Baking GPU's In The Oven

It can save a lot of notebooks and money!

 

gah iam so stupid so i tried it and thought it had to be in the laptop so it solders on right. the damn smoke dectors would not shut up for an hour and this all thats left :{ thank god it was an old vaio














this is what happened to my oven my roomate took this pic

 

Oh you.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonnyuk/2524137526/

 

Tip for the future; change the file name when you save it

 

u got me damn i did it got renamed when i put it on photbucket

 

I'd like to inform everybody that this process fixes the Vostro 1500-1700/ Inspiron 1520-1720 8600gt long-term issues.

I carried it out and the card performed better than new.

 

That's great to hear!

You are now like the 7th person this has worked for.

 

I am sure there have been many many others!

I am just waiting to hear about newer things that we can do with this!
I don't know... fix soundboards, CPU's, watches, batteries, cars, warts, althzheimers, AIDS etc...

 

No doubt.

I'm sure there are more than a few third party resellers that are hoping not too many people find out about this. lol

 

don't be using your oven for a while after cooking your gpu....

same thing that people do to fix xbox 360s....

or you could get a heatgun and do the same thing without risking your oven, and you can control where the heat is too... +1... $20 on amazon last i check, a decent variable temp heat gun

still have warranty on my m1330, so i won't try this yet...

 

I was able to get this to work also for my 7800 GTX; for a few minutes at least I disconnected the heat sink from the card, set my oven to 375 and left it in there for about 4-5 min.

Hooked it back up and ran a couple of high intensity games like Crysis. After about 10 minutes the card failed again. Guessing I didn't let the heat go to work on the solder long enough and once the card reheated it warped or something and was redamaged.

I will attempt to try this again and leave it in there a little longer, see what happens

 

Yeah, crank it up to 385 and once the oven is full pre-heated, put the card in and keep it there for 8 to 10 minutes. Then shut the oven off and crack the oven door open to allow the card to slowly cool for about 10 minutes.

 

I suppose there is nothing to lose right?

(Although my card is still on warranty so I'll wait till the warranty dies out before trying this).

One problem: People always say that excessive heat will kill your GPU. So why is it that even more excessive heat will fix it? I am confused.

 

Yeah, if it's still under warranty use that for sure!

I think there is a big misunderstanding about what happens when you "fry" a card due to too much heat.

IMO, what actually happens is microfractures are created when thermal expansion takes place between different materials. Repeated and/or excessive expansion causes a microfracture to to form in the solder.

Although not discussed in depth, I think most peoples perception of a graphics card frying, is something burning out within the actual GPU chip.

 

Excessive heat will kill your GPU... but primarily over extended periods. Plus, that's heat while it's functioning, which makes it worse. Plus, it's not really that heat is a problem - it's not that big of a problem. It's when the source of the heat is the component itself, the component usually ends up burning up.
The problem the oven trick is fixing isn't a heat issue - it's a broken solder contact issue. By heating it up, the solder melts and reforms properly... thus fixing the problem.
If your GPU artifacts because it idles at 90C and loads at god knows where, then this isn't the fix for you

 

I am wondering if this method will work on my HTC phone.
Last Week after i updated to a new firmware it dropped of my hand and its broken. Troubleshooting it i have concluded that i have a broken circuit that could be fixed by soldering that.

I'm a bit afraid to do this at my phone PCB because its a bit thick and i don;t know if it will withstand those temps,even thought there's nothing else left. the PCB is a bit thick.

 

Wow, since this technique got on peoples radar a short time ago, I've seen at least 10 or 11 people who have had success repairing their graphics cards this way, not to mention my own success.

From what I've seen, more often than not, it is not an actual GPU failure but rather a microfracture in the solder.

For years, people have assumed that when a card died that it was the GPU that burned out. Based on the very high success rate of this procedure, I question how many GPU's are actually burning out.

 

The GPU material is very strong and you wont fry it for 10 minutes, one of the reasons when we fry our GPU is
GPU architecture has lost of layers close to each other and as electricity flows the heat up from the resistance.

Some pars of the GPU heats up and some no and the average might be 100C but somewhere it might be higher, when the materials are hot they swell, and then a layer on top mught touch a layer at the bottom and it will met and it will became one circuit not 2 as it was before.

It may be defective or you might have a defective component. That's a different story. As for the Soldering problems this is it. As for other problems you might have to look something else.

 

Success! I followed rob41's advice and left the card in the oven for 10 minutes at 385 and then let it slowly cool down for an hour or so. Card has been working like a charm

 

That's super Riddler12!

