[Reflow] My Experience of Putting my 6990M in an oven @ 385F

Update #2:

The reflow lasted 1 week after heavy OpenCL computations being run all week.
Then it exhibited the same stripey lines and couldn't handle high clocks.

Put it in for 11 minutes @ 385f -- Works fine for now, but we'll see how long its lasts this time.
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So on Friday my 6990M decided to die on me. It would only boot in VGA mode on a fresh install of Win7, and after I would install the latest Catalyst Drivers then restart, Win7 would not boot and the GPU would crash right before the login screen came up. Booting into low res vga mode and clocks set to 150/100 but crazy lines would appear on the screen and the gpu would crash if the clocks went higher. 6990M = Dead

Replacement since my warranty conveniently expired a week ago: 300$ + Shipping Both Ways ~= 400$

How I fixed it for FREE: Do-it-yourself Reflow.

Took my 6990M out, Cleaned it, removed all stickers, preheated my oven to 385F, laid a sheet of aluminum foil, made 4 aluminum foil balls approx 1.5cm in height and placed the 6990M four corners on the aluminum balls touching as little of the chip as possible.

Stuck it in the oven (middle rack) and let it sit for exactly 8 minutes, after which I opened the oven door, turned off the oven, and let it sit until it cooled down to room temp.

Results:

FIXED! But wait, not only was the Reflow process a success, my 6990M overclocks EVEN BETTER NOW! AND runs cooler because of a fresh repaste (75C). [I'll post benchmarks here soon]

F*ck yeah.

Let me know if anyone else has the balls to do this when their GPU dies /w no warranty!

 

Did the same thing with an Nvidia 8600. Worked for a few days then died.
Hope you have better luck.

 

wow that sounds fun, but if you dont have warranty on it i guess its the last thing u can do. i hope mine never dies!

 

Yep, it's a last resort type of thing, it was give it one last shot and fix it (if it didn't then pay 400$), or don't risk it and pay $400.

The success rate from what I've seen is pretty high though.

 

Hey I've heard about this and works fantastic it worked for u Grats! Even better when I'm about to purchase a 6990m for my m17x r3....

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

 

I did that on my 8800 GT about a year and a half ago. I then gave all my computer innards to a friend, and he's had to bake the card twice since then. But it still works.

I'm pretty sure that card uses alien technology, though.

 

here's to hoping i would never have to do this

 

That's is something I've never heard of before...great to know I learned something today.

 

Pretty exciting stuff. I've read about this but never have had to try it. Good to know it worked for you!

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

I've done something similar to a Macbook pro. It was a colleague's Macbook which started to show weird lines on boot up and would stall. I read up on the issue and found out it was a faulty GPU that could be revived if you performed a reflow on it. I bought a heat gun, took the Macbook pro apart and heated the area around the GPU for 1-2mins. Put the Mac back together, booted up and everything worked. Ended up have to do the reflow trick 4-5 more times over 4 months before it finally kicked the bucket. It works, but doesn't look it'll last too long; especially if you run it too hot.

 

Excellent work. Hope it lasts for a while for you. Mileage may vary.

I have done this to a HP motherboard, and it worked on the 3rd try, still working. Another thing to note is that I thing orientation matters sometime. The HP motherboard would only reflow properly when I flipped it over.

 

Sounds more like a bad soldering job from the manufacturer, rather than bad components. Almost like the Xbox360 towel wrap fix for the RLOD.

 

Update #2:

The reflow lasted 1 week after heavy OpenCL computations being run all week.
Then it exhibited the same stripey lines and couldn't handle high clocks.

Put it in for 11 minutes @ 385f -- Works fine for now, but we'll see how long its lasts this time.

 

Update #3:

1 month since last reflow. Works great, still OC'ed, running heavy OpenCL computations daily. I guess those ~3 extra minutes in the oven made the difference!

 

lol, nice job. I can't help but cringe while thinking about putting expensive components in the oven. My suggestion: save up for a 7970! hope it lasts a while. Maybe lower the clocks some? Might prolong the life a little.

 

Sounds awesome, good luck, maybe you've outdone yourself?! Magic

 

Card died again in between standby mode. It's worse than it used to be, even VGA mode is corrupt when before VGA mode was still usable. I'm going to bake it one more time but I'm ordering a new card in the meantime because clearly Re-flowing is not a permanent fix and only a temporary one.

 

Maybe you shouldn't overclock it then.

 

this idea has been working for years and this is how we used to do it with the dreaded 9800GT graphics card The Oven Trick (repairing your broken video card with an oven) | Overclockers

i know a few people that have only done it once and there card is still going strong. its just pure luck how long it lasts.

 

Hi so if reflowing actually works for the card? I have read over the forum, someone said 6970m is free soldering and therefore oven bake doesn't work which I dunno what it means. I did quite some research and see my 6990m problems should be caused by the ram of the card(must be hardware problem). Should I just use a heatgun or oven bake? Many thanks!
And Marry X'Mas

 

It works, but it wouldn't last unless you eliminate the cause of problem - and cause of problem is not enough cooling, most likely on memory chips. What makes it harder that there is no thermal sensor on memory chips, you you generally have no idea how badly they overheat.
If chip overheats, even when it seemingly works ok, it expands too much, then contracts when it cools - these cycles fracture solder joints on the long run.
I'd say oven bake is better, because by using heatgun its too easy to blow off or slightly shift the smaller components when solder melts (so they held just by liquid solder surface tension). For the same reason, if your oven has a fan - either switch it off if possible, or cover the board to prevent airflow from directly blowing on it.

