MXM GPU Baking

I have a number of dead or faulty MXM cards pulled from various Alienware machines and I think it's about time I try the oven baking/reflow technique to see if any of them can be brought back from the dead. Some don't work at all, some causes a system freeze/crash and one has a Code 43 that I can't seem to solve.
I have;
3 x GTX 880M
1 x GTX 780M
1 x GTX 675M
3 x Radeon R9 290x / 8970M

I've never attempted it before but I have read up on how to do it. Any tips or tricks would be appreciated.
Fingers crossed I have at lease one success from the bunch.

 

Here’s most of the stack I have for my Martha Stewart experiment.
Anyone ever tried this with a heat gun? I’d prefer not to use the oven.



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A heat gun isn't spreading the heat evenly enough. Time to start baking.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-bake-your-gpu-for-fun-and-for-profit.437683/

 

I dunno, I've had really good luck with a heat gun. I've done 30 or so laptops/MXM cards without baking.

 

I'm surprised to see so many 8970M dead cards. I thought 7970m 1.0 was the only bad card from those.

I have a dead 7970m and a heat gun, maybe I should try it on the 7970m lol

 

I only had time to bake and test one card last night. It was an 880M that was shorting the laptops board and shutting down the power adapter as soon as it was plugged in. I didn't have high hopes for this one working and it didn't. So far I'm 0-1
I baked another 880M but had to put the kids to bed and ran out of time to test it. I'm not really sure if I'm doing it right. My oven isn't digital so getting the right temp is a little tricky.

What the process you used? Did you just wave it over the card for a period of time or direct the gun at a certain area? I'm not sure what temp the gun works at either

I haven't got a test machine for the Radeons right now but I believe that all three of them would allow post to the desktop but they'd all freeze up shortly after. One of them was the slave card in an 18. It showed in Device Manager but wouldn't allow Crossfire. I tried it in the primary slot and wouldn't work.

 

Heat guns vary by maker but most get pretty darn hot. I put aluminum foil over everything I didn't want to heat up (shinny side up) to help protect it. In terms of technique I just slowly moved the heat gun over the package to try to evenly heat everything up.

Sadly it was very unscientific in terms of the heating time and what not, but it's been years since I've done it so I don't recall all of the steps I took. I wonder if there are any good guides out there for it.

 

I think this guide will be helpful . You can measure temperature with thermocouple. Don't forget to preheat gpu in oven to get rid of moisture.

 

I find heat gun actually works better than an oven for a quick reflow try. The airflow makes solder and flux vibrate a bit, increasing reconnect chance. I heat the card to around 110C with my BGA station's preheater, then go around the perimeter with the heat gun and this typically revives a card. For flat out soldering a core on though the IR heater is much better.

The main problem with a heat gun only is the uneven heating is going to make the card want to bend, so you may get the solder to reconnect, but as it bends back as it cools you may immediately break it again, or the solder connections are strained and are prone to refailure. For me the preheater helps combat this with not just the heat, but through giving mount points to clamp the edges of the card.

A thermocouple floating over the core like that does not work. It will report a much higher temp than what the core is. To get a good reading the probe tip needs to be right up against the surface and be coated in solder flux. For a quick rework try with a heat gun I just use an IR thermometer. It won't work on the reflective core, but it does work on everything surrounding it. These things aren't very accurate so you need to know how much yours is off by. When mine reads 240C is when the card is really at the critical 217C solder melting point.

Heat guns that say they are for electronics don't put out enough heat for a core. You need a big one meant for paint and whatnot. Use one with a settable air temperature.

Also 100% don't forget to prebake. If these cards have not been used in months their core packages will explode when heated. I have found 5h at 100C to always be sufficient. I have had the cores pop after just 3.5h.

In general using aluminum foil is bad. You want to heat the card as evenly as possible to avoid bending. Only use foil to protect radial electrolytic caps and plastic with substantial volume. You have neither of these on an mxm card, so don't use foil.

 

Thanks for all that info. I'm not sure if I should keep using the family oven for this, just in case I blow something up. My heat gun is for painting, etc so maybe I'll give it a crack. I'm sure the manufacturer has some specs on what it puts out.

I tested the second 880M I tried baking and got nothing. I knew I wouldn't get any luck with the first card as I think it was water damaged but this second card allows the system to try to boot but gives a black screen. Maybe I'll just throw them back up on the garage shelf.

 

Water damage is way easier to fix. Just find the blown FET or cap, replace it, and you're good to go. In general I am much more confident in fixing a card that doesn't power up than one that is artifacts or error 43.

 

Man, I wish you lived near me........

I'll probably give another one a go over the weekend and then call it a day if it fails.