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

I used to get driver errors and blue screens for a while before my 8800m GTX finally died on me - that is, began with the artifacts or how they may be called. After being told no suitable replacement existed (I understand the 260 does not work with the HDMI) I decided to do me some cooking.

So after 9 minutes at 200 degrees in the oven, here I am on my laptop which works fine for now. I don't know how long it will last, but I will post back once I have more news.







Many thanks for this solution!

 

I repair issues like this all the time at my store.

I have professional Infra-red reflow equipment which is what is kind of being accomplished here. We repair all kinds of BGA (ball-grid array) circuit boards. This is a good temp fix but won't fix it permanently. It's essentially the same issue as the Xbox 360 RROD.

After repeated heating and cooling cycles the solder balls start to stress and crack which causes the unit not to work properly.

 

Hmm, since I posted this thread on 5/31/09 the card I did this to is still working more than a year and a half later. It "feels" kind of permanent.

I'm real glad this has helped a lot of people. I haven't been here in a while but I keep getting emails about this. Kewl!

 

Hey, sometimes you get super lucky

 

Just to add, I got a notebook cooler, which I did not have, in the hope it would be of some use.

Had not problems up to now since the operation took place.

 

I should have taken pics, but i couldnt sleep last night, did a google search for "how to repair a GPU" and this thread came up. i looked around on other sites to make sure it was legit. 3 hours later, my SLI is back up and running. thanks!!!!!!

 

I actually stumbled across the term "baking" a couple of days ago, not even sure why. I must admit, I was wondering what it meant exactly and now I'm laughing my head off. There I was thinking it was some highly technical and incredibly risky procedure (a lot of people discussing it seemed VERY hesitant, so I just assumed it was incredibly complex) and now I find out it's actually baking the card in the oven! Oh boy did I laugh at myself.

 

Hi was wondering if someone might be able to help with cpu problem i am having with m9750 I just got a t7600 and the laptop blue screen and says acpi complaint put back in t5500 and it worked again hoping someone might be able to provide some help on the matter I know this is wrong thread but only one i could find that is revelant thanks

 

baked my 9800M GT. It's working fine

 

I have to say reading through the 21 pages the ratio of ATI's failing due to heat vs the NVIDIA's is staggering. I'm a fan of both but seems like I've had better luck out of my AMD's hardware wise but I like NVIDIA for the driver stability.

 

a heat gun on the surface mount chips will have the same effect, all you are doing is reflowing the solder pads

 

I have done this to 3 GTX 280 desktop cards which I use for folding@home 24/7 100% gpu load).

It is not permanent. each time you do it, it will work for less and less time.

 

because the oven method doesn't reflow the solder completely, a proper surfacemount hot air soldering gun does

 

Results will vary. It's been over a year and my wife's 9750 is still going strong.

 

this is not the best way to reflow!

I've done it before on several cards! and the result is always 50%-50%! it may and may not work!

reballing the chip is what works (permanently) here! there's a youtube videos that educates you how to do it without special equipment!

 

Erm, Razer, where's the link?

 

That's right Razer, the temps in this process aren't nearly hot enough to actually melt the solder. The process merely causes expansion and contraction which quite often is enough to restore operation of the card.

It doesn't always work and sometimes when it does, the process may need to be repeated.

There are dozens and dozens of folks who have done this and it has worked fine. For those people I think it has saved them a great deal of money. For those that it didn't work, I don't think it hurt too much to try.

My 9750 has become long in the tooth and I'm not going to spend several hundred dollars for a replacement card. Since this process didn't cost anything, my wife is still enjoying the laptop.

Since I and most folks don't have a reflowing facility at their disposal, this seemed a viable free alternative.

 

Let me briefly share my experience with heatgun reflowing.
Recently, I successfully reflowed a black-screen 8800M GTX from an M570RU with a 2000W heatgun capable of temperature adjustment between 100 and 600°C.

