Wife loves her GT740 but I have fixed her old lappie by baking it in the oven!!

Super Tigers

Super Tigers

Super Tigers

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true and totally honest, I fixed her old motherboard by baking it in the oven at 200C for 10mins.

She has owned a HP DV9340 lappie for the past 2 years, nice 17in Core 2 duo with geforce 7600 graphics card. It had a new motherboard installed after 10months because of the graphics card failing, fitted free by HP in warranty. It has worked fine until last week when corruption and lines returned to the screen and I knew that the GPU had gone again.

I have been reading on the net that these DV9000 series laptops have problems due to the Nvidia gpu having poor solder balls and that heat causes the solder connections to break. I saw on Ebay that some businesses are offering to re-ball/re-flow the GPU and this repairs the problem, they charge £85 including courier service. A professional cpu/gpu re-balling machine will cost £100K+ so I was very skeptical about the services they were offering.

I did a bit of digging on the 'net and I spoke to a guy in China, he explained that they just bake the motherboard at 200C for 10mins and this causes the solder balls to reconnect and this fixes the problem for approx 1 year until the GPU overheats. The guy explained that you remove the motherboard from laptop, wrap the motherboard in silver foil except the gpu which you leave exposed. Then place on a baking tray gpu facing downwards, place 4 balls of foil at the edges of the motherboard to ensure clearance from the baking tray.

I had 4 options, 1) dump the lappie as bust, 2) buy new motherboard- £180 new - ouch!! 3) Pay Ebay guys £85 to 'repair' the board or 4) get the oven warmed up!!

I went with option 4, I was skeptical - but, it took me about 25mins to strip the laptop, wrapped up the board as told and away it went. I let the board cool naturally for 45mins, and then re-built the laptop, I managed to get a couple of cables upside down but I got the touchpad working again. Stuck the battery in and hit the power button, and it worked!!!!!!!!!!!!! The graphics issue has been fixed, no lines across the display and the display is crystal clear, have run dxdiag and all is okay.

So if you are having problems with your DV9000 or DV6000, and also Lenovo T40s then this method does work, but do it at your own risk!!!
So if you see someone offering to re-ball/re-flow gpus for £80 ish, ask them if they have spent the £100K+ on the machine!! and there is no way you can hand-ball 600 solder balls onto the back of a gpu!

Wife is loving her MSI GT740 that came from OCUK on Thursday but I have now nicked the DV9000 for myself now that I have repaired it.

Rob H
 
Had same thing happen on a dv9000. Got the retailer to repair it even though it was out of warranty. Most of them are fine with a reflow.
 
alexhull24 said:
Had same thing happen on a dv9000. Got the retailer to repair it even though it was out of warranty. Most of them are fine with a reflow.
Click to expand...

We had HP repair it in warranty but these lappies seem to be notorious for gpu failure. Not many companies have re-flow machines or re-balling machines due to the huge cost, I suspect a lot of people paying for re-flow/re-balls are just having the motherboards re-cooked!!

Please you got yours sorted out of warranty, I couldn't see the 'astronomical object' superstore repairing hers out of warranty free of charge!
 
I'm pretty certain people do the reballing by hand. There's videos online of it and I'm 95% sure a guy I used to work with did this routinely. The silly numbers of solder balls come on a flexible square of material which you position over the gpu, heat it up a bit & the solder sticks, then lift the material off it. Then put it back in the socket & heat it.

The oven approach achieves something very similar though.
 
Tempted to try this method on my XPS M1710 - had it all stripped down and reseating the gfx card but still no good. Hopefully this will work and not make it any worse!

Wouldnt have to bake the whole motherboard though as the gfx card is detachable.
 
I had to bake the whole of the motherboard because the graphics card is built into the mobo. If you have an MXM graphics card then just bake that only.
 
Xbox360 owners use this trick to resolder the GPU due to a very poorly designed heatsink and very little airflow inside the box.

Top job getting it all working again, maybe you should set up a sideline charging people £80 for a resolder! ;)
 
Fixed my old xbox 360 no end of times like this! I think the same can be achieved by using a heat gun though it lacks the comedy value of "baking" your device in the oven :p
 
Super Tigers said:
true and totally honest, I fixed her old motherboard by baking it in the oven at 200C for 10mins.

...
Click to expand...
When popping it in the oven to I need to ensure the gfx card is dead level to make sure the solder reflows properly, or does it not really matter too much?

Also, I have the gfx card removed now and I can see the gfx chip (the die sits on top of a small board about 2" square - much like a cpu) but the board has a plastic coating covering everything except the die - do I leave the die only exposed after covering with tin foil or the whole gfx chip board? I'm a little worried the plastic might melt - but want to get it right first time as dismantling the laptop takes a while.

See pic below:-

gpuboard.jpg
 
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Joebob said:
When popping it in the oven to I need to ensure the gfx card is dead level to make sure the solder reflows properly, or noes it not really matter too much?

Also, I have the gfx card removed now and I can see the gfx chip (the die sits on top of a small board about 2" square - much like a cpu) but the board has a plastic coating covering everything except the die - do I leave the die only exposed after covering with tin foil or the whole gfx chip board? I'm a little worried the plastic might melt - but want to get it right first time as dismantling the laptop takes a while.

See pic below:-

gpuboard.jpg
Click to expand...



When I stuck mine in I wrapped the board in foil, shiny side outwards. I had plastic usb ports etc and they did not melt. Remember only bake for 10mins max at 200C. Then allow to cool for 30mins, bake the board GPU downwards so the solder reflows back to the chip.
 
Ok, it's in... will keep you updated you once it's all back together - fingers crossed!
 
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Very interested in how you get on Joebob, I have a knackered FX2500m that just sits on a shelf... If it can potentially be fixed, I'll be picking up a borked 1710/9400 to try it in. :)
 
YEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

SHE LIVES - FANTASTIC!

Can't tell you how chuffed I am that this worked - Cheers Suger Tigers for posting about yours.

My one concern now is that I used Servisol Heat Sink Compound, which I beleive is a ceramic compound... I might buy some Artic Silver 5 and use that just to be safe.

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!
 
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