FEATURED THE OVEN TRICK - WORKED

[Angry]

Just revived an 8800gt I got for $5.00 off craigslist. Guy said it was fine as long as you didnt play games.

Came home, tossed it in the server and tried 3dmark06, locked up in first game with the very familer geforce artifacts. Baked it @ 385F for 10min.

Rockin some hybrid Physx at the moment in Borderlands 2. (It also made a complete loop of 3dmark06...no artifacts)

Ill probably have to keep an eye on one of the caps, pretty sure the little bulge on top means it didnt like the heat. Totally didnt notice that particular cap among the others before putting it in.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

something just crossed my mind.
downtown here there's a computer store with LOTS of dead GPUs, if this trick works, maybe some of those GPUs can be revived. (some aren't bad, like 7950), isn't this like.. a great way to help lots of people for a nominal fee? buy the dead card for next to nothing, then fix it, sell it to some kid that desperately need a GPU but doesn't have a budget for it. (like 25% of a 7970 price).

anyone doing that yet?

There's a market for that. Best if clearly sold as such because the fix is often temporary. Once baked, likely to be baked again.

I have given bobnova a decent amount of cash for old cards which he also modded, most of which I think he revived by baking. I use them as ln2 cards, which I often kill. For less than a hundred bucks a card, often times less than half that, its a lot of fun to play with cards that were once high end, that have been upgraded with hardware voltage adjustments.

I have killed a few of those, and every one was fun before it died and I didn't sweat the loss much. I also dumped a few hundred into a 7970 which died before it ever did anything. That was NOT fun.

 

[trueblack]

I use them as ln2 cards, which I often kill.

AWESOME.

 

[Bobnova]

I think it's about 50/50 for the stuff I send IMOG. So far it's done pretty well, then died for the most part.
Depending on what cards are sitting at that shop, the benching team may be very interested
That'd have to go through the classifieds first of course.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Just to be sure I was clear also, everything Bobn has sent me worked well. Some just not for long, and after being put thru serious abuse. I have a few cards from him which have put up top five records on very popular cards, like 8800 and 9800 series nvidia stuff... It takes a lot of volts to get into the top rankings.

 

[Koritnaciino]

My GTX280 EVGA had sometimes problem. Freeze screen, brooken screen.
Baked for 8:15 190C then slowly cooled 1min with oven off + 30mins with slightly opened oven.
Works great.

 

[azanimefan]

HA!

I got one to add. Just saved a non-functioning Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro with the oven trick. It would work intermittently, (like for 2 or 3 minutes at a time per restart, every 3rd restart) then just stop. figured something wasn't soldered right. so gave this a try.

Put it in, on 350, left it in for 25 minutes. let it cool for 30 minutes. listening to lovely 5.1 surround audio right now on it. HA!



Sidenote: this is the 2nd time the oven trick worked for me (and 2nd try at it). The first time was like 5 years ago and I did it with an ASROCK Motherboard... who's AGP slot didn't work. I was frustrated because there was no return. Read about the trick and gave it a try (it had a lot of cool features and I got it cheap on ebay... just didn't want to give up that quick). I pulled the BIOS chip before cooking it. That MB worked for like 4 years with no problems. Fixed the AGP slot I might add. Crazy stuff.

 

[Wipeout]

I sure wouldn't be making cookies in that oven after cooking the terminator.......MmMm Good!

 

[Tech Tweaker]

Brought a 9800GT back to life last night, 1GB memory version too. Nice score if it keeps working.

This one had only very minor artifacting, though it did run and get to the desktop.

I tried something new on this one, heat gun pointed directly at the GPU core for around 2-3 minutes to heat the core and surrounding silicon to around 400°F or a little above.

Works great now, completed runs of Aquamark3 (scored 120k) and 3DMark03 (scored 35k) without any issues, temperatures maxed out around 55-60°C in 3D benchmarks.

Still got a few more to try to bring back to working order (7600GT, 8800 GTX, Radeon HD 4870, GTX 260). The 7600GT and 8800 GTX at least have video output, though the 7600GT is artifacting quite badly. The 8800 GTX is weird though, it only artifacts at the POST screen, but is perfectly fine in the OS (device manager says something about the device has stopped working (error code 43 I think), even though it appears to be working fine. Then with the Radeon HD 4870 in the system it won't pass POST, and with the GTX 260 the system will POST, but there's no video output.

 

[Tech Tweaker]

Chalk up another resurrection.

8800GTX is back up and running, no artifacts. Seems perfectly normal so far.

Just ran AquaMark3, scored 112k, with no glitches or artifacts during the benchmark. Maxed out temperature at 62°C while running the benchmark. Also ran 3DMark03 and scored 38k, maxed out temps at a scary 70°C.

Now to see if it will play nicely with my other 8800GTX in SLI.

I killed the 7600GT though, think I got it too hot and damaged something because its video output is even more corrupted after the reflow process than it was before. I either damaged the core or the memory chips, not sure which.

So, a word of warning for those attempting reflow of solder, don't concentrate the heat in one place for too long or you'll risk damaging something.

 

[frostair19]

tried doing this method on a Nvidia 8500 gt gpu. i used an electric oven for this one..after less than 5 minutes. some parts of the gpu exploded. seems like a fail one for me. will try it on other gpu on the near future.. hahahaha

 

[Juiced]

After hearing about everyone's success with their 9800's. I decided to give it a shot with my deadened GeForce 9800 GTX+ I just went with 175c for 20 min then left the oven off and open until it fully cooled. It worked fantastic! No more artifacts or blank screens I gave it a healthy spray with the compressed air before I put it into the oven. I'm sold

 

[mercs213]

Guys please take a deep breath before reading, you may go insane.

My friend has a GTX 690 (1,000$ card, ik, zomg!) that has artifacting (red dots and white/black repeating boxes) during POST when using DVI-D.

But oddly, the card does not have artifacting during POST and will boot to windows when using DVI, then abruptly goes to no video out upon reaching windows.

Sadly, the card came from a DELL alienware (gross, ik, ik) and his warranty is up (I believe it's an OEM card, just a small black S/N sticker - if there is a way to RMA please let me know!)

Anyways, I want to suggestion we bake it to him. What temp should we and how long? I was thinking at 390F for 8 minutes for the first try with the GPU core side facing up.

Any suggestions/tips are welcome - I am very computer literate, that is why my friend asked me for help. Hope we can save it!

 

[DanFraser]

Yeah, get it in there! Don't forget to remove the heat sink, clean any gunk away and use a nice thermal paste (or pads as some cards have nice big gaps) before putting it in. On cool down open the door ajar and wait for it to slowly cool.

Go for it.

 

[mercs213]

It is RoHS compliant, thus lead free. Think 390F should work...

 

[azanimefan]

Guys please take a deep breath before reading, you may go insane.

My friend has a GTX 690 (1,000$ card, ik, zomg!) that has artifacting (red dots and white/black repeating boxes) during POST when using DVI-D.

But oddly, the card does not have artifacting during POST and will boot to windows when using DVI, then abruptly goes to no video out upon reaching windows.

Sadly, the card came from a DELL alienware (gross, ik, ik) and his warranty is up (I believe it's an OEM card, just a small black S/N sticker - if there is a way to RMA please let me know!)

Anyways, I want to suggestion we bake it to him. What temp should we and how long? I was thinking at 390F for 8 minutes for the first try with the GPU core side facing up.

Any suggestions/tips are welcome - I am very computer literate, that is why my friend asked me for help. Hope we can save it!

all the plastic parts have to come off, which means the fan and heatsink need to come off. You can leave the power plugs... those are pretty ridgid, just make sure you don't touch them when they're hot, or you might alter their shape.

make sure it's not resting directly on the rack, use wadded up tinfoil under the corners of the board to keep it elevated.

And you should be safe for longer then 9 minutes. I'd hit it for 10-15... when you pull it out make sure it's resting on new balls of tinfoil. it shouldn't take long to cool down... maybe 15-30 minutes or so till it cools down. apply new thermal paste to the contact points on the heatsink, reattach and you're on your way!

make sure its actually out of warrenty first. what you need to do to make this work will leave signs that you took the heatsink off, which the company will use for justification to invalidate the warranty.

 

[mercs213]

make sure its actually out of warrenty first. what you need to do to make this work will leave signs that you took the heatsink off, which the company will use for justification to invalidate the warranty.

Thanks, read the whole thread and I am ready to go. Having my friend come over Thursday and we are having a gtx 690 for dinner (har har).

He contacted Dell, the card had a 1 year warranty, which has passed.

 

[mercs213]

Update: I found a very small company online - xmoddz.com - and they can reflow the GPU properly for 59.99. Should I send it to them or should I just bake it?

 

[mercs213]

didnt work, ill try a higher temp and for a lil longer

 

[Tech Tweaker]

Update: I found a very small company online - xmoddz.com - and they can reflow the GPU properly for 59.99. Should I send it to them or should I just bake it?

Just looked at their site.

I'm a little concerned by the fact that they list all of the services they can provide but don't list the prices of any of their services.

All I could find was their diagnostic fee cost.