How to save your broken GPU (Znote 6224w, but works for all brands and modells)

Hi everyone, I just want to share how I saved my 6224w GPU after it stopped working. The principle of this guide is the same for all GPUs and for a better guide regarding GFX cards see this link http://www.overclockers.com/the-oven-trick-repairing-your-broken-video-card-with-an-oven/

The link above was the guide I modified when saving my Znote, but before you get started remember that this is, for many, only a temporarily fix and sometimes the GPU stop working again, also after a couple of runs in the oven the trick often stops to work. Also befor you start, make sure you know about the basics of "computer building". But let me also add that professionals actually use this trick when repairing your motherboards with integrated GPUs.

If you're not a 6224w user I still suggest you read the notes under each step as it could be useful for you as well. Also this goes for all users read the entire guide and the link first before starting.

Step 1
Buy a set of mini screwdrivers and some thermal paste and start to disassemble your laptop. Be sure to use a paper and a pen to create a map witch later tells you what screw went where otherwise you will end up with 5 extra screws when you're done, NOT GOOD. Also taking pictures is good to remind you of how the cords where placed and where the different components where.

Note for 6224w users.
Well I had some problems with the four screws under the battery and the three screws that get visible when you remove the DVD, since I couldn't get these loose I used brute force. This resulted in the plastic around the screws broke and the screws poped out, sure sounds reckless but doesn't leave any visible marks unless you inspect it closely and the screw weren't exactly vital.

Step 2
Now make sure all components that can be removed are removed from the motherboard including all the heat sinks, if your GPU has a protective anti static film on it then remove it as well or it will probably melt, but save it has you need to re attach it later.

Note for 6224w users.
Ok the GPU actually has two heat sinks one is the big copper one and the other one are the two metal plates on the front and back of the GPU remove these as well and the anti static film from the GPU, but save the film as you need to reapply it later.

Step 3
Here comes the tricky and part, you now have a motherboard with only its integrated parts left on and not all of it can stand the heat you want to expose the GPU to. Now there are two solutions, one is to use a heat gun or what it is called, it's basically a industrial hair dryer, I didn't like that idea since I saw problems with getting the temperature correct. The other solution is to heat up your oven to 195C(385F) and bake it like a cookie .

Now if you are putting a entire motherboard in the oven you want to minimize its heat exposure to the other parts and I did it in two different ways. One was that I preheated the GPU with a hairdryer form a couple of minutes, this shortens the time in the oven since the first 2 mins in there would be the heat up time. Now the second part is the tricky one and might also be redundant, I had no Idea if the other components on the motherboard could take the heat or not, but to be sure I built a protective shell of tinfoil around the entire board so that only the GPU was visible. Now remember that tinfoil conducts electricity so make sure it doesn't connect with the circuits. What the foil does is that it protects the other parts of the motherboard from direct heat from the oven.

Note for 6224w users.
I first preheated the GPU for 5min with a hair dryer and then started to wrap the board in tinfoil. Did I care about not touching the circuits with tinfoil, NO I didn't, I just made sure I wasn't statically charged, then I used a lot of foil and just raped it around the motherboard except for the GPU part . The reasons around it is that the chance of destroying a circuit with static electricity is not that big, also buy using a lot of foil you disperse any possible charge and even further reduce the chance of burning a circuit. I could be wrong in my reasoning here so you choose if I'm right or if I'm a lucky idiot. After I wrapped it in foil I heated the GPU for a 2 min with the hair dryer again but kept it angled away from the rest of the motherboard. after that I tossed it in the oven for 4 min and then let it cool of.

Step 4
Take your time and reassemble the laptop and be sure to replace all the thermal paste. Then boot and hope it worked for you.

I hope this will help people with the GPU problems.

Also if you think I'm wrong on any part or if you have a better solution then please reply and I will glady modify my post with your remarks. Alos reply about your success or failure to fix your GPU with this guide.

