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

I wouldn't hold it closer than 5 inches. I put it too close to one of my chips and I burnt it.

I bought my heatgun for $20 and it has two settings, 300C and 600C.

 

hey, that is really crazy. I was very sad this week as my Dell Precision M90 got a bad graphics card FX 2500m. There was all those colored artifacts when turning on the computer before OS and during the OS load, this one could only operate in safe mode or without the card driver.

A new card is very rare here in Brazil, then I was almost buying one from eBay (lots of duties to bring it here). But I found this forum and asked me: why not?

Of course I was afraid of frying my mobo if something went wrong to the procedure. So I decided to take an action do reduce the risk: control precisely the temperature and time.

Well, I highly recomend you to use a thermocouple and control the oven temperature my balancing the fire and opening the door slightly when overheating. Thermocouple is very common nowadays, you can find it with a multimeter.

Another recommendation: my FX 2500m and many others notebook video cards has 2 copper pipes brazed to aluminum surface. This is very weak, that is why you can not hold it directly.

One more important detail, the temperature melts the welds, this is really true. So the existing cooler pipes may dettach if you dont take care of it. I made a wire clamp attached to the aluminum cover and then I pressed some small springs between the copper pipes and the clamp. That is because the spring keeps the elasticity even at high temperatures, so it will keep pressing the pipes against the aluminum cover, making a new weld between both and keeping a good cooler system. I believe without that could have mal function, possibly burning again your video due to low cooling efficiency. Another problem is simply dettaching the pipes, and that was what happened to me. I had to send the video card twice to the oven, the second trial had the intention of welding the pipes again...

Anyway, my notebook is unbelievably perfect now. I cannot rely on it yet, I want to see it working for months so that I can say "ok, it is really good"

One question remais in the air: I know it was a memory flaw, but, it wasn´t really, because it would not fix under high temperatures. The conclusion is that it is very difficult to have a burned system, generally what we have is welding fractures!?!?

Thanks guys, at least cooking was a pleasure, but I really wish it lasts

 

It wasn't a memory flaw, it was a BGA solder flaw and an underfill flaw.
The underfill wasn't meant to take such high temps, it lost it's rigidity, which put pressure on the balls and they cracked.

 

laymans terms is it seals all your memory up

 

First of all thanks so much to Rob41 and the Moo for their input on these forums regarding this procedure.

Also thank you to huskermania on Youtube for his excellent guide to dismantling a 15" Dell Inspiron

As well as Iftibashir, youtube, for his dismantling of the XPS.

Ok, as you can see from my sig, I've been having problems for about a year with my 17" Dell Inspiron 9300 which I bought in mid/late 2006.

The reason I'm posting the following procedure on this thread is because I don't subscribe to any other forum, and I'm right on the cusp of ordering either an M11x or M17x ( still undecided - probably will get both! )

So I hope you guys with, perhaps older computers, with similar problems will find this useful.

About a year ago the Geforce 6800 Go in my inspiron almost died a horrible death.

I say almost, because it managed to cling onto life by a thread...

The only reason I didn't throw the computer out was because it still worked, just, for internet and word processing, it struggled, but it managed to output 2d images OK, and at the time there was no way in hell I could afford a new Alienware... esp @ dream specs.

I used the excellent Dell diagnostic tools already installed in the BIOS to determine that my Nvidia card had now only 64mb RAM! Down from 256!

'Well,' I thought, 'must have burned out, or something...' This was a long time before 'baking' your card started to take over the net.

So I spent a year tolerating the computer's idiosyncracies; such as needing to be on for an hour or so, on a cushion, to warm up so that I could restart it and have it *somehow* work...

On a side note: I don't know how it worked, perhaps someone could explain that to me, but after a while I would restart it and it would be able to output 2d images...

Anyway I digress

Ok, this morning I'd had enough so I decided, after much prevarication, which involed wondering whether all the talk of baking video cards was a viral conspiracy to get people to destroy their computers, to 'just do it' and take the computer apart and get that ill card out!

So I looked at a few you tube vids, one of which was very useful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD6WDt-goiU

Bought a tool kit from Belkin

And started work:

View attachment 47084

Underside before removal of battery, HDD and Optical:

View attachment 47085

Removal of battery and HDD:

View attachment 47086

Removal of Hinge Cover:

View attachment 47087

Removal of Keyboard:

View attachment 47088

Unplugging of two wires (don't know what they're for lol!)

View attachment 47090

O darn....I can only upload six files...

Anyway, to cut a long story short I took out the graphics card, took off the heat sink assembly and cleaned it, peeled off the plastic protectors which where adhered onto the tops of the chips.

Then I set my oven (fan oven, or 'reflux' in American-English I think ) to 150 Degrees Centigrade, I didn't go above that to the recommended 180 because I just don't believe you need that much heat.