And welcome to the forums.

 

rob your the miracle worker

 

i wonder how this would work on mobos with a soldered on gpu, like the xps m1530/1330, or my vostro 1710. you'll have to toast the whole mobo.
i'll try this when my warranty expires next year, cos that's typically when things fail.

 

there was a guy in the dell xps forum who got a bad m1330 mobo on craigslist for $300 and baked it... works (for now)

 

The more people find out about this, the harder it's going to be to find dead boards.

 

cool stuff!
my gpu is already showing it's age, it goes up to 86c just playing dod source, at stock speeds!

 

Why would you pay $300 for a deal board when a new working one is ~150 on ebay.

 

lmao ........

 

Well he said "Bad" board, could just have some kind of issue, doesnt mean dead. But yeah, 300 is alot considering its ~150 on ebay lol.

 

tried this again with a 9300m, this time it did not work. :/

 

I guess the maximum "try" is a few times only.
Because the solder might melt away or evaporate(slightly).

 

Could i bake a non functioning old NVIDIA 5600 fx card?

Of course i would take the fan off (just a clip)

would i need to take anything else off if it



Kind of like this really but different fan and no heat sink surrounding the fan.

 

Lead based solder.


I wouldn't eat out the oven unless you want to go braindead.

 

Are you sure all of them are lead based?


I have a 500F+ 2 hour burn scrub mode so I can enjoy a clean oven (just needs to be wiped) and also smile to a huge electric bill next month

 

They shouldn't be lead based but (they could be) i think people here should just be aware incase they are lead based.

 

Hmmm will try and find out hehe, dont need that happening :O i like my oven

 

After eating all the chemicals in foods nowadays I think a bit of Lead is the least of my worries...

Growth hormones, genetically modified plants and meat, preservatives, food coloring, artificial this and that etc...

 

Most PCBs have some lead and mercury in them.
The reason the nVidia GPUs are failing is the level of lead is too high and the level of tin is too low in the BGA.

Baking the GPU is surely releasing some of these chemicals into your oven. I don't know if it's an unsafe level, but I would probably bake a GPU and not sweat it... I just wouldn't do it a whole bunch of times and still want to use the over for food.

As for your heat clean Beatsiz, heat will destroy the bonds of dangerous chemicals and break them down to smaller components atomically... but since lead and mercury are already elements, those don't break down. Heat is not a solution to sterilizing something of heavy metals.

 

any one dying yet from doing this yet? anyone got cancer recently or mercury poisoning?

 

Nope, and keep in mind that the card is not in the oven for a few hours.

It's in there for 8 to 10 minutes which means only the outer surfaces reach 385F if they even get that high.

I accidentally left a small plastic insulating washer on my card and it barely warped at all. It was just laying on top of the card. So even the surface temps weren't enough to melt or deform the plastic. There was no odor or smoking either.

If I were doing this on a daily basis I would get a quality toaster oven.

 

Duh me...


But still, for the amount of time and heat, the solder is barely just becoming paste...

So I don't know for sure...


And I am actually positive because what if your GPU overheats?
I am sure they can't put dangerous of levels of Mercury in there anyways...

 

Actually, most people do not know this, but electronic waste is classified as toxic waste because of the levels of harmful heavy metals in electronics.

I'll say again though that I wouldn't be too worried about doing it once then eating from the oven.

 

well they can, gpus are never meant to be baked.

 

I'm hungry now
Seriously, I woldn't have the balls to put any chip other than the potato variety in the oven... I wonder if deep-frying in batter helps the Nvidia?

I'm off to cook something now...

 

I have a spoiled KingMax 8GB pendrive.
Can I put it to a oven and bake it??
Anyone??

 

Depends what is wrong with it. Usually when flash drives go bad, the flash memory has faults on it and baking it won't fix that.

 

Based on my researches, it is due to overheated.
So?

 

Putting a semiconductor into an over does sound a bit crazy, couldn't that damage it completely?

 

Do you mean the pendrive?
or you mean the graphic card?
I just want to try baking it if I can find my ancient oven in my hometown.

 

If the computer doesn't see it at all, it's worth a shot but probably won't fix it.
If the data on the drive just keeps getting corrupted, it definitely won't fix it.

And lewis is talking about any semiconductor, probably specifically video cards in this case, not your flash drive.

 

Put it this way...

A GPU is designed to handle heat. And I think the heat causes the cracks sometimes...

A pen-drive isn't even going to need a heat sink or whatrever