To minimize oxidation on the solderballs during reflow procedure, I injected "Löthonig" (rosin) Löthonig ? Wikipedia diluted in rubbing alcohol under the BGA with a syringe (from all sides). After the BGA was fully "soaked", I evaporated the rubbing alcohol with a conventional hairdryer and repeated the process in total 5 times. Then I carried out the reflow.
I had the card wrapped up in aluminum foil with only the chip + 0.5cm exposed to protect the surrounding smds, then slowly heated up the entire card to approx 120°, and then gave the chip a good roasting at approx 250-260° setting until things started to get "smelly". Stayed on course for around 15 more seconds, then quickly and successively reduced the heat and finally let the card cool off for around 20 or 30 minutes.
Popped the card in, and it worked again. Since then, I've carried out a few gaming sessions of around 30-60 minutes , card doesn't go beyond 65°C, and it seems to be stable. Of course, the question is how long it will last, but for the time being, I've got a pretty good feeling about it.

 

The easiest most effective way to perform this task is with a heat gun, or take the bare exposed chip to an electronic repair shop where they will be able to do the same thing in a matter of seconds with surface mount soldering/desoldering guns

 

Well after paying for a reflow service earlier this year I was well happy to get my 2x 8700 GT 512MB back & working, but now they've fried again!

Something will be cooking this weekend & it won't be chicken - wish me luck!

 

I'd just like to say a big thankyou for this method, Rob41.

I am indeed now a "Believer" this can work. Yesterday my graphics card was in the hands of a technician who does most of my computer repairs, he couldn't do anything he said due to not having specialist equipment to actually determine if it was indeed the graphics card thats gone kaput, so i took it upon myself to try the baking method as when i played games on my alienware m15x it died after 8 mins making a strange buzzing sound and the screen freezing. After the baking 3 hours in and the game i was playing still hadn't crashed!

So much to the confusion of my mom witnessing me popping in a computer component into her brand new oven I sat back and watched my timer on my Iphone, here are my steps incase anyone wants 'em

*preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius (385 degrees F) for 30 mins
*remove graphics card and place on 4 balls of tin foil
*Make a sheet to go underneath the balls and curve over the top of the card like a shield, this helps if like me, you have a fan in the oven and dont want the solder to accidently blow/move
*pop the card ontop of the balls and leave for 8-10 mins(i gave it 9 mins)
*Once the timers up turn off oven and leave it inside for 10 mins
*After that, take it out, and leave on the side for a further 20 mins
*Voila! La chip de Graphiques

I must say thanks yet again though, i was dreading having to buy a new graphics card, hell even a new laptop just because of this problem.

 

be aware that to date, 100% of anything I "baked" has eventually failed in the same original manner. (within 8 months) so keep that in mind if you decide to play heavy games on it after baking.

 

You're welcome, and I'm glad to hear this has helped you as well!

True enough. This seems to be the case most of the time. Although I have one card that has stayed in service since I started this post, another card of mine and most others need "re-treatment after a period of months. As long as it save people some money or buys them some time till they upgrade to a new system I'm happy.

 

after i cook my NV Geforce GO6800 256Mb, 256 Bit ITS WORK MAN ty so godto see my old laptop working. I was thinking to buy other video card ,but thanx to YOU i made-it +10

 

guys, this alienware discussions but im having serous issues with my nvidia Geforce 8400m gt gpu graphic card after upgrading my computer to windows 8 preview. i have downloaded some drivers from lots of sites including nvidia main site but all to no avail. can any one help?? i cant play games or watch movies.

 

oh I'd have been very sceptical about doing that, adopting very early versions of windows OS's is risky at best, if it ain't broke don't fix it, if you can roll back to W7 that is prob your best bet.

 

Question - is the purported post-bake life of a few months only there if games are played? I'm wondering if it might stick if the laptop is only used for everyday stuff, but no games. Does anyone have experience with how long that would keep the laptop working normally?

 

There's basically no rule of thumb, it all depends on the solder and temperatures.

But if it's not yet broken, don't "fix" it.

 

Well, mine was broke for a while so I took a chance and fixed it. Went late into the night mainly because the reassembly took time. Still to see whether it lasts more than 5 minutes. The initial test seemed fine, except that the system froze after 5 minutes of turning on (no activity was done after power-on).

