environment. I am just going by thermodynamics here, but i believe it is due to the fact that in your computer it is measuring the ACTUAL temperature(how fast the atoms are moving) of the GPU. Whereas the oven is measuring the temperature of the air(medium) in the oven. Thus the graphic card does not reach the same temperature(equilibrium) as the air surrounding it. The graphic card will eventually reach that temperature that will make it malfunction. But it has a different specific heat than the air surrounding it so it heats up and cools down at a different rate.

Sorry for late response...Also i could be completely wrong, but hey...thought i could apply some Physics class

 

The temp sensor is actually a diode.

All of this makes me wonder if it really is the GPU on the card that fries or if it's just microfractures in the solder most of the time.

 

good point...
but with nothing moving the air (circulating or removing) would it not produce the same effect then?
as compared to a latop unit with a fan to dissipate the heat and remove it from the gpu...

 

Ah, i didnt know how the temp was measured in the laptop. My bad

 

If your wondering which substances are changing due to the heat being applied, it all depends on their specific heat capacity. Obviously as you know, different materials gain heat quicker than others.

Oh..crap..double post, my bad...eek

 

id have to side with you.
i mean the weakest link is obviously the soldering and the board the chip rests on...it is dependant on the solder and board to get the job done...

 

Well we know the temp of an operating GPU which we can monitor. Usually from around 40C to high 70'sC while gaming. That's still well below 200F and it's only within the GPU on the graphics card.

The entire card (besides the actual GPU) never reaches even those temps.

What does happen though is you've got a few different materials (metal,plastic,circuit board) that are expanding and contracting at different rates and yet are anchored to eachother. That's when you get the microfractures in the solder.

 

i understand the effect of contractions and expansions, but he mentioned the air temp vice the unit temp difference.
with the fan removing (or trying to...lol) the heat from the unit, would this not have the same effect as putting the card in the oven in non-circulating air?

aside from this, if you take a look at streets and sidewalks and even driveways, one can only compare and see the similarities of GPU heat/cool states.

 

I'm not sure what you're saying.

The unit temp never even reaches 200F and the ambient air temp inside the chassis maybe reaches 100F. So under no circumstances does any part of the graphics card ever reach 385F like in an oven. Regardless of weather there is air moving or not.

 

we are on the same highway, just at different mile markers...lol

you basically understand and are saying what i am, just from a different view.

what i am trying to get to, is that (to me) the temp inside the oven would still be greater regardless if the measurement being "air" vice "surface" for the GPU bsaed on what i said and you said.

maybe i conveyed it wrong..lol

 

Yup! lol

It will be interesting to see how much of a permanent fix this is.

I guess there really isn't any reason it wouldn't last as long as a new card.

Even if it doesn't, it's real easy to do again.

 

yea just bake it real quick n easy ....

 

Yeah Moo,

it's one of coolest things I've seen, especially considering I had a brick for the last few months. And I didn't have to buy a new card.

 

Time to open up a GPU bakery and GPU pastry shop in my town I think...

 

Got it to work on my 7900GS for a little while. It was functioning for about 6 hours until it went back to its original problem of the screens going black and the video card and gpu fan going to 100%.

I'm going to try again in a little bit and see if maybe heating it a bit longer would help out some. Dont' really have anything to lose at this point.

 

Good luck, let us know how it works.

 

hey check the temps on the 7900 it may be heating up n messing up again

 

Any advice for mobos on this? I have a dead mobo/gpu unit from my old asus, and I'm wondering if I have anything to lose by trying. I'm guessing I'd have to find a way to remove plastic bits from the board first, though....

 

Zfactor says he will try this on a couple dead mobo's he has.

The guys over at OC Forums have done his with a desktop graphics card and had to put plugs in the connectors so they wouldn't warp. I suppose desoldering them would be an option too.

I accidentally left one plastic washer on my card and it warped a little.

On a mobo, I'd be worried about the capacitors though.

 

ya think?

as far as a mobo, aside from the plastic plugs/holes, you have the plastic clips for the RAM, the I/O board with plastic, the PCI slots, and i am sure a bit more i am missing.

as rob said, the Caps would/could also be a problem. i never thought of it, but depending on the internal dialectric compound it may be an issue.

hmmmm

 

At least for mobile graphics cards, it's a pretty easy fix.:smile:

 

holy cow this is cool! I didn't need to extend my warranty afterall lol!!!

 

Awesomeness