DV9000 - broken GeForce Go6150 FIXED after "baking"!

A friend calls me today "i got some work for you".

Long story short, DV9420us, had been dropped, and as a result a couple keys got lost and it wouldn't turn on anymore. I take a quick look at the machine, lights up but no video and it kept on restarting. "It's gonna cost $50, and another $40 for a new keyboard if it works. It's got about 50% chances to be fixed, if it doesn't work you get your money back." Guy agrees, i leave with the money and the laptop.

I get back home and take it apart. I remove the mobo, remove the cooler and CPU from the mobo, wrap it in aluminum foil leaving only the northbridge/GPU (the 6150 is onboard) and southbridge uncovered, as to protect the other parts from excess heat. Preheated oven to 190C then put board in for 7 minutes. Took board out, let it cool.

In the meantime i was busy cleaning the cooler - serving as "thermal grease" for the CPU was a piece of TINFOIL glued onto the cooler. This is ridiculous, it's a 2.2GHz chip. On the GPU, there's this sh***y thermal pad. No wonder the solder broke even though the chip was epoxied to the board. I applied thermal grease to both CPU and GPU, the crap thermal pad will have to stay however, as i had nothing i could use as shims there.

Put everything back together, and voila, we get video. It still needs some minor work done (besides a new keyboard) such as replacing the touchpad cable as it works erratically, but it's running. Shown running Ubuntu as that's the only bootable disc i found around the house.

Oh and please excuse the mess - i was too lazy to make my bed. Pics:

 

How's the longevity of the method? I've tried the heatgun method multiple times and they all start failing again a day later. How's the risk compared to the heatgun?

 

Man, I hate getting calls like that lol.

With that said, I have to say that you impress me with every post. You actually put it into the oven for 7 mins to fix it?!?! Hot Dayum lol.

 

We're about to see i guess. A lot of people on HardOCP have fixed their GeForce 8 series cards like this. As for the risk, as long as you cover any potential sources of trouble, nothing bad will happen. I baked a mobo with broken PCI-E slots once. The slots didn't come back to life (the chipset was fried), but it didn't get any worse either, it still booted with PCI video, and no electrolytic caps blew (i had made little tinfoil hats for every one ).

@ RemyL75: Look up "wave soldering" and "reflow". However crazy it may seem, that's the way they are made at the factory. They do have better controls on their ovens, but hey, we use whatever we have at our disposal. As for work calls, i don't particularly love them either, but when they bring $$$ they're welcome.

 

190*? I found another guide that said it was 385. the nvidia GPU on my DV2000 die a few weeks ago and last week a few guys in the forum suggested putting the motherboard on the oven. I tried with no results I preheated the oven at 385 and left the motherboard for 7min twice.

 

385 fahrenheit = 196 celsius. Pretty much same thing. It doesn't work for everybody though, but it seems i was lucky.

 

I done this few time on diffent machine work good but did,nt last long hp i say problay got extra 4 months maybe

acer gpu i just did recently i have,nt had very long so don,nt know

 

lol.. sorry I didnt pay attention to C of Celsius.

 

Heating is a temporary solution, typically lasting 3 days to several months (if you are really, really lucky). It's actually the method most of less-than-honest or incompetent repair shops use a lot - instead of re-soldering a new chip on the motherboard, they heat up the video chip and return the unit to client in "working" condition. On AMD-based dv series heating up can actually temporarily solve several problems - from wireless to video (due to being located on the same chip).

Once video on Intel based dv series or wireless on AMD based systems stops working properly, the only true solution is replacing the chip (which is only $5-10, however labor is pricey).

 

Replacing the chip with a new one that will exhibit the exact same behavior after a few months. Not okay in my book. And i don't have tools for soldering BGAs anyway, nor do i want to spend more money taking it to someone who does, since it's not my laptop.

Btw, my 8400GS refuses to die even though i work it hard every day.

 

Update. Yesterday (after i had just found a replacement touchpad and installed it), the thing died again. Funny - i had to give the laptop back yesterday. This confirms my theory of thermal shocks killing them, as i had just came from the store where i bought the new touchpad (outside it was freezing and snowing, home - nice and warm). It worked once, then after a restart, no more video.

In one hour the thing had been disassembled, cooked again (still 7 minutes but i did 210C this time), and put back together. I also did the "copper mod" to the GPU - i sanded flat a coin, applied thermal paste to both sides, and put it between GPU and heatsink. Because of this, the board warped to the extent that i got worried about it, but it worked like a charm. I told the guy to let it charge for at least 20 minutes when he goes home with it, so it has time to warm up.

Today i'll go to his place and pull some data from it before we reinstall Windows (it currently has a XP that requests activation, it doesn't let you log on). We'll see if it's still in one piece. I got my money, still it wouldn't be too nice if it craps out again.

 

Okay, the laptop's back in here and has been baked again. Almost 5 months, not too shabby. I discovered the coin i had put in was made of crappy alloy, so i made an aluminum shim by hand.

Things are looking very good now. GPU temp is 71C under FurMark and 55C at idle. I think this took care of it properly, should be good till next year at least... I tried a thermal pad i had around before installing the shim, and temps were 64C at idle so no way. Thermal pads suck. I wonder when HP is going to figure it out too?

 

If your gonna do a "repair". Don't do a halfass job by baking it, use a hot air station and flux to reflow the chip.