Fixed a broken 8800GTX

[Gaz Hansen]

Well after upgrading the drivers to play the new NFS Run on my ever aging BFG 8800GTX (which was bought with a lifetime warranty) it's the first time for a while I've put the card under any sort of stress. And it failed.

Several restarts, cleaned the drivers and reinstalled older drivers and latest drivers, even reinstalled windows, but still:

So after deciding to RMA the card I was greeted with alot of angry BFG customers on google as the section for GFX has gone into liquidation so no warranties will be honoured!!

So after googling possible solutions I found a thread whereby an oven came to the rescue. Yes. An oven. (I will find the link in a sec).

So after taking the card to bits, as follows:

Putting it in the oven on 385 degrees Farenheit, or 196 degrees celsius for 8-10 minutes, which basically resolders any dry joints which could be causing failures. I also cleaned the card out of any dust whilst it was in bits.

I let it cool down for an hour or so, put it back together then reinstalled it into my system, and low and behold, *touch wood* it's working as it should.

 

[SUMMONER]

Awesome, well done! :arty:

YouTube is plastered with videos of people who had to do that. The same method can be used to try an fix all those HP/Compaq laptop motherboards with the dodgy Nvidia video chips on them or Apple logic board displaying the multi coloured lines. I believe BBC Watchdog even had an episode where they showed people fixing their Playstation3 motherboards like that, after Sony refused to replace them.

 

[Sartios]

Would replace it ASAP though as it will fail again, I've fixed many Xbox 360s like this, not using an oven though, using a heatgun and like you say melts the solder and resets it.

The trouble is with ball grid arrays using non lead solder, that's the main reason that gpus fail etc.

The g84 and g86 series of chips from Nvidia were faulty Anyway.

Well done though for a quick temp fix.