Thursday 5 August 2010

Baking the Geforce Go 6800 on my (plagued) Fujitsu Siemens Amilio 3438G via reflow soldering technique.

I was getting severe graphics failure very similar to the garbled dos screens here before even booting into Windows. Blue, grey artifacts and whiteouts after the Windaz splash screen.
Having convinced my other half that we needed a new lappy, I ignored the pile of poo for a whole year before attempting to bring it back into commission.
I came across a forum that suggested this technique, the advice really was quite unbelievable, however, the thing is dead, sticking needles into it couldn't possibly hurt it anymore, so, what the fk, I surmised.

This is the procedure.

Equipment:
very small screwdriver and normal screwdriver, same as you would to tighten your glasses
foil
oven


First thing, remove the back of your zombie machine.


This is the first part to remove, the heatsinks, you will need two screwdriver sizes.
In this model, the unit is responsible for dissipating the heat from two chip units.



Be sure to remove the power lead,



It looks like this afterwards



Next, remove the graphics card. It is the thing that fills up most of the next image,



The culprit by the way,



Both bits detached are like this,




Ventilate your kitchen, open windows or switch on extractor hood and cover exposed food.

Get a baking tray and scrunch up four balls of foil to rest on top,



And alight the mutt on the foil balls so for Doric pillar-esque support

Like so,



Oven will have been pre-heated to 190 deg Celsius please.

In it goes, leave for 7 minutes



Freshly baked,  open oven door, wafting away the toxic fumes,
Reflow soldering on BGA is now complete.
Let it rest for 10 mins to set properly.
Reassemble card and heatsinks.
Take this opportunity to clear out the dust from the innards of the lappy.

Voila, lappy a la soufflé, est rené.

It worked, I was amazed.

Carry out this procedure at your own risk, and at last resort.

6 comments:

  1. Hey. Thanks for your post. I had the same problem and did the same process.

    But I only had an old oven, so when i opened the hatch to put in the card the temperature dropped to 300 F, and i had to bake for 14 minutes it got back up to 375 F.

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  2. Haha glad it worked for you too. Let us know if it starts to break down again. By all accounts, the life of the card is only extended temporarily. Mine is still going.

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  3. My computer just went back on the fritz this morning, so i baked the graphics card again and viola! Im back already!

    I baked it for a couple of minutes more so i hope it will last a bit longer this time :)

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  4. Hi!
    Is this a permanent solution or only temporary? For how long has it worked without having to repeat the baking operation?
    Regards,
    Lode

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  5. Thanks for this post. I followed your advice and baked the graphics card for 7 minutes, and now my dear laptop is working again!

    I would like to know too how long this works and how many times it is possible to bake again. Any experience anybody?
    Seppo

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  6. Amazing...i do it this today and my laptop come to life again!! Anyone of my friend can't believe me...:-P

    I'll ask like the others the same thing...is this temporary or permanent solution? If the card crashed again, can i bake it?

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