 

Thanks Ingvarr, so if I just consider to change to a 7970m and keep my current form of cooling(which is non) would have a non low chance to get similar problem? Or is just the Memory chips is a bit faulty at the beginning.
I probably would give a try but my parents doesn't seems want to get chance to get food poison. Although I have read online that you can just do deep clean with oven cleaner and it would be fine.

 

Modern solders are not poisonous, they do not contain lead anymore, and anyway, temperature is not near is enough to make it vaporise. As long as you strip everything which could melt/burn from the board (stickers, GPU support plate, etc), you should be fine - it basically the same process which done in the factory when board is being assembled. If the board does not work anyway, you hardly have anything to lose.

I'd say I seen suspicious amount of reports from people with 6990M having this kind of fault. I think Clevo-made cooling system does not do a great job for cooling VRAM - I don't know why, bad quality thermal pads maybe. Its hard to monitor, because as I said, there is no thermal sensor on VRAM. Or maybe memory chips get particularly hot on 6990M, I haven't seen much reports from 7970M users - but again, 7970M is much more modern card and this kind of problem takes time to manifest - so maybe it will appear in time.

 

Yeah, I had some RAM problems as well with blue lines on screen and dead card. Thought I was fine with 83-84 degrees celsius at full load however the RAM temperatures were apparently much higher, around 91-92 degrees. Use GPU-Z, the third temperature is the RAM one. Make sure that's good, else you'll fry your card with prolonged usage.

 

If you mean MemIO, this is not temperature of RAM, but of memory controller (which is on same die as GPU). There is no sensor on RAM chips, at least not on these MXM boards.

 

Thanks for your reply. I will bake my display card then. And see how it goes. Actually I am usually another notebook not clevo/sager, so I bet it is more of the card problem then the notebook cooling. Sorry if I actually invaded this subforum when I shouldn't. 7970m seems a wicked card, but I want to try to prolong my card to at least I can buy next gen card amd/ati in a reasonable price.

 

Thanks for sharing your findings OP. Probably would have lasted months or years without the OC, + rep BTW.

 

Well what can I do to not let the temperature of Ram go higher, probably a repaste and cooler? Thanks for your idea.

 

best thing to do is ensure correct heatpads placement on the ram chips and also go for pads with he highest possible w/mk value u can find (heat transfer rate). look on ebay for example. standard/stock heatpads provide smth like 2-5w/mk whereas high perf. ones go from 7 up to 15w/mk.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

this is before or after the oven bake try? For stabling or for curing? Thanks!

 

that was in answer to your question regarding what to do to not let the gpu ram get too hot thus preventing having to do a reflow or prolonging the life of ur reflowed gpu

 

It's not really the temperature that causes it, more the changes in temperatures, rapid cooling and heating will cause solder problems the fastest.

Just get some decent pads and place them carefully and you will be fine.

 

Ok thanks for all the ideas from you guys.

 

my screw of my x-bracket is off my x-bracket, how do i fix it? use stickers? Thanks! That side seems to lost the flower like stuff

 

You mean the xbracket screw thread has worked loose or the top part that screws in is damaged?

 

I took out the x bracket before I put into the oven, when I was removing it one of the screw thread took off, while the other three sticks to the xbracket, when I look at it, there was suppose to be a flower like which is the top part you mentioned missing. Thanks for teaching me English lol!

 

You can superglue it back on to the bracket.

 

What temps do these glues withstand?

 

I did the same thing the op did and mine worked out. I have a 6990m that started to give me blue screens a couple of weeks ago. I was only able to boot my laptop on safe mode, and even then I had several vertical blue lines running through the screen. I found this post and I tried the same thing as the op with some differences. I couldn't get all the stickers off so I left some on. My first attempt I baked it for 11 minutes. This was a complete failure in a way where I had nothing but black screen. I thought I was going to live without a laptop for several weeks, so I attempted for a second time for 13 minutes this time. Worked out perfectly. It boots fine and there are no blue lines running through the screen. I haven't stressed tested it yet or played any games so I don't know how efficiently it runs on full load but the fact that it no longer has blue lines and I can use 1920x1080 resolution is good enough for now. I'll answer any questions if anyone has any.

 

The xbracket wont get that hot.

 

Ok Thanks Meaker, I don't really want to buy a x-bracket again, which I did previously due to the first one was broken(I have nothing to do with it). May be I have wasted the money and should just glue it, but I thought that might cause problems.

 

You should use the right x-bracket for the card...

 

Baked the card twice and not working. The first time I bake it, booting just get a black screen, one time it does get into window, but after reboot it doesn't.
Probably broken. TT.
Still thanks for the one who adviced me.
Atm I just playing games that work with intel 3000 lol. May be I will just wait for the next gen AMD/ATI 89xxm series

 

That or maybe see if someone with an EM model wants to move from a 7970M to a 680M and work out a deal.

 

This thread helped me fix my 6990m, would just boot into windows and soon as hit login screen would go black. Booted into safe mode though.

I reflowed at 200oC, for 10minutes and its up and running. Tested one game so far and seems to run. The FPS seems to struggle a little though, anyone else who tried this notice an fps drop afterwards? I'm going to test BF3 soon, as I've spent more time benchmarking that, so should know if there is any performance drop off.

Will post any updates when/if it fails.