Updates:
You can use a hotair gun as feLixM mentions on page 2 of this guide, I didn't mention it before in the guide and i don't recommend it because of the problem with controlling the temperature you expose the motherboard at.

A summary of the results posted by ppl that tried it looks very promising. I my self still use the laptop with out any problems thats +7 months now

I have also noticed some ppl are troubled by the overheating issues that plague most 6224 users. My tip is to use undervolting on your cpu, it drastically reduces the temperature without any performance loss . here is a guide I found with google, I didn't follow this one when I set i up on my zepto, but the guide I folloew is in swedish so I will refer you o this one instead http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardware-components-aftermarket-upgrades/235824-undervolting-guide.html

 

First, I think your guide is pretty good. I did some things different, but it works for about 3 months now, playing games, carrying it around etc. I don't think its some anti static film, my guess is it's just some plastic to protect the chips and I never put it back on. Also I don't preheated anything except the oven and left it in there for about 8 min.
I have 4 screws left and I know where 3 of them belong to, the dvd gets powered but not recognized, I should probably have used tinfoil for the ide connector at least

 

Thank you for making the guide.
I just performed the oven trick with my Zepto 6224 with success
Didn't preheat anything, but had to bake it twice before the display lit up.

I have 3 small screws left and missing one big. I should probably have written down, where each screw belongs, as suggested in the guide...

 

Hi guys,
I am new at this forum, because I have the same problem, the screen is black and the gfx dead. Now I want to try the oven trick, it sounds very simple and great
But now I'm not sure if I should bake just the videocard itself (picture A) or the whole mainboard (picture B) or both(A plugged in B).

Picture A:


Picture B:


Thanks for help

 

In your case only the graphics card.

 

Here are some pictures of my try. It worked.

 

Normally you just make some small balls out of the tin foil and make the card balance on those in the corners.

 

Hehe well no one is perfect and I'm glad it worked for you. Please hit this thread back if it breaks again or post that it's still working after 2-3 months. So that we can get a idea of howl long this works.

What ReneSDK said, you want the heat to hit the entire GFX not only it's GPU part. So to other people with a removable GFX, just put 4 balls of tin foil on a sheet of tin fiol and the GFX on the balls. cuz if its possible you don't want the foil to touch the circuits since as I said in the guide it conducts electricity.

Glad it worked for you Phil5 and plz hit the thread back and tell us when it breaks again or if it's still working.

 

It actually stopped working within a week! However, yesterday I baked it once again. This time in lightly more than 200 degrees (Celsius) for about 15 minutes. I'll be interesting too see if that makes a positive difference.
Unfortunately I managed to break the tip of the cable connecting the mouse pad, so now I'm stuck using an external.
But... for now, just glad the GPU has come to life!

 

Yesterday my zepto died again, while playing starcraft with a few friends. The whole system became slower and I got about 1 frame every 3 seconds, after a hard reset fan and led gets up but no screen, as before. Baking lasted about 4-5 months and taking it apart again is twice the fun..

//edit
it worked, again. first boot up took some time before the screen came to life, but there was a wonderful black on white zepto logo ♥

 

Yesterday I disassembled my 6214W. It has been lying in a corner for about a month now. The GPU showed my just a white screen with fractions at boot.

The disassembly prosses was horrible. I sat for 5 hours trying to figure why the computer would not split. I finally found a screw close to the CPU (the little bugger).

I got the motherboard out and covered it with tinfoil. I covered everything except the GPU. I removed the film covering the GPU and set the oven to 200 C. I baked it for 10 minutes and let it cool for 20.

The assembly was more annoying than expected. Why the heck is the bluetooth module glued to the motherboard? I had most problems with the wires. I was not sure where they should lay exactly so I just placed most of em where they could fit.

I connected the main components and tried to turn it on. But it was all dead. I banged my head against the wall regretting cooking it for 10 minutes not following the instructions here. But than after a while I noticed that the dice shaped connector wich you plug in the AC-adapter was a bit loose. I applied a screw close to it in the back and hen it was solid again. Another try with the powerbutton... YAY!! I got even more happy when I saw the flawless display showing the Zepto logo YAY!!

