Kladmajster Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 HelloI`ve recently had to change my mGPU (570m) in my laptop, as it started to cause random shutdowns as a sign of dying and getting worn out. I propably fried her a little by small overclocking I applied through MSI afterburner from time to time and didn`t really care for maintaining the heating and cooling. Yeah, my bad and I`ve learned it the hard way. Now I have a new one, which works good. And I`ve read on this forum, that many people have come across this same issue.But I was wondering, if there is any way, how to fix such dying card ? As its mostly MOSFETs that cause these problems. Or the only future of such card is at the bottom of a trash can ? I tried to "bake" my old 570m 3 times, but it helpel just slightly - there were still shutdowns during 3D apps, but not so often and not during idle and booting stages as before.I had lot of good time with it and I dont feel that its a proper way for her to be just thrown out, without trying to fix her and leave it for a calm retirement. thx for any ideas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterInTheUniverse Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 sorry I cant read the entire topic because I am driving LOL.however, reflow and reballing in extreme casesor in the most of cases, remove all plastic part from vga, remove all thermal pound, clean the dirt parts with alcool 90%, build a small raised structure with aluminum foil where to lay the card.Put it in the oven. 200 celsius degrees for 10 minutes. Wait 2h for cooling....et voila! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khenglish Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 When people bake cards they are often afraid to go hot enough. You actually need 230C to melt the lead free solder, and usually you need it for more than 10 minutes for the card to heat up. Colder temps help anyway because they cause the card to become very soft and flexible, which will undo warping in the pcb and cause better contact between poor joints. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kladmajster Posted October 3, 2014 Author Share Posted October 3, 2014 When people bake cards they are often afraid to go hot enough. You actually need 230C to melt the lead free solder, and usually you need it for more than 10 minutes for the card to heat up. Colder temps help anyway because they cause the card to become very soft and flexible, which will undo warping in the pcb and cause better contact between poor joints.are you sure ? Mobile GPUs are much smaller in terms of parts and construction...I was actually instructed to use 200C and not exceed 7 minutes as the card might not survive it ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louis1978uk Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 200 degrees 7-10 minutes anything higher and longer and you will murder your card ive destroyed 2 7970m;s the card will warp and connectors will melt all ur after is the solder sofening up not the board 230 is definately overkill imo you might get lucky but why risk it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khenglish Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 I have baked a 680m, 7970m, gtx 580, mobility 9600, HD 4870, latitude e6520 motherboard, a memory stick, and a gtx 485m. I exceeded the melting point of solder on all devices.680m:Card was unstable. Baking would help, but never would be permanent.7970mBaking once fully restored functionality. Card has never had problems for a year since.gtx 580Baking fully restored card functionality after non-SMT caps were replaced in addition to baking. Card has been fine for 2 months.mobility 9600Baking was unsuccessful and made the card worse.HD 4870Baking was unsuccessful. Card did not become worse outside of the need to replace non-SMT electroyltic caps.e6520 motherboardCPU socket would improve, but never be fully repaired. Non-SMT electrolytic caps needed to be replaced.memory stickStick did not become worse, however it did not improve either. Issue seems to be internal on a memory chip.gtx 485mCard became worse. Went from non-functional to internally shorted.As you can see I have baked tons of hardware. The key to baking is you cannot have any strain on the card that could bend it while hot because the pcb becomes extremely flexible. It will bend even under its own weight. In addition, solder must be touching for it to reflow the the proper joint. If not it will flow randomly, often causing shorts. This is something you cannot see, and just need to be lucky. Heating to less than 230C will never permanently fix a device because you are not causing the solder to melt to allow it to reflow. Again, all it can do is realign contacts by undoing pcb warping for a temporary fix. A properly fixed joint requires a proper solder bridge, or else a slight bend in the pcb will take out the device again.Electrolytic caps that are not surface mount will always fail. These are soldered in after the card is run through a reflow oven during production and are not designed to handle the stress of temperatures above the melting point of lead free solder. Other than non-SMT caps, everything on the card will be designed for exceeding the melting point of solder, even the plastic connectors. The card is not initially made with a magic wand. They put it in an oven. The only difference is the ovens used during production can melt all solder in 2 minutes, while a toaster oven needs much more time which lifts off a significant portion of the paint on the card.So in summary, yes going high enough to melt the solder can take the card from intermittently functional to dead, or even from dead to shorted and dangerous to power on (testable with a multimeter) but not doing so has no chance of fully repairing the card and it will continue to become worse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kladmajster Posted October 3, 2014 Author Share Posted October 3, 2014 Hmm...interesting experience Khenglish.. I am not quite sure if I wanna bake that card anymore and risk some failure of different HW during testing... Now I have another card in my laptop (670m) which works fine, however causing a different issue - CPU throttling all of sudden and curently dont know how to fix that But I was more interested, if it is possible to somehow mechanicaly fix the card ? Like send it to some miracle service center, where they would "open" it and fix it with a miniature screw driver :D or something ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterInTheUniverse Posted October 4, 2014 Share Posted October 4, 2014 LOLI baked many VGAGe-force 6600GTAMD HD2900XTGe-Force 9800GX2AMD HD4870X2etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kladmajster Posted October 5, 2014 Author Share Posted October 5, 2014 And the results were ?Also have you ever baked MXM mobile GPUs ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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