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

[Kevt]

Came across this forum yesterday, and then came across this thread. As usual I was only here because of problems with my laptop. That's the thing with the needy, never help, just leech other's ideas!

Anyway. My problem was a 'dead' XPS M1730. When powered on it would flash and whir, but the screen stayed resolutely black, not a flicker. I tried power+D and the screen showed something so I guessed it wasn't a screen issue. I stripped it down, cleaned out a carpet's worth of fluff, reseated everything, and tried again. Nothing.

So I went off looking for a new laptop, fearing huge expense, looking at a myriad of threads of poor souls who had tried every laptop ever made, and found them wanting. Then I found this.

Nothing to lose. I took out the video card and popped it in the oven at 200C for 5 minutes, expecting nothing. Let it cool, reassembled the laptop and powered on. There it was, back to its former glory!

Spent the whole night on WoW with my guildmates loling at me and making cooking/baking gags whilst we one hot heroic Yor'shaj as my temperatures remained remarkably stable.

So thanks to all here for the advice. It's saved me a load of cash, even if only temporarily.

[HTWingNut]

Great to hear! Just note that this is frequently a temporary solution. If it had micro fissures or other reasons the solder cracked then it may happen again, or worse. It's really a stop gap until you buy another machine.

That being said, good luck, glad stuff like this works and the people who share this info make this site (and others) very valuable.

[Ferrari353]

Where does the profit come in?

[saturnotaku]

Where does the profit come in?

It's a figure of speech.

[Commander Wolf]

Great to hear! Just note that this is frequently a temporary solution. If it had micro fissures or other reasons the solder cracked then it may happen again, or worse. It's really a stop gap until you buy another machine.

I would say this is generally true, especially true for bigger GPUs. I've tried a couple 7900s and FX1500s from M1710/M90, and those have lasted at most a few months.

Furthermore, 8xxx series last a lot shorter than their 7xxx series counterparts. I've seen the 8400M/8600M in M1330/M1530 last for only a few days. 7xxx series, even "big" ones, can sometimes last for months.

I've had some "small" 7xxx series last a really long time, so I'd venture it can be close to a long term fix in some units with the right cooling setup... likewise, don't bet on it.

[Ferrari353]

It's a figure of speech.

I'm sad now, I thought there was an actual potential for profit... like buying rrod Xboxes on eBay, fixing them, and reselling them.

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Sent from my SGS2 Skyrocket using Tapatalk

[Tsunade_Hime]

Alot of low/mid range Geforce 8 chips (8400/8600) were put in laptops with very poor cooling (HP Pavilions, XPS line, etc) so yes they are prone to fail more. High end chips with good cooling systems lasted a bit longer, but less than Geforce 7.

[Marecki_clf]

Today I managed to bake a 9500M GS DDR2 (G84) graphics card from my friend's laptop back to life! 7min@200C. The laptop is Asus X55SV. Thanks everyone for Your input in this thread. BTW, my friend could not believe his eyes that it has all worked .