[Vessel Spoilers] PSA on "Reflowing" Videocards

[iamdarkyoshi]

https://www.vessel.com/videos/R-GxeInwE

 

So in this video, Linus revived a 780Ti using an oven. While this technique DOES work, it is NOT a permanent repair. 

 

I have discussed this topic on the EEVBlog Forums, and here are some quotes:

 

Quote

Hehe...

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Storm is coming...

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The problem is:  Any failed joints on any balls have cracked and the surface oxidized.  When you reflow without adding flux, all you are doing is melting the solder balls, it does nothing to clear the oxides off the pad on the chip or the board (whichever side had the crack in the joint).  It then cools to the solidus temperature and as it cools further the solder ball is squished against the oxidised pad it hasn't wetted by the contraction of the other balls and the resin underfill.  This makes a pressure contact, and all appears OK, but solder cold-flows with pressure and time,  so the contact pressure will decrease to zero.  Add some thermal cycling and vibration and it will soon become bad again. 

If the chip isn't underfilled, and you can ultrasonic clean the board then run some diluted no-clean rated liquid RMA flux under the chip, your chances of long-term success improve.  Otherwise you have just thermally stressed the chip and the board to no good purpose.

The issue with home "reflows" is that there is no flux present, and any of us that have tried to solder without flux find ourselves pulling our hair out...

 

I would ONLY use GPUs "fixed" with this method as spares at home in maybe a HTPC or something, NEVER on a rendering server or anything that NEEDS to be running reliably, and NEVER sell it! I have sold my 270x I "repaired" and I told the guy that if it fails within a year, I will either repair it or replace it at no cost.

 

Needless to say, it died.

 

So if you guys are going to attempt this, just be aware that it is a TEMPORARY repair. Keep in mind this is NOT the only issue GPUs can have. You could have a blown mosfet in the VRMs, corrupt BIOS, etc.

 

Also, @LinusTech can I take a stab at repairing your SSD and the GPU from the WAN show PC?  

[AresKrieger]

Well half of the reason to do something like this is for the sake of reselling, realistically people will do so since A) Their card will have no value once it completely dies, and B) ethics do no come into play when money is involved for most people. That's why it's not a great idea to buy used unless you know the seller or look over the product extensively before hand.

[manikyath]

i can talk about the soldering without flux thing, my spool of solder is that ancient that the flux in the solder (claims to have 2% flux...) went bad and doesnt do anything good for soldering...

 

the struggles of soldering my laptop battery back together were real...

[iamdarkyoshi]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

i can talk about the soldering without flux thing, my spool of solder is that ancient that the flux in the solder (claims to have 2% flux...) went bad and doesnt do anything good for soldering...

 

the struggles of soldering my laptop battery back together were real...

I always have an electrolube flux pen with me when soldering, really saves my bacon when working with shitty solder

[manikyath]

9 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

I always have an electrolube flux pen with me when soldering, really saves my bacon when working with shitty solder

that'd come in handy indeed, sadly my parents think i'm just making shit up and will get scammed online...

 

how does one tell their parents that theres a difference in mental capacity between a 12 year old and a 21 year old?

last month i sent one text message, to canada, as a shortcut to fix some BS. the international fees were less than the cost of a text message on my rpovider, they still wanted to know every fken little detail to avoid me doing stupid stuff while my dad just got his bank data stolen and thinks its normal...

[iamdarkyoshi]

4 minutes ago, manikyath said:

that'd come in handy indeed, sadly my parents think i'm just making shit up and will get scammed online...

 

how does one tell their parents that theres a difference in mental capacity between a 12 year old and a 21 year old?

last month i sent one text message, to canada, as a shortcut to fix some BS. the international fees were less than the cost of a text message on my rpovider, they still wanted to know every fken little detail to avoid me doing stupid stuff while my dad just got his bank data stolen and thinks its normal...

Dafuq.

[manikyath]

Just now, iamdarkyoshi said:

Dafuq.

that kinda turned into more of a rant than i wanted to, but yeah... i kinda live with two old farts that think everything they dont know is bad, and their ideas are the only truth.

[8uhbbhu8]

9 minutes ago, manikyath said:

that kinda turned into more of a rant than i wanted to, but yeah... i kinda live with two old farts that think everything they dont know is bad, and their ideas are the only truth.

I know exactly what your talking about. 

Fortunately for me every time their computers or internet go down I'm the only one who knows how to fix them

They have no choice but to consult me about this stuff now

(Although it does help to be taking a course in networking/cisco/windows stuff)

[manikyath]

Just now, 8uhbbhu8 said:

I know exactly what your talking about. 

Fortunately for me every time their computers or internet go down I'm the only one who knows how to fix them

They have no choice but to consult me about this stuff now

(Although it does help to be taking a course in networking/cisco/windows stuff)

my dad has pulled me out of my bed at 6 in the morning before because he wanted to look up online if he'd need a coat that day.

 

i have since seperated my half of the internet with their half, if something's wrong its not my fault, their shit is plugged straight into the modem. last time their net went down the access point was "mysteriously" plugged into the wrong port, and my dad blamed the cat for it...

[8uhbbhu8]

5 hours ago, manikyath said:

my dad has pulled me out of my bed at 6 in the morning before because he wanted to look up online if he'd need a coat that day.

 

i have since seperated my half of the internet with their half, if something's wrong its not my fault, their shit is plugged straight into the modem. last time their net went down the access point was "mysteriously" plugged into the wrong port, and my dad blamed the cat for it...

Ouch. I'm glad my parents aren't that bad anymore. There was a point where they thought anything that happened with the internet was my fault... Even when I hadn't been in the house that day at all.... At least they don't blame the cat!

[MageTank]

Whoever posted that over at EEVblog is 100% correct, but let me also say this. I have reflowed quite a few 9800GT's in my day, 3 being exact. Only 2 managed to come back to life, and only one required multiple baking sessions after months of use. The other never had to be baked again. Still works to this very day. 

 

Once you get artifacts, and your card is old enough to where RMA is out of the question, or warranty is 100% gone for whatever reason, you only bake to prolong the inevitable. Treat it as borrowed time. Use the time that it has left in it from the baking session to put aside money and order a replacement. That's how I see it though. Just an opinion.

[CTxGrey]

Found this funny comment from Instructables on the method.

Still giggling over it.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-repair-your-Graphics-Card-by-baking-it/

[mikat]