My GPU died while I was playing Wow. First I got lots of artifacts and then the whole screen scrambeled. Since I bought a desktop a few weeks ago. I won't be using this computer for games anymore. Mainly because I want it to last longer. With good fan cleaning and changing thermal paste on both CPU and GPU I guess I can drag atleast one more year out of it.

 

Well, now it's my turn...

The first symptom was a vertical colored line, after a little time it disappeared.
Now I can’t boot in regular Window mode, only in Safe Mode, after Uninstalling the Nvidia drivers I’m able to enter.
Other symptom is the BIOS display, with many pink vertical lines …

“They, really, don’t make things like they used to”. This week another electric appliance died, bought in the same time that my laptop.

 

You know, it's not by chance that most of these gpu failures come from Nvidia...it's almost as if they're time bombing us so that some of us have to end up buying new replacements once warranty has passed, or we literally need to buy a new notebook. It reminds me of that whole "does Sony rig their batteries to die earlier?" controversy a while back.

Having all these gpu failures.... could it amount to a class action lawsuit?

 

Just turned the laptop on, and I managed to enter Windows normally, but after some seconds it froze.

Do you think I can still save this ?
What is the origin of the problem ? Is it termic, I'd never clean it or open it, maybe is a good idea to do that and see if it fixes it.

 

I've had the same exact issues you're having right now, and the bottom line is that there is nothing you can do on the software-end of things. It most likely has to do with poor solder quality of the gpu finally getting deteriorated to the point of failure. You can go ahead and try the "oven fix" if you're over warranty and have no other repair means, but do so at your own risk.

 

Hallelujah, it works!
That felt really weird but after a black display for three weeks, it lit up like a christmas tree

 

I've just always had my 6625WD suffer from overheating... Browsing youtube would make the GPU go up around 90-degrees on youtube...

i tried to open it a while ago, and sort of broke the keyboard.. gah. I wonder if I should try and save it... was such an expenssive computer.

Worst purchase of my life

 

Hi there,
yesterday I tried to repair my Znote 6224W not with an oven but with a hotair gun. And what can I say? IT WORKED! I didn't disassemble the whole laptop but only the keyboard, the overall plastic part and the coolers. All other things were saved from the heat with normal aluminium foil. I heatended the chip of the GeForce for 2 minutes and then assembled the whole laptop.
Just some minutes ago I installed a fresh Windows 7 with all drivers, even the one for the graphiccard.
So the whole thing can also be done with a hotair gun and without an oven. It's exactly the same repairmethod than the one for the XBox 360. I did that one too some time ago and it worked for me too
So happy heating_up_your_znote @ all ;-)

 

Another positive from this fix, my znote 6625's gfx died the other day due to overheating I guess, followed this guide but had to snap the screws off near the battery compartment due to them being made from the tiest metal ever and going thread bear <^>(^..^)<^> (bare) after 2 turns... Shoved the card in the oven for 4 mins and laptop now works again! hurray! amazing guide thanks.

*edit* how long before my gpu actually does bite the dust then?

 

My GPU died also I think. Not sure, I had the problem that my screen just stays black after standby and now, after restarting it, logging in, trying an external monitor, it just doesn't work anymore!!!

It's like a lot of other pc's, also Mac's. I had the black screen after standby already when I was using XP but with Win 7 it was fixed. Until some time ago and now I just don't get any screen anymore neither by using the external screen buttons. I tried rebooting a million times but nothing happens. I hear my computer launching, I hear the sound of Win 7 but no screen, nothing at all! So probably broken GPU no?

Gonna wait for a few days and if it won't work, i'll make some baked GPU also anyway, getting a new laptop in 2 weeks but it would be a shame to lose my Znote 6224W

Even my hinges of my screen are broken for already 9 months and Denned USA has 'sent' me replacements but haven't received anything and now they don't even reply to my e-mails anymore... Zepto was 2 years of problems and a big waste of my money

Thanks for the cooking guide!! I'll keep you guys posted!