 

Thanks for this guide - I'd just like to add that this got 4 video cards working for me, an 8700m-GT from an m15x r1 (sloww and already replaced with 9800m-GT ) and 3x 8800GT cards that were at different levels of broken.

Just the usual method of pre-heating the oven and a baking tray to 200C (in the UK here), putting the cards on the tray with tinfoil balls and tinfoil covering plastic bits / capacitors then waiting 9 minutes and cooling down very slowly.

One thing that worried me was that my fan assisted oven vibrates very slightly because of the fan but it seems that didn't harm anything

 

man this was by far the best thread I have EVER read, thanks! also nice job cooking the GPU just right really, congratz on succeeding, well, even trying

 

I Wish i can do that, but mine is completely Dead.. and nothing i can do about it...

 

tonight my replacement card died during a routine reboot, after less than two years of service. my first card lasted just over two years.

I only gamed on the replacement card for its first six months, and otherwise babied it with additional cooling, leaving the system in one place, not subjecting it to thermal cycling, etc... hopefully I can run it through a reflow oven and bring it back to life. a bit disappointing for a system that is only four years old.

 

What is your system and graphics card?
Good luck on your revival attempt and keep us posted here.

 

THANK YOU! I did this on my Dell XPS M1330 and it worked! i don't know how long it will last.. but I am hoping for a few months at least..

 

GREAT SCOTT!! IT WORKED!!! OMG, O-M-G, IT WORKED!

My 8800m GTX has been on the fritz in my Clevo D901C for a few months. I could boot into Windows 7, but it was stuck in VGA mode, and the nVidia software didn't find the graphics card. Linux just gave me the whacky screen, and the external monitor stopped working. I didn't do anything, just one morning the screen was weird and I had no accelerated graphics.

I did go to eBay and purchased a replacement video card of the EXACT same make and model of my broken video card, just so I knew I shouldn't have any problems. Well, the replacement video card didn't work (and I will be sending back for a refund). But, while I was trying to weigh my options I stumbled across this thread. I followed the directions with the additional step of leaving it in the oven for 10 minutes with the oven off, and then cracking the oven door to cool for another 10 minutes, before taking it out and letting it cool for an additional 20 minutes. My wife thought I was crazy.

Eventually I put Arctic Silver and the heatsink back on and installed the component, did a little rain dance prayer to the Geek Gods for luck, turned booted up the laptop with no weird characters, went into Windows 7 with no problems and I had accelerated graphics. The nVidia software found my video card and Linux booted up perfectly! I ran monitoring software all night and did benchmarks to stress the card. IT IS WORKING!!!! QAPLAH!

As an addition to my man card, this past weekend I took apart our broken clothes dryer, replaced the mother, reassembled it, and now have an almost-brand new dryer working perfectly. My wife wanted to spend an arm and a leg on a new dryer. I showed her!

I feel like I'm McGyver.

 

Fix applied 1-7-2012, Died again 3-18-2012, so the fix lasted over 2 months. Instead of taking everything apart and sticking it back in the oven I just covered everything in foil and used a heat gun at low for 3 min and at high for 30 seconds and it seems to have done the trick, here's hoping for another 2 months..

 

You're very welcome! It's great to see how many people this has worked for. There were many doubters in the beginning, but it's hard to argue with so much success.

I myself had one fail after only a few weeks, another lasted about 6months and there is one I did early on that is still working perfectly.

Game on!

 

Hmmm...

This solution sounds almost more like a big joke than a real fix! But Too many people tried it and said it worked for them to just be a joke! So I'm really temped at tring it with my old Nvidia Geforce Go 7950 GTX... It unfortunatly slowly and painfully died last summer after 4 years of very good services. (black screen(but windows sounds) when trying to turn the laptop on after save modes or when turning it on, had to disable it to be able to use the laptop ''normally'' but with no games other than Baldurs gate that can run without any GPU..).

Since I was thinking about replacing it with a used card from online stores, I rather try this before ordering.

I'll still try to see if there is any other fix and make sure the problem is only my GPU card with the help of a specialist and if not, I'll bake it and let you know how it turned for me.