I placed the fx card on 4 balls of crushed aluminium foil and set it up on a baking tray. Then carefully inserted the whole into the centre of the oven.

I waited for 10 minutes.

I switched the oven off and waited for it to cool, keeping the door open a crack.

I then carefully attached the heatsink back onto the card once it had cooled to room temperature of course, reassembled the laptop and booted up.

To my great surprise it worked perfectly, I am reinstalling company of heroes from steam as I type this!!!!!!

I am sooooooo happy thankyou guys and I hope everyone finds this useful.

I have more pics of the whole procedure but I cannot figure out how to upload more than 6 files.

If someone would guide me on how to get the actual pics in their post rather than attachments I would be pleased to put the rest of the pics up so you can see the entire step by step guide...

BTW I should add that I am a complete novice when it comes to dismantling computers. I've never even opened a desktop before and although I've always wanted to upgrade the RAM on my laptop I was too scared to open it up I know...feels unbelievable now....

Well I'm so glad I did this because now I feel a lot more comfortable with the innards of a computer and feel as though I have learned alot.

Many thanks to the experts who regularly post genuine advice on this brilliant forum.

Please feel free to add to this or if you have any questions...

PS I kept myself grounded to a radiator using the grounding wristband supplied in my toolkit.

All the best, Guys and Girls,

Baerius

 

You can use a service like Imageshack to upload the pictures to and then just paste the links into your post.

Glad to hear this worked for you!!

 

any concerns about the toxicity of the oven after doing this?

My oven cost more than any video card I've ever owned.

 

This was one of the things I was most concerned with before doing the procedure, my oven is rather expensive as well. I can safely say that, even sitting close to the oven whilst the card was in there, there was no toxicity whatsoever.

There was maybe a faint whiff of burning dust, but nothing more; no smoke, no smell of burning plastic, no popping. However I did not go above 150 Deg Cent.

Card is quite an old one as well, and very small.

 

Dear God, please tell me I'm not reading this. IMPORTANT NOTE: Solder fumes are TOXIC. By all means use your oven to try and repair your card but make sure your kitchen is WELL VENTILLATED.

I have a professional re-flow oven which precisely adjusts the temperature and timings through the FOUR stages of reflow soldering. It's a very precise technique. Using a domestic oven is far from ideal and will, unless you are very lucky, only provide a temporary fix. Most of the time you will do more harm than good. Raise the temp. too quickly and you could damage the components completely.

Using a heat gun is slightly better as you can control the temperature and timing a little more.

For anyone who's interested, here's a link to some reflow soldering recommendations:

http://www.excelics.com/Solder Info.pdf

 

just used the post on page 1 to repair my YLOD'ed PS3.

 

Has anybody successfully repaired an ATI card this way?

 

Yes. Mexicansnake did this to repair his ATI 3870.

But I'm not sure if it will help your 4670.

 

Will this work for my card?

In device manager my one 9800 is giving of a 43 error code which is the cards inability to load its driver. Is this proccess something I should try?

 

Yeah I think so especially if you're seeing Artifact, and you have the feeling the card is toasted.

 

I had a lot of vertical lines during boot, when windows has loaded it crashed.
i was only able to work in safe mode and then i found this tread.
I tried it with my nvidia 7950 gtx and what shall i say.....IT WORKED!!!!!
(and by the way, no smell in the oven... )
Thanks a lot

 

shouldn't we put this in the Alienware Owners' Lounges, Guides and Large Threads section
it is a guide

 

already done

 

I can't resist...
"How does it taste?" -Naked Snake/Big Boss, MGS3

 

the 8700M in my m9750 died earlier this year. after being told by alienware/dell that they didn't stock replacements, I figured I'd try baking it. I work for an electronics manufacturer, and have access to real SMT equipment, including a seven-zone surface mount oven, so ran my video card through it. it came back to life, I was happy, but the fix only lasted about six weeks before it died again. I relocate my laptop on a daily basis, and suspect I may be putting more stress on my board than most. I recall hearing a circuit board flex, and thinking "that probably killed it," before I discovered it died a second time.

I ordered a replacement from premiselaptops on ebay, and the system has been working fine for the last six weeks. I was told the board was a used pull. it runs slightly cooler than the original card (mid 90s vs the original card fairly consistently hitting the 100C limit before the graphics fan notches up.) I've since gotten a laptop cooler, and this has lowered the temps 5-6C.

I think the core issue is extended range thermal cycling of the board, which frustrates me to no end, because I believe it could be addressed if the graphics fan would simply trip at a lower temperature. without any additional cooling help, the high speed appears to kick in at 99-100C, and is able to cool down to at least 85C. if the high speed trip point could be moved down to 90C, things would be much happier, but I have not been able to discover any way to get fan control access.

has anybody found any way to gain access to fan control on the m9750 so I can avoid this problem in the first place?

