My little experiment...

Well, as some know, my GPU committed suicide on me. From what I've read it seems like there is a bad solder or something on the GPU itself that after time gives way. It seemed like a solution to the problem was to take out the board and heat the area around the GPU with a blow dryer...

Well, I don't have the time or the patience to go through an entire disassembly, and even if I did I am sure I would end up with a few "extra" screws. So my solution is pretty simple- duct tape the vents and turn it on and put it under the bed cover and let her heat up.

I just checked up on it, it's burning hot... lolz. But I restarted it and the screen is working once again.... I am going to keep it on for another 10 minutes and hope that it doesn't completely melt and that the "new" solder holds on for good.

I will update this and let you know how things go... if it works, could be a pretty simple solution to a very big F'n problem. Do note however that my laptop was just sitting there collecting dust, so I really don't have anything to lose.

Update 1:
Well, I had to hold the power button for a good 3-4 seconds to turn it off, and in the process basically burned my finger... haha. The duct tape sorta melted to the laptop, but I removed it by using the scrub side of a sponge. The area that was duct taped seems to be a little lighter in color than the area surrounding it "probably" due to the heat. I turned it off and I am leaving it under the cover just so it "cooks" for a tad bit longer. We'll see in a few hours when I turn it back on and re-insert the HD if it keeps up.

 

Yeah people have been doing a similar trick to xboxes 360s that red ringed. Covering the vents gets the laptop so hot that it sorta remelts the solder and allows it to flow back into place and fixes the connections.

 

Oh ya? I thought I had a special idea/method... Well, as far as laptops are concerned, it IS a special idea/method!

So far man.... so good. I think. My Vista install is completely FUBAR but I am trying to fix it.... but so far, I haven't encountered any graphical anomalies.

 

What GPU do you have and what temperatures was it running at before it died?

 

you can bake the gpu in the oven. worked for many ppl. The thread is somewhere for this.

 

Most of the RoHS-compliant solders (SnAgCu) melt-flow at 217 degrees C and higher.

Careful with your plastic parts and the circuit board.

Boards designed to be soldered with reflow or wave tech are not designed to withstand oven baking at 217+ degrees.

 

Borrow a heatgun and only aim it at the GPU

 

The 8400GS was destined to fail anyway. As with some laptops with Dell and Apple that has the same card. Nice fix on the GPU. Now there are alternatives to the oven. Try a blowtorch next time it fails

 

It will fail again in the future.
My best guess is 3 months.

 

Yeah, this is only a temp. fix. I hate electronics that dont last more than 2 years

 

I had a very similar problem with a pci-express nvidia Geforce 7500LE. I managed to get things working with a blow dryer heading very near on the gpu (I think it was bad BGA soldering). The gpu then worked fine for a week or so, then the problem happened again. I think you may need something really (but really!) hot to melt soldering, and with higher temperatures the risk of getting everything fried is high too. :/

 

Well, during the performance check in my fresh Windows 7 install, it died.

I gave up on my laptop, disconnected the cables and returned it back to it's funeral state on a desk in an empty room with every intention of moving on until...

I did some research on the XBOX and it's issues, and it turns out there is a "towel" trick. It's main advantage over my duct tape implementation is that you don't have to worry about the tape melting onto the laptop. I basically was doing the towel trick but I had added the extra layer of duct tape to make sure the ducts were shut. The duct tape would eliminate all airflow, but I don't think it's worth dealing with the melted tape.

I have covered my laptop with towels, pressed the back of the laptop directly between a few towels and the wall to make sure they are pressed firmly against the back vent to eliminate most of the airflow. I am going to let it cook for an hour or two. Either it's going to work, and work for a few months, or this B is going to die. From what I gathered about the XBOX, some of the fixes lasted longer than others, and I attribute that to length/quality of the cook.

Worst case scenario, I return it back to it's funeral position, albeit a little melty.

Oh. I did take out the HD and memory and I lifted the screen up just in case it does work, I don't risk any of those three components.

Note: Regarding the other solutions such as cooking it in an oven and the heat gun and what not, all require too much work, at least for me. Taking apart this laptop would literally take hours of work...

Oh Oh. And while the towel trick has been around for the XBOX, I do believe I am the first to implement it on a laptop!

 

You could implement the liter of tap water on the power brick trick too.

Trying things that may or may not have been proven to work on other machines isn't really innovation. It is laziness (as you've noticed).

