Kind of a Guide: How to Bake Your GPU for Fun and for Profit!

[Ardor]

Well, i baked it again, and it is working again, but it is idling at around 50C. Lowest temp i've seen so far is roughly 46C. Is this a cause for concern? I'm worried i may not have applied the thermal paste correctly. That, and i am technically using a pretty bad thermal paste.

I do live in a tropical country, with temperatures ranging in the mid 30s, room temperature, with ~100% humidity though.

I might just run out to buy a cooling fan and AS5 if it would help prolong it's life.

[HTWingNut]

IF ambient temps are in the mid 30's I wouldn't expect anything less than 45c as a lowest temp. AS5 would be a good idea. However, either way you are living on borrowed time. I would definitely start shopping for a new laptop.

[Ardor]

IF ambient temps are in the mid 30's I wouldn't expect anything less than 45c as a lowest temp. AS5 would be a good idea. However, either way you are living on borrowed time. I would definitely start shopping for a new laptop.

I now operate it in an air conditioned room(ambient temperature at roughly 25), and the temperature are still operating at the mid to high 40s.

But yes, already have a post in "What Notebook Should I Buy"

[flawed]

About 8 months ago, I purchased a T862++ BGA rework station on ebay, was around 400 or so. Best purchase I have ever made. Easily paid itself off in the first week. I have reflowed a bit over 100 DV series HPs, and about 30 macbook pros, and I have about a 90% success rate. If you want to fix the unit permanatly, you will want to look into a BGA reballing kit, which will reball the bottom of the GPU, then you can reflow it back into place with the rework station.

[Ardor]

About 8 months ago, I purchased a T862++ BGA rework station on ebay, was around 400 or so. Best purchase I have ever made. Easily paid itself off in the first week. I have reflowed a bit over 100 DV series HPs, and about 30 macbook pros, and I have about a 90% success rate. If you want to fix the unit permanatly, you will want to look into a BGA reballing kit, which will reball the bottom of the GPU, then you can reflow it back into place with the rework station.

That's good advice... Where did get all those broken computers to fix? Ebay as well or are you "in the biz" as it were?

[hydra]

Well, if your into repair and the time, a reball kit may be for you.

Don't forget to give your vendor a shot. My 7900GS was toast so Dell repaired GPU, baked in oven? , repaired hinges and added 1 year warranty for $175. The laptop was sold with the 1 year warranty.

[rubenvb]

I'd like to add my positive experience to this thread. My niece had my old Dell XPS m1330, which has those crappy 8400M GS cards that tend to break often. The laptop is out of warranty for more than a year, so here's what I did:
- open the back cover and remove the heatsink-fan assembly.
- make sure all wires and loose plastic (including the coin cell battery) is away from the GPU.
- cover the surrounding electronics with aluminium foil (don't know if this is absolutely necessary, I was trying not to torch the motherboard).
- apply a heat gun (kind of industrial hair dryer) at 200°C for about 10 miutes.
- let it cool down and pu everything back where it was.
- boot the thing.
- smile big as you just saved 600 $ on a new motherboard

It's just awesome that it works. I wonder how long it's going to last this time... Good thing is, that this can be repeated if necessary

[flawed]

I did pick up a bunch of ebay, and some locally, although alot were just repairs locally for customers.

[Ardor]

I'd like to add my positive experience to this thread. My niece had my old Dell XPS m1330, which has those crappy 8400M GS cards that tend to break often. The laptop is out of warranty for more than a year, so here's what I did:
- open the back cover and remove the heatsink-fan assembly.
- make sure all wires and loose plastic (including the coin cell battery) is away from the GPU.
- cover the surrounding electronics with aluminium foil (don't know if this is absolutely necessary, I was trying not to torch the motherboard).
- apply a heat gun (kind of industrial hair dryer) at 200°C for about 10 miutes.
- let it cool down and pu everything back where it was.
- boot the thing.
- smile big as you just saved 600 $ on a new motherboard

It's just awesome that it works. I wonder how long it's going to last this time... Good thing is, that this can be repeated if necessary

Remember though, that this is a very crude form of reflow soldering, without any control of where the solder would end up. Do this enough times and the solder balls may move away significantly from where they were meant to be, causing greater, possible permanent damage.

I did pick up a bunch of ebay, and some locally, although alot were just repairs locally for customers.

I am interested in how you managed to pick them up locally. Do you have a shop? Do you call people? I enjoy tinkering with things, and if it would bring me supplemental income, all the better.

[flawed]

I do have a small shop, but the majority of the ones I got locally, I picked up from Craigslist.