The Oven Trick

deusexlumina · 24 Mar 2011 at 14:53

So, its the easter holidays (for us uni students anyways

) and as a little project i picked up a 280 and 9800GX2 (both faulty) to have a toy with and see if i can get either working.

If i can, great, if not, then at least ive gained some experience

Basically, im going to remove the HSF, inspect for capacitor problems/damage. If all ok, i'd like to try the oven trick and see if i can get either working. Would anyone be able to outline the procedure for me? I have a rough idea, but i'd like to do it right.

varkanoid · 24 Mar 2011 at 14:55

Handy Tip, dont do it in an oven you intend to eat out of!

I have heard people have achieved similar results by using a hairdryer on hot !

deusexlumina · 24 Mar 2011 at 14:58

Ahh is this true? I have to admit i was slightly concerned about the possibility of GPU residue etc on my food (or the other way around) :eek:

i may try with a hairdryer before oven then

ashmanuk67 · 24 Mar 2011 at 15:02

Man, Students have way to much time on there hands :rolleyes:

Redmint · 24 Mar 2011 at 15:09

varkanoid said:
Handy Tip, dont do it in an oven you intend to eat out of!

I have heard people have achieved similar results by using a hairdryer on hot !

Haha, well he's a student, he can use the oven of the people in the halls upstairs.

Guardsmon · 24 Mar 2011 at 15:16

or his and then he goes over and eats at his parent's more often

R5GTT · 24 Mar 2011 at 15:19

I stuck an old card in the oven. The kitchen/oven stank a bit that evening but it was fine the next day

I don't like that method though as it's impossible to direct the heat at a particular area.

Personally I'd use a Heat gun/Paint Stripper now like when I did my PS3 board. Get yourself a rosin flux pen and put a decent amount on then apply heat at about 350 degrees. Just try not to blow any componenets off!

With that method you only need to apply heat to a particular area for about 30 seconds at a time.

If you go down the oven route get ready for some funny looks when you are balancing your card on little rolled up balls of foil on a baking tray

MichaelM · 24 Mar 2011 at 15:25

Redmint said:
Haha, well he's a student, he can use the oven of the people in the halls upstairs.

Such care free times, I wish I could go back haha

Don't set the temperature as if you are cooking chips like some else around here did

Do some reading up on it first.

deusexlumina · 24 Mar 2011 at 15:29

ashmanuk67 said:
Man, Students have way to much time on there hands

its *their*, but what do i know, im a student right

yeah the more i read the more the consensus is to heat it in any way apart from the oven.

I'll give it a go with the hairdryer first, then move on to more drastic methods

Pic's to follow

deusexlumina · 24 Mar 2011 at 16:27

as promised, here are a few pics, sorry about the poor quality. Started by taking apart the 280. Unfortunately it quickly became clear that it had been taken apart before.

Many of the screw hooks were broken from the "clip n' lock" system that's on these cards. Still, i cracked her open to have a gander:

There's some dust on the pcb, which i shall remove. I will then remove the thermal paste from the core, as it looks a right mess

I shall then proceed to using a hairdryer across the board to heat the components as much as i can in a vein attempt to re-solder some of the joints. I will then re-apply the paste, and apply what i can to the memory chips ( i have some AS memory thermal compound ) and put her back together, and report back

bobbydigital · 24 Mar 2011 at 16:35

Hey, the gtx 280 has probably got a part missing off it. I sold you these cards as stated I bought the gtx 280 off someone else on the members market with the intention of fixing myself. Doubt oven trick will do much as this only resolves no visuals or artifacting, best trying the 9800x2 first oven trick should fix this no problem.

Edit: Going by the photo looks like the gtx 280 has a cap missing on right hand side of the card. Find out what this is and solder a new one on

wentalong · 24 Mar 2011 at 18:00

heyy, ive done this to an xbox before, i tried LOADS of different ways to get the thing working but just carried on with red rings -.- untill i done the oven trick, HERE and i used my own oven we all eat from... no smoke, no strange smells after, nothing that seemed bad came from it, and then i tried it and it workeD!!!!!!!

the only cons:

- Melted my two eject and sync buttons
- Capacitors ended up leaking in the oven a LITTLE bit, and swelled in the over (ONLY because i didnt wrap it up properly)
-The xbox died on me about 5 months of hard use later, but thats most probably because of the capacitors,, and i cant put it back in the over because heir all already buldging,,

So the ONE hint i give you: WRAP IT UP WELL!!!!!! dont spend about 30 mins on it as i did

also i was sure my 30 year old oven wouldnt be able to get hot enough but it obviously did lol so dont worry about how old your oven is

Turambar · 24 Mar 2011 at 18:42

Unless you have some kind of super head melting hair drier it wont be hot enough to reflow solder.

dannycivic02 · 24 Mar 2011 at 18:51

I don't know but something about putting a graphics card in an oven just seems so wrong.

bobbydigital · 24 Mar 2011 at 18:53

I use proper machines at work for doing this, but if you have to resort to the oven trick please remember to stick the card onto 3 balls of tin foil. This way it's raised off the tray/grill and won't smoke or smell.

deusexlumina · 24 Mar 2011 at 19:22

Thanks for the advice guys

upon further inspection something has blown on the 280, so i didnt subject it to any heat. Its a little charred area where a VRM seems to have blown. Aparrently its not that uncommon with these cards as they were quite hot runners and did draw quite a bit of juice.

I thought the same about the capacitor bob however when i compared it to a standard PCB it appears the same, apart from the area mentioned.

In conclusion I think the 280 is out of the question now, as soldering on vrm's is a bit er.. dodgy

I've taken a look at the 9800GX2 and people seem to have had promising results with the card, so ill turn my attention to that when im free next week.

And thanks for the advice bob, ive read up and have seen how its done

it will be a very last resort though i feel. Like i said if i dont get any results i really dont mind, just happy having a fiddle tbh!

sybaris · 24 Mar 2011 at 19:37

Just remember, lightly coat in butter, placing a layer or mozzarella over the top of your graphics card and leave for 15 mins on 200 or gas mark 7.
Don't forget to garnish.

bobbydigital · 24 Mar 2011 at 20:10

Good luck with whatever you do, I bought the 280 for same reason I like fixing things and the gx2 came from a complete system I got. Like I also said I have the proper machine for fixing these problems at work and even ventured into reballing laptops and consoles.

Just don't have enough time to spend on my own hardware at moment so thought someone else might get a bargain.

Another note on the 280, I think the previous owner damaged it when fitting a waterblock so maybe never made contact to the vrm.

Rabtech · 19 Apr 2011 at 17:53

Just tried the oven trick on an old 8800GTX I had given up on. Stripped it down, cleared all the thermal paste off the GPU and thermal pads off the memory chips and baked on a baking mesh for 8 minutes at gas mark 7 (200c).

I let the card cool, reassembled and applied new thermal paste to the GPU and memory chips. I put it into my machine, held my breath and switched on - card now works without any artifacting upto now.

Ive not tested it with anything 'heavy', just Eve Online at the minute and that works fine. Will test Bad Company 2 and Crysis when I get time and report back. I dont expect the card to last months, just until my RMA is sorted for my 5850 which should hopefully not take any longer than 30 days.

Predicament · 19 Apr 2011 at 17:56

Good luck..
Its a wonder if it works