 

Hi. i have the same problem like you gays, but i did remove the old HD fom the computer and replace a new HD and its worker purfect try it.

 

Just want to express my thanks to the OP for this fix-I thought my alienware m15x was dead for good so I popped my 8700GT into the oven for 9 mins on 385 (electric convection oven too) and was working like new.

Really appreciate the guide, this is a great fix!!!

Now I will have to make use of my new Asus g73JH coming in the mail :x

 

I want to know what the guy was thinking when he tried this, I bet he was pissed off at his GPU!

 

Not sure if it'll work on the m9750, (I'm sure I saw a thread that it does not work on the m17x as there have been no new revisions) but you could try this tool: Dell Inspiron Inspiron/Latitude/Precision fan control

I've been using it for ages on my XPS m1710.

 

it works great on my wife's inspiron 8500. unfortunately it doesn't do anything on the m9750.

 

I tried a similar process with my ps3, not to jump off topic to much, I used a heat gun instead of an oven, im thinking of ovening it now though.

Although its working again I get a crazy amount of polygon artifacts, which are theses long spike like polygons that stretch from something in the game, be it a wall or a face in the game.

Just curious is that fixable, I was going to open up the ps3 one more time and try the oven, but is it worth it?

 

Considering sony's repair costs and turn-around times are pretty good I personally would just send it to them to be properly fixed.

 

Its out of warranty (day 1 60gb) and ive opened it up..... twice pretty sure they wouldnt touch it with a 10 foot pole. Im partially getting the m15x or 17x to keep up with my gaming addiction, while at the same time getting a laptop for school. But Ive tried the fix with the heat gun I might aswell try the oven.

 

You can likely still get a bit of cash for it on ebay to apply to your AW...

 

Just wanted to update you all on the ps3, didnt work lol. Well maybe not yet , I did it and put it back together, and was still getting tons of artifacts, actually more now than before. But after letting it run for a bit and set it seems to be getting back to normal, less artifacts and junk. Ill see what its like when I get home after works

 

I'm tearing my 1710 apart tomorrow and trying this, although, maybe I should waite till I can't return my M17X, so my wife cant say "I guess you don't need a new computer after all". She has caught me making Marlin lurer's in her oven, cleaning chrome car parts in her dishwasher, and now repairing computers in her oven, this will be fun even if it does not work.
LeeU

 

hey so i baked my card at 385 for 10 mins and amazingly it works again with one problem .. its not nearly as good hah .. the windows benchmark stuff gave it a 5.5 when it used to get a 6.5 or so .. its a 9800m GT btw .. i mean in games i get good fps but it feels like theres a lot of lag .. i wanna say input lag but im not certian .. and its weird because it still shows good fps but i dont feel like im actually getting that good of fps! anyone else have this problem?

 

Thank for solution. I have baked NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 from my Toshiba P100 and it works fine.

 

reminds me what I did with my yellow light of death ps3 and my heat pistol.. worked like a charm too ^^

 

just worked for me too, I'm so happy to have my e1705 back!

 

I gave my sisters 9700m gts (from a qosmio x300) the oven treatment about 4 months ago. she was getting random black screens quiet often, a hard reboot fixed it but she was losing homework etc. So I told her let me fix your computer, I put in a preheated oven @ 200C for 7 min. Afterwards I told her what i did and she couldn't believe it.
So far its working fine haven't done any heavy gaming on it but it does what she need do.
Great to see others are having success even if it is limited

 

I have a Zepto 6625WD with a GF8600M GT and a black screen, but I am not sure it is the GPU that is causing it. I am not sure how to determine whats causing it.

When turning on the computer the LEDs next to the keyboard lights up, the fan starts but the screen is black and nothing else seem to happen. I am pretty sure that vista doesnt even start. I tried leaving the computer on for a while so I was sure that vista would have started up, then i tried restarting/shuting down the computer using hotkeys, but nothing happend. I also noticed that pressing CAPS-lock didnt make the LED for CAPS go on. Am I wrong thinking that this is not a GPU-problem, or atleast not solely? Any thoughts on how to solve it?

Update: I tried removing the harddrive - same result. I also tried removing one of the RAMs and testing them one at a time - same result.

 

thanks alot guys. just worked on my m9750 8700gt.

 

Another card yet lives. On the rig over seas and the barge engineers Alienware m5550 card bit the dust (7600 card). I bought it off him hoping it was just the card. I looked at upgrades and remembered hearing about this before and decided to give it a try since it will be two weeks before i am state side again to get a new card. I used a industrial oven, the type that has hot air blowing. Set it at 375 DEG and left it in there for 8 to 9 minutes. When i went to pull it out, it had fell off of the tin balls on one end. I cringed thinking all the flux may have shifted to one end. I let it slowly cool off, then popped it in, the Alien is back in business. Still planning on upgrading, but now i can see what i have in case i need a bios update for the upgrade.