 

So a quick update on my situation it seems its happened again, apparently I can't have my laptop running a game for long periods of time cause it just screws up again oh well! Lesson learned when buying expensive equipment, go with well known massively huge companies lol

 

Happy baking ! ! !While you are at it through in some cookies too....:smile:

 

Sounds like the exhaust vent from the fan is cloged up with dust. Have you removed the fan and the cooler to clean out the computer with high pressure air? Also try this helps A LOT http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardware-components-aftermarket-upgrades/235824-undervolting-guide.html

 

I have a 6625WD with a black screen, but I am not sure it is the GPU that is causing it. When turning on the computer the LEDs next to the keyboard lights up, the fan starts but the screen is black and nothing else seem to happen. I am pretty sure that vista doesnt even start. I tried leaving the computer on for a while so I was sure that vista would have started up, then i tried restarting/shuting down the computer using hotkeys, but nothing happend. I also noticed that pressing CAPS-lock didnt make the LED for CAPS go on. Am I wrong thinking that this is not a GPU-problem, or atleast not solely? Any thoughts on how to solve it?

Update: I tried removing the harddrive - same result. I also tried removing one of the RAMs and testing them one at a time - same result.

 

thats exactly how my znote was before I backed it

 

I have now baked my laptop for the second time. The first time lasted a few months.

Here are some tips to keep your computer not freezing up again:

1. Stop gaming on the computer.

2. Set the Maximum Processor Sate in Windows 7 down to 80 % (to reduce heat inside the computer).

3. Download "Powermizer Switch" to set powermizer on when connected to AC (downclocks the GPU and reduces heat).

4. Disable "Hardware acceleration" in Adobe Flash to not use the GPU to accelerate flashmovies.

5. Allways shut down your computer when your not using it. Leaving it on will build high temperature inside the laptop.

6. Flip up the keyboard once every two months to clean out the fan.


I guess this will leave you with a usable computer for a few years with carefull use.

 

Never thought this would work. But it did!!!!

 

My Zepto Znote 6214 stopt working properly 3 moths ago: it kind of only worked i when i had no graphics drivers installed, so i concluded Nvidia 7600go was borken. Since i thought it couldnot be fixed the notebook gathering dust for the past few months.

Then tried googlin zepto and Graphics related problems and came across this thread. That was a week ago. At first i coould´t believe what i read, i thought i was some kind of a joke, but then after a little bit more googlin i decided it was no joke and this could acctually work if my problem was related to the graphics card.

>> How my notebook died
I the last few years my notebook had to endure quite lot, architecture student & some gaming. In the first 2 years of my warranty the Graphics car died on me twice and was exchanged (so i was told). After the warranty expiered i opend the notebook a couple of times for cleanig and i changed the thermal paste once. so i was used to dissasmeble this thing with ease.
In last few moths before my Zepto died i had those vertical stripes on my screen wich didnt bother me much. The week my notebook died it was ON more than five days and on the last day my GF wanted to tranfer video files from a digital camera to the notebook and i was not at home and so she did. later that day i came home tried to open a website and the computer just frozee and nothing happend. After a restart windows would not except in safe mode. so i deleted graphics driver and windows did start with vga graphic. it was unuseable so i Put my notebook aside.


>> Baking
After deciding Baking my motherboad could work, i went and bought some thermal paste and borowed a hot air gun from a friend (It had a display with temperature regulatur; a pleaset surprise). I did not wanna use my oven because i read on some forums that its a health risk, and my GF did not let me use oven. So i Dissambled my notebook, removed all i could, wraped the motherboard in a couple of layers alluminium foil and made i little hole on top where the gpu is. then took the Hot Air Gun set it to 200C and blasted away from about 10/15cm. Five minutes in i noticed 200C is not that hot; i could hold my hand under the Gun. so i turned it to 220C for the last 5 minutes.( i now think that a normal hairblower goes higher than 200C). After i finished blowing hot air at my GPU i Noticed i wraped ma motherboard so that no air could ecape (in retrospect i would have made holes on theside so the air can escape) and the hole motherboard was pretty hot. I let it cool for about one hour, and i thought effd it up.

