Laptop is dead D:

Hello,
Recently my beloved laptop died while I was in the middle of Minecraft. the screen just blanked out (black screen with backlight) but the sounds and everything else was functional. (could hear myslef walk and hit stuff in the game)

So I searched around found out that it may be a gpu problem (igp in my case) and took the lappy apart to take a look. I tried:
-connecting to external display
-replacing ram
-replacing hdd
-pulling out cmos

no success on all of the above, so I may need to do a gpu reflow.

anybody has any good tips on this? and since I do not have a heatgun at home now, I will be purchasing this
also, how do I do the reflow without completly melting my mobo?
do I "shoot" the heatgun form on top of the gpu or from below the mobo?
what are the chances of this working?
lastly, I took the heatsink and fan out and found two chips, one saying

"Radeon igp 1034 MADE IN TAIWAN P3A286.00 216-0752001"

and the other saying

"AMD southbridge 1030 MADE IN TAIWAN P3F407.00 218-0697020"

which one do I need to "shoot" at?

My laptop specs are as such:

CPU: AMD athlon p340
GPU: AMD 4250 HD
Model number: acer aspire 4552



I am currently suffering on a pentium 4 computer I sourced from a friend and damn, this thing is slower than my phone D:

Thanks

 

reflow video: HP DV6000 Motherboard Reflow - YouTube

the GPU is the chip covered by you fan connected heatsink(should be)

the south bridge is: Southbridge (computing) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia so it does nothing related to your type of failure(should be, otherwise there will be no sound because the BIOs wont boot up to enable the speakers)

 

Hi!
Unfortunatelly you"re right. As a result of overheating the integrated GPU lost some contacts.
Your chance with heatgun - 50/50. It's very risky.
You need a reballing.

 

a proper funeral would be great

 

There possibly a chance if you can look on eBay where there are dealers that can reflow your GPU or replace the GPU chipset with newer one to fix the dreaded GPU problem. That would be where you look at and see if the fix isn't to costly and could bring back your computer to life.

 

just try the baking method The Oven Trick (repairing your broken video card with an oven) | Overclockers

make sure youve got some thermal paste like mx2/4 IC diamond etc before you turn the lappy on afterwards.

 

Damn dude, I'm sure hell not gonna toss my whole mobo into an oven D:

Reballing sounds fun, how do I do that? And what are the included risks with the heat gun? Its like the only choice I have D:

Sure, I'll like to do that when I get a new computer, wanna donate some money to me? ;D

 

Putting the whole mobo in the oven (as suggested in the thread offered) is the best/safest way of possibly getting the system to work (from what I have read here in the last few years).

If, of course, the problem is/was in the solder joints...

A 'proper funeral' is getting it out of your face (if it is indeed broken beyond repair) - it's just some well put together sand and metals, after all.


Good luck.

 

problem is, I do not have an oven at home, not even a microwave, so the heat gun is my next best choice...

and that is some really expensive sand and metal when I got it, now its just sand and metal, some plastics too D':

 

The future cost of the 'sand and metal' is effectively zero when it is (fully) paid for.

Don't confuse what you have paid in the past with what you should do now (with old/dying hardware)...

Try to save it. but not at any cost...

Do you have the heat gun? If you have to buy it - wrong choice. Also, the heat gun cannot melt ALL the joints evenly/gently - you'll probably do more harm (I think).


Go to your neighbor and offer them a cup of (future) sugar in exchange for use of their oven...

Either way, start comparison shopping for your next system.


Good luck.

 

Yeah I already have a nice spec sheet written up, I just wanna make that lappy fixed again so that I can sell it off to invest into my desktop

here:
rocessor+MotherBoard: ASUS M5A97 PRO + AMD FX-8320 - $376

Graphics Card: xfx hd 7770 black edition super overclock- $100 (from a friend)

PSU: Seasonic S12II 520 80+ bronze - $89

Ram: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz lowprofile (2x4gb) - $86

DVD Drive: Random one from asus - $30

HDD: Seagate 1TB 7200RPM - $83


Total:S$764 (prices in Singapore dollars)

anything I can cut down on price?

and I'll probably be shoving all the components into a suitcase with a screen so that I can bring it to school to do work

what do I have to do with that borrowed oven? and what do I have to do to the lappy's mobo before I shove it into the oven?

lastly, If worse comes to worse and I do not have friendly neighbors, what can I do with the heatgun?

 

Don't fall into the sunk cost trap. No matter what you do, you've already paid it and you can't do anything about it, so it's best to ignore it when you're making decisions.

If you have a friend or family member with an oven, you could ask them if you could borrow it for a little while. The even heating of an oven is much safer for the hardware than the random, uneven heating of a heat gun, as mentioned before.

 

As I mentioned check online or eBay and see if there are those that offer re-balling of you GPU to fix the problem at a reasonable price. Some swaps out the board and some will fix your GPU only. So look and see what the prices are and you will have a better idea of "Is it worth fixing or getting new laptop".

 

I just asked around, the only oven I could find only has a timing knob, and no temp control. and with the reballing services I see on ebay I would rather get a new netbook D:

 

USE LIQUID FLUX. it will help with reflow. I use kester 951.

 

The problem with a heat gun is the cooling. Once you turn it off the cooling is rapid and can contribute to cold joints happening faster. With an over it is best to bake it for 15 minutes or so then shut the heat off and open the oven door to let the main board cool slowly. This greatly reduces cold joints an should give you a longer lasting repair.

The best long term repair is a reball with a media that can withstand better the heat. This can then be considered a permanent repair done properly. This is best done by someone with a lot of experience.

 

If you reflow the IGP and then sell the machine, make sure to make that clear when you sell the laptop. Of course, if you get it done right so that the reflow is stronger than the original, feel free to advertise that fact, but selling it without mentioning the reflow at all is shady business.

 

Yeah I have read up online about the flux thing, which sadly, is really difficult to obtain locally. so I read up more, and I am currently on a hunt for 99% isopropyl which is also really difficult to obtain, only found 70% so far :/

can I like, slowly move the heat gun away from the chip while it cools? or switch over to a hairdryer or something?

shady, yes but I am currently really tight on cash and this pentium 4 is really unbearable. best part, oem motherboard, I can't even overclock this piece of processed sand D:

 

Update~

Yeah the heatgun worked out, along with some homemade rosin flux (old rosin that is used for the violin bow + some 70% isopropyl)
turned the heatgun to 320°C and pointed at the IGP for around one and a half minutes, let it cool down and it booted up nicely after that

 

Wow, nice success story... Glad to hear it. Now try to save some pennies and buy a new netbook or something. Anything will be better than that slow as molasses machine.