Video card + Oven = ...

[Greebo]

So my graphics card started playing up last weekend. I'd been playing rocket league when the computer crashed in dramatic fashion (possibly it overheated).
I rebooted the machine and suddenly I had 2 thick red (occasionally yellow) vertical lines through both of my monitors. The computer also wouldn't finish booting into windows for good measure.

After a whole lot of searching I found a post from someone with similar symptoms where it was suggested that the issue might be some cracked solder on the circuit board.
And apparently one way to fix that is to bake your video card...

Fast forward a few days (I had to buy some thermal paste).
I took off the heat-sink (+ plastic covering), wiped the old thermal paste off the video card and removed anything from it that wasn't integrated into the circuit board (e.g. some cooling fins that were attached with some plastic snaps).

I pre-heated the oven to 375F, placed the card on 4 balls of tin-foil (to keep it raised off the baking sheet) and baked it for 7 1/2 minutes.

Once it was done, I let it cool down completely, attached everything back to the board...
And it works perfectly again!

As far as I can tell, that temperature + time combination (there's a lot of debate about what temperature to set and how long to bake for, I opted for the lower end of both scales) is just enough to melt the solder slightly and close any cracks, but not enough to do damage to the board itself. (I only started smelling the melted solder at around the 7 min mark)

I'm still amazed that it worked!

[John Doe]

I'm never having dinner at the Greebos, you may never know whats coming out of the oven that they might serve you



Good job Greebo, its worth a shot instead of just buying a new card.

[M's]

Well that's one way to save a few hundred bucks. And a great way to add flavor to your next batch of cookies.

[Dog]

Science rules!
Well done Greebster!

(BTW, I'm 14 kLys from Sol...we should meet up some time!)

[Boss Llama]

SCIENCE!

Well played, Greebo. I'd heard of this procedure before, but have never done it or known a person who has. Glad to hear it worked!

[Greebo]

Thanks all!

(and don't worry, mlite, the only metals the cookies contain is a touch of mercury to spice things up a bit!)


The only downside of it working is I can't use it as an excuse to get my machine VR ready!



Dog - I'm taking an extended break from E:D again. I've got too many unfinished projects on the go and that game is a real time sink!

[Dog]

that game is a real time sink!

No kidding. The grind is all too real!
And it's about to get a lot harder as they've upgraded NPCs...

[Greebo]

So the card got glitchy again with exactly the same symptoms.

Re-baked at 385F for 8 minutes this time, and it's back!

Poor thing just has to last long enough until the GTX 1080s come out!

[John Doe]

is 1080 the new temperature you have to bake it at to work?

[Jesus_Faction]

this is one of the oldest tricks since discrete graphics cards have been a thing. glad to hear its still working

[BigBiker05]

Do you remove the plastic pieces? Are there plastic pieces?

[Greebo]

Do you remove the plastic pieces? Are there plastic pieces?

The housing for the fan and the fan itself (I think) are both plastic, they came off together when I unscrewed and detached the heat sink.