 

just used it there. my old xps m170 had been sitting on the shelf for the last two years. now it's back up and running perfectly! thank you for this!

 

Do you think this would be good to try on a card that runs perfectly fine for everything but stressful gaming scenarios? It runs the pc fine yet if i play any games the driver crashes on it with TDR and it artifacts. I've also tried every solution known to man to attempt to fix the driver crashes so its not software related.

 

I cannot tell you how A Mazing you guys all are, as an absolute last resort I tried this tonight and Wehay it worked....Unbelievable. I cannot thank you all enough. When i was doing it however there was a tiny bit of arctic silver left on the core of the 9800M GT and the black surround of the core kind of curled up a bit at the corners as it was made of thin plastic. I removed as much of the Arctic Silver before baking and re applied some paste after letting it cool down.

I want to benchmark the Laptop now to make sure that the GPU won't catch fire or blow up so is there anything I can do to push the GPU to its limits and get it working really hard to try it out. What temperatures should I be seeing etc etc. Any extra help from this would be EXCELLENT.

Thank you so much YET again, thank you thank you thank you.

Alienwarez

 

I tried this this afternoon, unfortunately it looks like it didn't work, it would display before with lines everywhere and constant crashing, now nothing is posting.

However, in the oven 2 little metal bits melted off, I tried to solder them back on but didn't do a good job so that may be where I've gone wrong.

I'll try again later though and get back...

EDIT: No luck, blacklight is coming on, windows startup noises are sounding, but nothing displaying... Anyone got a Mobility 4850 they wanna sell ?

 

Been gone on a ship for over a year but I'm so glad this has worked for so many people.

Since I did this to my card (in my O.P.) it failed after 6 months. I told my wife how to remove the card and how to do the EZ Bake trick. It once again resurrected the card to life and has been working for more than 7 months now.

On a side note....one of the ships I was working on experienced an SCR (silicone controlled rectifier) failure due to a failed load sharing circuit card. Like many graphics cards, the circuits and solder spacing are very tiny and impossible in a shipboard environment to re-solder. We had no replacement card and the ship was dead in the water. So into the oven it goes. Long story short, it worked perfectly for three more weeks at sea until another card was installed.

Rob

 

has this worked for anyone with a black or blank screen? have a m9750 with a 8700gt and a black screen.

 

Yes. The first time i did it on my 7600go i had a white screen. A month later it happened again. This time i had a black screen. Did the trick again and it worked.

 

Just did mine yesterday, worked perfectly.

I had blue lines on my screen (see picture) on my Sager NP8660.

It has an nVidia 9800m GT inside. I removed it and all the casing till I got down to just the board and tried this trick and now it's working perfectly.

Attached some pictures too if anyone's interested.

 

this is weird. has there been an update on nvidias side lately? ive seen another card like this bricking in december,

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/540995-m860tu-sager-np8660-dead-video-card.html

and my friends card in equalant laptop model ed up as well.

 

I joined recently because I too have a Compal CL-56 that stopped working awhile back, and I found this post. Since I have really nothing to lose, I tried baking the card. Reading this post, I did 365 degrees instead of 385 at first to make sure I didn't burn anything. I left it in for 6 minutes at 365, and there was no discoloration or warping at all on the video board.

After cooling and testing, it still didn't work, but I think that's because it may be the motherboard and not the video that isn't working. I think next I am going to try baking the mobo as well and see if that helps. Like I say, it's a completely dead laptop otherwise, so I have nothing to lose.

I just wanted to comment on the fact that not all of these Radeon 9800M boards must be the same, or something got messed up when K-TRON did it, because I didn't have the same experience at all, using the same exact board.

I'll post again after I bake everything at 385 and see what happens.

 

Be sure to remove any plastic parts or parts that may melt

 

I am exactly in this situation.

8800m gtx on a area51 m15x - one day, after 1hr of playing as usual (no system changes at all), driver died on me (nvlddmkm stopped responding and has recovered).

Tons of troubleshooting, cleaning up (drivers and dust), memtesting, vmem testing, swapped out the ram with old sticks i had.. worked for 1 day, then 2-3 mins of 3d game, boom! crash, artifacts, self-shutdown.
If i dont play games, it boots up fine in few seconds and it's just amazing as usual.

Are these symptoms consistent? I'm really willing to give this trick a go, I can't have my laptop die on me like that right now, it will be months before I build a new rig (waiting for sandy bridge and all that stuff).

Thanks in advance for the answer and kudos to original poster - i knew about this for regular videocards, was wondering about mobile versions