Baking a motherboard

I've had some laptop issues lately and the topic of computer repair has renewed my interest in something I was thinking about doing a couple years ago. I have a Dell XPS m1530 that has been sitting under my bed for quite some time, struck down by the usual faulty GPU black screen problem that was so prevalent.

I've been considering whether I should attempt an oven bake reflow of the motherboard to see if that works. I'm not concerned about the motherboard at all, rather, I'm concerned about the oven and apartment. I live with 3 roommates in a large apartment complex, so I don't like the idea of potentially toxic solder fumes lingering in the apartment or out in the hall. In addition, since I don't actually own the oven, I don't know if it would be a good idea to coat it in potentially toxic materials. Various guides have warnings about this, with some people saying don't use it in an oven you actually plan to cook food in, while others say it is alright if you clean it out.

Is it a bad idea?

 

You should consider talking to Commander Wolf (a moderator who often posts on this subforum), he wrote this thread on motherboard baking a while back ( here).

 

Don't. You're much more likely to do more damage. Take the machine to an electronic repair shop that does reballs, shell out the money, and that's that.

 

I'm not concerned if I do more damage to the motherboard. I haven't used the laptop in 2 years. I only want to try because it'd be nice to have a portable laptop again (Asus G73 laptops don't really fit that description) but if it dies then oh well. It's not a fix I'd be willing to spend money on, especially on a 4 year old laptop.

 

I baked a printer main board with similar main chip issues, and it worked out from the first time for me. 350 deg F (preheated over) for 8 min, then leave to cool off for 15 min without touching. Saved me a 500 USD multifunction printer now that's for sure

dont forget to heat shield the rest of the board (paper towels, then aluminum foil on top).

good luck, and post results.

 

I'm mainly wondering how strong the fumes are and how hard it is to clean the oven out after doing it.

 

The fumes are not that big, just put on some suction or put open some windows, you can keep them closed also, there is nothing special gonna happen and your good to go.
Nothing really gonna melt away, just put it there for 10 or 15 mins, don't know for sure and then test the baby.

 

Okay I have baked a number of laptop boards with success, I have also reflowed a number of boards with an SMD station with success. Both are decent methods, i say this because in order for it to work right the board has to be evenly heated which is easiest done in the oven.

What you really want to know is if it will do any harm to the apartments or oven. I have baked in our regular oven a few times, it makes smell which goes away after a bit. HOWEVER you must be sure to remove as much plastic and components as possible. The other things to keep mind is most stuff is RHOS these days and that which isn't usually has very minute amounts of lead. I'm sure is some minute level contamination but, i assume your are oven smells fine and one is sick, as to those lead warning you see on dollar store products, I have yet to have any offspring let alone offspring with birth defects so i'll report back on that in another 5 - 15 years.

I'm gonna nudge you in a direction based on my own personal experience and opinion, that is if your are only gonna do 1 board, get fan and have at it but, if you like me and it every now then you might, like me, consider a second oven for this kind of stuff, the cool thing is you could also use it for anodizing and powder coating or so i hear.

 

I haven't decided if I will do it yet, but isn't there some sort of liquid that you can coat the area in that helps with the reflow?

 

not even a concern.

 

BGA flux. for a long time i have been using clear liquid no clean flux and have yet to try paste bga flux, regardless you have one hell of a time trying to apply in baking process, this is where the Reflow is superior.

 

Huh. It actually worked. The only question is for how long, which considering my GPU is sitting at 60C with just the desktop open, I'd say not long. The thermal paste application may have been a little bit shoddy. But I can always hope I guess.

In the meantime I need to get everything updated, buy a new keyboard (I once spilled Coke on it. Even if Dell gives you faulty hardware, they do a pretty good job of protecting internal parts!), and hope my hard drive doesn't fail along with the graphics card.

 

use as5 thermal grease and cooper shims instead of thermal pads and if you don't have an air compressor use a tooth brush to clean out the heat sinks.

 

I did use as5. Copper shims might be a good idea however.

 

what temperature and how long did you bake it ?

pictures ?

 

385F for 7 minutes with everything except the top and bottom of the GPU covered, letting it cool with the oven door open. I forgot to take pictures >.>

 

i think 385f should work but, i usually go for 400 maybe a smidge over as most mobos use high temp silver solder. if you do you copper shims try and get a set of 600 and 1000 grit sad paper and piece of glass (photo frame) and lap it a bit they tend to have horrible high spots on the perimeter of one side. I use my finger nails to grip them and sing in one direction back and forth.

 

385F is not hot enough to do anything.
Most circuit boards use a high grade solder, which requires a minimum of 480F in order to re-flow. I find that 760F is a good working temperature for BGA reflowing with a soldering iron.
You can obtain much higher temperatures with a heat gun, but you really need to know what you are doing. If the board is not evenly supported, or heat is not applied evenly, your board will become droopy. When it cools, the inlet wires will crack and there is nothing that you can do about it. You also do not want to use a convection over, as any large temperature fluctuations or wind movements will cause solder to travel causing shorts elsewhere.
The moral of the story is, if you know what is broken, you can fix it more precisely with a high grade soldering iron in hand. I would highly recommend practicing on a junk Pentium 4 board or something you can obtain readily, before risking it all on a $500 motherboard.

Chris

 

Well 385 F seemed to work for the OP. You don't need nor want the solder to flow, you want to get is soft and reform slightly where it cracked before.

So instead of the oven, you recommend a heatgun, which you say can easily kill your board? Or a soldering iron, which I'm not sure how it is possible to do BGA?

 

this is not a soldering-an-element-on-to-a-board type of situation. Bake your mobo in 760F and may as well put it in the trash can after that.

 

Instead of taking advice, it is just immediately criticized. That is what I hate about this forum.
I came back on here after two sum odd years to get a question answered in another section, and figured I would share some knowledge.
Okay, maybe I should have proofread what I posted. The second sentence should have read:
"Most circuit boards use a high grade solder, which requires a minimum of 480F in order to re-flow. I find that 760F is a good working temperature for soldering."
Ive fixed over a hundred water damaged and heat damaged boards. If you know how to use a soldering iron and a heat gun properly, you can fix just about anything. I guess that message did not get across.

Chris

 

Any recommendations for cell phone boards? I've successfully baked a desktop board and a notebook GPU but now I get the privilege of trying to bake an HTC android main board and seeing if that helps it. I've already removed the board from the rest of the phone so it will be in the oven by itself. I'm just curious if the same principles apply to such a smaller PCB.

 

It is called a discussion. You critique other people's ideas, submit your own, and yours get critiqued in turn. There is no reason to take anything personally unless you honestly believe that your knowledge is unquestionably superior to that of everyone else and that everyone should take you at your word.

The first thing you said was that it wouldn't work, so you must not have read that it already did work. Then you recommend using a method that apparently takes skill, practice, new equipment, and can easily kill your hardware. So that doesn't really sound appealing compared to using an oven. Then you went on about a soldering iron being the best thing to use, even though that has nothing to do with BGA.

Also the point of the oven is not to completely melt down the solder and add or remove components. It is to get the solder a little squishy to mend a fracture or two in a solder joint.