So this is embarrassing

Jarblatter · January 22, 2015

OK, so first, I flashed the BIOS in my Ideapad Y500 to remove the WLAN whitelist and reveal hidden menus. (But before you say it could have been the wrong BIOS, it was a MODIFIED version of the original, and not a totally new BIOS). After rebooting with the modified BIOS, Windows started dishing out error code 43 on the GPU (GT-750). Next, I restarted to restore BIOS defaults and the thing wouldn't even POST or turn on the LCD backlight; however, the keyboard backlight, status LEDs, HDD, fan and optical drive all turned on. It would either turn off after 30 seconds or immediately when the power button was pressed. So, after that, I decided to do a power drain to try and clear the CMOS (which I believe I did so successfully) and in doing so had to completely teardown the system to disconnect the CMOS's battery. Now, the system POSTs, and stays on as if healthy, except the LCD backlight still won't turn on, connecting an external display via HDMI or VGA does nothing and if I plug it in while on it beeps once.

So...Do you think I should perform a reflow on the GPU? If so which method should I use; heat-gun/blow-dryer or the oven?

Either way, I'm eventually going to suck it up and purchase a replacement motherboard from Lenovo, but, there it is.

Zach's Tech Tips · January 22, 2015

If your confident do a reflow and I would suggest the oven

itsmyjobtoknow · January 22, 2015

Since you are already planning to purchase a replacement, I see no harm of attempting to fixing your current motherboard.

Just do it and see what happens, you might get lucky and it magically works again, you'll never know until you try.

Juan Remes · January 22, 2015

ive returned to life a GPU not once but Twice with the oven method, it died eventually 2 months since the last cook, but if you are going to replace it hey, why dont you give it a try?