 

My Alienware Area-51 m15x has an ATI Mobility Radeon 3870 with 512 MB. It recently went dead after 2 months of use. The video would show for about 2 seconds for 3 days, then no video at all. Switched to using integrated for a month, then decided that I would have nothing to lose by baking the 3870.

Baked the 3870 at 385 F for 8 minutes, let it cool, put the paste on it, put it back in the MXM Slot, and started my system.

AND........VIDEO CAME UP!

Thanks.

 

cooking in the oven? for real??

 

Hey, all I know is that my graphics card functions again and I don't know for how much longer, but the oven definitely booted life back into it.

Yeah if you ever need to do it, preheat your oven to 385 degrees F, then put your card in for 8-9 minutes (NO LONGER THAN THAT THOUGH) and then let it cool with the oven door open. Once its cooled, put it back in your system.

Of course this most likely works with all computer parts, like the motherboards, etc.

So yes for real. Try it if you must.

 

I bought this on ebay:
AS IS Alienware m15x Video Card GeForce 8800m GTX | eBay

I thought I would get what you see in the photo (a 460m MXM 3.0 GPU).

I actually got an 8800m GTX that was not working (nothing on the screen at all).

I followed this guide (almost). I did only let it cool for 7 mins before sticking it back in the notebook (I don't recommend this, but I was impatient).

It works well now.

That's the first card that this actually worked on for me.
I tried it with a g84 core, G86 core and a 3870m without success.

Now I know that $100 is a lot to waste on a dead card, but I really thought I would get what I saw in the photo (460m).

Oh well, now I have something to use in my old m17.

 

Another success story.
My Dell Precision M90 packed up. Think it overheated and crashed. Turned off/turned on, system would boot but no display. Plugged into external monitor and it did show bios and windows XP boot screen, but thats as far as it would go - would not load windows. Also bios/dos text appeared corrupted.
Went to try and buy a replacement card on ebay but was stumped by the price - nearly half the price of the laptop. Some more google searching led me to this forum.
I couldnt believe what I was reading, but I was certain it was my video card at fault, so I thought what the hell - lets give it a go.
I extracted the video card, removed the heatsink, and placed the video card on a foil tray on top of 4 balls of tin foil (and tin foil wrapped around the plastic connectors to aide protection), put the oven on to 190C (fan assisted) and gave it 9 minutes in the oven. turned oven off and opened the oven door for 10 minutes. Removed the video card, and placed back into heatsink chassis and quickly tested before re-assembly. To my dis-belief it worked!!! I dis-assembled the heatsink assembly again and ensure I used a good thermal compund (formula 5 - silver based) for premium conductivity, and re-assembled the whole thing. Also downloaded the dell fan control software mentioned earlier in one of the previous posts. I am now typing this on my recovered M90 laptop. Still got to try some 3D gaming out, but so far so good.

So THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, everyone for this amazing trick.

Bootlegger

 

Asus GTX 260m success story here. My system has been freezing randomly, and it's been driving me up a wall. I baked at 420 F for 12 mins, and it hasn't frozen yet. Will update in a week or so.

 

Hi my graphic card is also dead, and kind of certain is not a software problem, what is other hard fix before trying the oven way. Many thanks!

 

I registered myself to this forum precisely to let this message: THANKS A MILLION!
I try this method with my dead 9800m gtx and it worked like a charm

 

Even though it's been nearly two years since the last reply, I'd like to report, that it still works. I just retrieved my old M570RU, which I gave to a close relative of mine a few years back. Said relative reported the notebook dead, something about only stripes on the screen and asked me, if I wanted it back.... I removed the video-card and put it in the oven. And now it works again.

Thanks for the advice!

 

Ive done this with GTX 280's back in the day. They warped abit under high temps and pressure form the waterblocks over a few years and being used 99% of the day at full capacity. The convection over fixed it (I always rebake cards, as first line of fixing it, and the microfractions wich are infact what the cause is. Becaureful to cover up sensitive components like your capacitors and diodes and resisters, I used black electrical tape and some insulating cotton when I put it in the over. Like dressing a wound. the place without the tape is hotter, cause its not insulated. works great