 

Ah. Ok?

You hurt my feelings?

lolz.

I am in med school my man... I don't have 3-4 hours to sit around taking apart laptops. Sorry.

Anyway.

I let it cook for about two hours... we'll see how it holds up. I am installing drivers and what not currently.

 

troll... What value did this post add to the thread?

The OP is trying to save his laptop through means that have been implemented on other hardware (xbox). How is attempting to fix a laptop lazy? It's his laptop and he can do whatever the hell he wants to with it. If you don't want to help, why bother posting at all.

 

Well, they do say that necessity is the mother of invention! My jaw hit the floor (and stayed there for a while) when I read your first post; now I'm really curious to see just what you can salvage with this technique. I would say (as I'm sure others have) that using the whole-oven method as you're doing is probably a blunt technique, and may result in heat damage to other components (like the cpu) and may cause some of the pcb components to start de-soldering. Nonetheless, you've got guts, my friend, so let us know how it goes (and how long it lasts).

 

Thanks for all the comments/support guys!

Well, since the last cook it's been running smooth. I've got Win7 (if you don't have it, get it) running and it's chugging along really smoothly. Heck, my temperatures seem to be a few C lower across the board. I don't know if that's because of Win7 or the cooking, but it's a welcome site nonetheless.

We'll see what happens I guess... but as it stands, if you have a laptop with a defective Nvidia GPU sitting there collecting dust, cover up the ducts and let it cook for a while, and odds are you will have yourself a fully functioning laptop. I really don't know how long this will last for but I guess if/when it fails again, I will just cook it once again.

I will update this thread in another week or if heaven forbid it fails before then.

Note:
I forgot to write that I have an 8400m GS and before it would generally be at 56-60C. When I would hook it up to my external monitor it would hit around 65-69C, but that's with under-clocking the max performance GPU profile to 300/200 from 600/400.

 

Bane ur the biggest defeatist i've ever seen. All you do is critise everyone and nver give any solutions. At least he bothered to do so. It's suprising that you haven't been banned from the forum

 

LOL, you do realize that I was praising the OP for what he is doing? You sir need to learn how to read/comprehend...

 

Wow! I must confess that I, for one, am still blown away by this, particularly your improved temps!

 

Well, that didn't take long.
She died on me.

I wanted to increase the heat levels in my laptop to cook it better so I got some aluminum foil and wrapped the vents with it and then wrapped it with many towels and pressed the back edge against the wall so the aluminum foil would be flush against the vents. This time, the laptop keeps turning off. I am guessing it has some internal safety measure where it turns itself off just before it melts? It's turned itself off twice so far but I've just turned it back on again for it's third and final cook.

All this heat and aluminum foil, all that's left is for me to baste it... haha. And to think I was expecting it to get through a week... oh well.

 

Ah well, what'd you pick to baste it with, a nice hot-sauce, perhaps?

 

lol... this is so funny it's sad. Ahhh man. Think I will go for some "Devil's Crotch" hot sauce.

 

Chili!

Seriously speaking, there's not much real hope. The only thing that might help at this moment would be to resolder the chip, but that requires special equipment and it is very tricky even if you do have that equipment.

 

If you dont really care about the laptop you can take it apart and put in the oven. It might not get hot enough just by wrapping it up especially if it automatically turns off.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1421792

 

Yeah but he already said he doesn't have time to take it apart... But if he'll take the time to disassemble it, sticking the motherboard in the oven for a few minutes sounds like a good idea indeed. Just make sure ALL plastic parts are removed.

 

If you are looking to cook the GPU and maybe not damage other parts such as your CPU.
Why not lift the gpu heatsink, and if its a combo cpu & gpu sink.
Then lift it, and place some non-heat transferable thin material between the sink & gpu.
Make sure its also flame/ fire resistant.
Make sure you maintain good sink contact with the CPU.
This should heat that gpu fast and save other components.
Or just search locally at electronic repair shops that have rework stations.

 

He's got time to screw it up repeatedly, but not time to take it apart and do things properly?

I guess we all know what you call the guy who graduates last in his class from med school..............

 

Be nice. You're going to be asking me for vicodin prescriptions soon.

 

Doctor, just like everyone else who graduated.

 

No Vicodin for me. I tend to enjoy the simpler molecules. Alcohol, NO2, etc.

Those complex molecules, drugs, etc, are casket rides waiting to happen.