>> Assembly
After a little bit of cleaning and renewing the therlal paste on CPU & GPU i assembled the Notebook. a couple of extra screws were left over after assembly, i was kind used to that because each time i opened i it some extra srews were left over.

>> Power
Firt time i pushed the power butten the Boot screen took like five minutes to load and windows did not load.
Restart >> Bootscreen fast windows was loading verry slow.
Restart >> everything loaded normally

Thean i installed the graphics drivers and rebooted

And it worked !!!!


Just want thank everyone on this thread because you guys helped me save my notebook.

Written on my newly Baked Notebook

__________________________________________________________________________________________
Zepto Znote 6214W | Windows 7 x64 | 2.00 GHz Core2Duo | 14,1" WXGA | 2x2GB 667mhz DDR2 | 500gb 7200rpm HD | Nvidia Geforce go 7600 512mb | Realtek 7.1 surround | Oct-2006 Baked & Kickin

 

Fixed my zepto also with this trick but i used a hairdryer for it

I think i should better clean the thermal thingy also but i dont know where to get new one?. Also another question, how do you remove aluminium cover of the gpu card?

 

Hi notebook review forum!
I had this 6224w which was starting to look like crap and it was probably the most worn out piece of plastic that you could encounter and one of the hinges was completely broken, while the other one was very loose. The funny thing about it is that this laptop has been THE most stable machine that I have ever put my fingers on. I bought 2 years ago and it was completely trash with a broken screen and broken keyboard with half of the buttons missing. I fixed it up with another faulty 6224w and a few weeks later the buyer whom had destroyed the laptop completely bought it back I made a lot of money back then!

I've now made myself another masterpiece after the original owner trashed it again.
This time I found a PERFECT looking 6324w which is the white version of the same model with a faulty motherboard as well.
I did the complete make-over in about an hour, so that the working mobo from the 6224 was in the perfect looking 6324w casing.

I was then heartbroken by a totally dead screen during boot, but it still booted!

My solution ended up baking the pony out of it just like you guys
Recipe:
Everything packed in foil except for the graphics area on the board with everything else removed from the board.
Preheated owen at 200 degrees
Hairdryer to heat the graphics area just before putting it in the owen
10 minutes at 200 degrees.
Put it all back together!
Voila!

Now I've got a totally perfect looking laptop with no problems at all (so far) and it still pwn's the pony out of the average laptop with a T8300 2.4 Ghz C2D and the 8600m gt graphics.
I played GTA4 all day except for a few hours with Diablo 2 XL Median.

TY for the solution it works like a charm!

Written from the perfect Zepto.

 

I'm glad it worked for you guys.

 

Thank you all guys.

I could not believe it by when my zepto died after 4 years I had nothing to lose. I tried the owen trick. I did not manage to disassemble it so I decided to use shortcut and I did it with hairdryer. And guess what? It works. Works like a new one.

Thanks it is amazing.

 

I know this is an ancient thread, but I (and my Laptop) was saved by it nevertheless. I asked my PC-doctor whether it could be for real, when I picked it up and after he had given it a death sentence, and he confirmed it.

However, he gave me the very good piece of advice not to split my Zepto 6224W in pieces and bake the motherboard, but let it 'bake' itself by wrapping a carpet tightly around it and let it bake until the thermal security circuit turns it off. This procedure has recovered my GPU at least five times and saved me hours, and a lot of screws, I guess.

A very happy Zepto Znote 6224w owner (as long as the old MF lasts).

 

Is possibe to replace a geforce 8600m gt video card of zepto 6324w with a geforce 8600m gt of a 6625wd? video cards are identical?

 

No. Graphics chip on 6324W is soldered to the motherboard. Graphics Card on the 6625WD is in a proprietary MXM slot.