wizardofid
Honorary Master
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2007
- Messages
- 12,521
- Reaction score
- 6,792
I am pretty sure one time or another you have heard about re-flowing or at least baking a graphics card in the oven.The only reason to do so, is not because you are crazy, cheap or concerns about people's mental health.
While it may seem like a myth that a dying graphics can be fixed this way.I personally put it to the test on Friday, and here is my experience with it.
The only reason you want to bake or re-flow a graphics card, is when there is some screen artifacts, often white blocks or stripes, or a completely dead screen, this may often be the result of overheating the graphics card or simply an issue with age, solder joints can "crack" with metal fatigue, which can result in screen artifacts and bad video memory.
I have a back up system I use in case the main system conks out, which affords me very little down, I haven't used the back up system in months and as a result did pick up a fair bit of dust, and with in a few minutes of using the system the graphics card started displaying white lines and promptly got a blue screen of death.
I knew it was the graphics card, and decided the 570GTX is still worth saving, perhaps a re-flow or baking would be in order.While I have baked a graphics card before I have had very limit success with it, I decided to try another approach and apply direct heat to it by means of a heat gun.
It also gave me the opportunity to clean the guy out and apply new thermal paste, stripping the guy down to the PCB I gave it a good cleaning making sure all the thermal paste and dust has been removed.
Took heavy tinfoil and wrapped it around the graphics card once and lightly tapped down on the tinfoil to make the area smooth.I proceeded to cut a small area of the tinfoil out where the GPU processor is and tapped down the rest of the tinfoil to make sure none of the PCB is exposed.
Simply placed the graphics card on a flat fire proof surface place some light weights on both sides of the GPU to make sure as you heat the graphics card it doesn't warp as you heat the target areas, from about 15cm up apply heat of medium setting only areas you want to target is the GPU memory and graphics processor it self avoid the rest of PCB.Do this with a fast hand action making sure you do not stay still for more than a second, or else you will cause damage .Do this for about 2 minutes, after which, put on high heat target the graphics processor with direct heat for no more than 10-15 seconds and then the memory for a second.
Let it cool down a bit 2min or so, then apply medium heat with a fast hand action, every 30 seconds or so, for about 5 seconds to avoid the graphics card cooling too quickly, do this for 3 minutes.
Let the graphics card cool down completely afterwards, apply thermal paste, put the gpu back together and see if your graphics card has been fixed, without issue my GPU booted up, played a quick game and no artifacts, while some people have had some luck, some had the graphics processor go bad with in a few months of doing the reflow, often the result of bad maintenance and overheating again.
Happy to report, graphics card is working typing on that pc as we speak.
While it may seem like a myth that a dying graphics can be fixed this way.I personally put it to the test on Friday, and here is my experience with it.
The only reason you want to bake or re-flow a graphics card, is when there is some screen artifacts, often white blocks or stripes, or a completely dead screen, this may often be the result of overheating the graphics card or simply an issue with age, solder joints can "crack" with metal fatigue, which can result in screen artifacts and bad video memory.
I have a back up system I use in case the main system conks out, which affords me very little down, I haven't used the back up system in months and as a result did pick up a fair bit of dust, and with in a few minutes of using the system the graphics card started displaying white lines and promptly got a blue screen of death.
I knew it was the graphics card, and decided the 570GTX is still worth saving, perhaps a re-flow or baking would be in order.While I have baked a graphics card before I have had very limit success with it, I decided to try another approach and apply direct heat to it by means of a heat gun.
It also gave me the opportunity to clean the guy out and apply new thermal paste, stripping the guy down to the PCB I gave it a good cleaning making sure all the thermal paste and dust has been removed.
Took heavy tinfoil and wrapped it around the graphics card once and lightly tapped down on the tinfoil to make the area smooth.I proceeded to cut a small area of the tinfoil out where the GPU processor is and tapped down the rest of the tinfoil to make sure none of the PCB is exposed.
Simply placed the graphics card on a flat fire proof surface place some light weights on both sides of the GPU to make sure as you heat the graphics card it doesn't warp as you heat the target areas, from about 15cm up apply heat of medium setting only areas you want to target is the GPU memory and graphics processor it self avoid the rest of PCB.Do this with a fast hand action making sure you do not stay still for more than a second, or else you will cause damage .Do this for about 2 minutes, after which, put on high heat target the graphics processor with direct heat for no more than 10-15 seconds and then the memory for a second.
Let it cool down a bit 2min or so, then apply medium heat with a fast hand action, every 30 seconds or so, for about 5 seconds to avoid the graphics card cooling too quickly, do this for 3 minutes.
Let the graphics card cool down completely afterwards, apply thermal paste, put the gpu back together and see if your graphics card has been fixed, without issue my GPU booted up, played a quick game and no artifacts, while some people have had some luck, some had the graphics processor go bad with in a few months of doing the reflow, often the result of bad maintenance and overheating again.
Happy to report, graphics card is working typing on that pc as we speak.
You make is sound like an exact science! :wtf: