Baking a GeForce 8800 GTX GPU....

[Spitfire of ATJ]

Has anyone done this?

http://www.overclock.net/t/529271/bake-your-graphics-card-in-the-oven-fix-it-worked

[hobbit709]

1. I can't think of anything that would possibly fix except maybe a bad solder joint.

And if you get any critical component too hot it will crap out totally.

I'll ask a friend of mine that works in the NVidia failure analysis lab what he thinks.

[ChromeFoundry]

2. That will re-flow the solder

under each of the surface mount components. I usually use a digital heat gun and liquid flux so none of the connectors melt - gives you way more control. If you've overclocked the GPU, the heat could have caused a questionable solder joint to fail. If your board still functions, or is still under warranty.. don't do this! If it's junk, you are not going to break it any worse.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

3. It went out suddenly. I bought in on Amazon over a year ago.

[sir pball]

4. You can build a quasi-professional reflow rig incredibly cheaply if you're handy..

This thing was going to be fully buzzword 3.0 compliant, with three preset control curves (lead/tin, RoHS, and one manual-entry curve), an LCD on the front, and RS-232 communication to monitor the temperature profile from a PC. In other words, I would be able to flow standard lead-tin solder and the “green” solders, and do some custom curves for components that require it (like big, honkin’ FPGAs).
…
Wow! Total cost (including a spare thermocouple and the toaster oven) would be right about $200. I spent $153.85 (including shipping) with Auber and a bit less than $50 at Walmart for a Black & Decker toaster oven with an internal convection fan (to minimize hot spots). It took me less than a day to integrate the system. It took me most of another day to get a reasonable control heating profile (lead-tin) out of it.

If I did a lot of surface-mount work, or were pushing electronics hard, I'd seriously consider this. As is, my MacBook has a known problem with poor cooling leading to cracking solder joints and dead motherboards, this would definitely be a reasonable fix if it comes to it..

http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/the-poor-mans-solder-reflow-oven

[ChromeFoundry]

5. Or spend less than $35 for this...

Saturate under the chip by running water soluble liquid flux under each:
http://www.amazon.com/NTE-83-1000-0186-Rosin-Liquid-Flux/dp/B0089EQGW0/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1393111521&sr=1-1&keywords=liquid+flux+pen

Get one of these:
http://www.harborfreight.com/430-800-570-1160-interval-heat-gun-with-led-temperature-settings-69343-9184.html

Set it to about 850 degrees, and make a circular pattern over the larger chips for about 1.5 minutes per chip. Don't let the board discolor or you are too close. Stay about 3 inches away and keep moving.

Don't move the board for about 10 minutes... let it completely cool. Same result as a reflow oven, but only costs about $35 and you can use the heat gun for a lot of different other purposes... not a good idea to try and dry your wet hair with it!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. UPDATE: Decided to go for it in my oven....

Removed the heat sink and metal ring from around the GPU.
Wrapped all plastic parts in aluminum foil and set the card on a cookie sheet level on balls of aluminum foil - GPU side down.
8 minutes in a preheated oven set for 385°F. Shut off the oven and cracked the door. Walked away for an hour.
Applied a THIN layer of thermal grease on all chips (Most people use way too much) and put the heat sink back on. Tossed it back in, powered up and,....BINGO...

The card is back up and running.

Mark this as SOLVED.

[ChromeFoundry]

7. Awesome!

Thanks for the update!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

8. Thought I'd add another update...

Last edited Thu Mar 6, 2014, 01:55 AM - Edit history (1)

This works in Ubuntu.

at a terminal:

> gksu gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Go down and look for this part:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Add these lines:

BoardName "GeForce 8800 GTX" (or your card type)
Option "Coolbits" "4"

It should look like this now:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 8800 GTX"
Option "Coolbits" "4"
EndSection

Save and Reboot.

Open the Nvidia Xserver settings in the gnome control panel and go to the thermal settings and discover that you now can override the automatic fan speed with a slider.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. Another Update: It's been a while and the card is still going strong so this definitely worked.