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Well, I must say...I was a bit skeptical...but all of the symptoms outlined in the above posts were present. I have a Sager 9860 with a Go6800, and about 4 months ago the computer abruptly shut down. When I restarted it, I could see patterned arrays of dots across the screen...and I could not boot into Windows normally. I booted into safe mode, backed-up everything with Acronis, and started hunting for a new video card.
However, I could not justify the price! It didn't take long to figure out that it would make more sense to purchase a new laptop than to shell out for a new card. I kept searching for an answer.
Then, three days ago, I stumbled upon this thread. While pondering removing my video card and throwing it in the oven, I concluded that the computer was just a paperweight at this point, so why not try it? Yes, I researched "reflow" first...and then, tonight, I took the chance.
I didn't wrap mine in foil, as it is already encased in a sort of metal enclosure. I went online, converted the celsius instructions to fahrenheit, crossed my fingers, and did it.
20 minutes ago I reinstalled the card after applying some AS5...and geez, well...it just plain works! Now I feel it is encumbent upon me to inform people on other forums of this ridiculously easy fix to an all too common problem, especially with these Sager units which are notorious for generating excessive amounts of heat.
All I can say is "Thanks so very much"...my $3600.00 computer lives again!
How to fix your 6800 go AMilo m3438g
got mine fixed working perfectly well
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MultiQuote#22 Guest_Jesse_*
Posted 25 August 2009 - 10:10 AM
Oven to fix a gpu card, funny. 
Nevertheless, since i own a amilo 3438g 6800go with symptoms mentioned here, and since i believe everything that is written in the internet, let the cooking begin...
Didnt find anything needing soldering so:
Receipe to happy laptopping:
Didnt have aluminium foil but wrapped most of the card with cooking paper (or whatever it´s called), left gpu core exposed, sprinkled some imaginary cheese on top and threw the sandwich in the oven.
Set the oven to 200 celcius.
Waited the oven to reach 200c.
Turned off the oven.
Waited couple of minutes, maybe 4-5.
Took the card from the oven.
Voila, crispy gpu card waiting to be enjoyed.
As soon as i could handle it with my bare hands, installed it.
Waited couple mins so the coolingsink took rest of the heat.
Fired up the machine and ofcourse, works perfectly!
Thanks for the grazy guy who thought of putting a gpu card in the oven!!!
ps. Maybe thats how the fix them in the shops and ask 50-100 bucks for "repair"
Nevertheless, since i own a amilo 3438g 6800go with symptoms mentioned here, and since i believe everything that is written in the internet, let the cooking begin...
Didnt find anything needing soldering so:
Receipe to happy laptopping:
Didnt have aluminium foil but wrapped most of the card with cooking paper (or whatever it´s called), left gpu core exposed, sprinkled some imaginary cheese on top and threw the sandwich in the oven.
Set the oven to 200 celcius.
Waited the oven to reach 200c.
Turned off the oven.
Waited couple of minutes, maybe 4-5.
Took the card from the oven.
Voila, crispy gpu card waiting to be enjoyed.
As soon as i could handle it with my bare hands, installed it.
Waited couple mins so the coolingsink took rest of the heat.
Fired up the machine and ofcourse, works perfectly!
Thanks for the grazy guy who thought of putting a gpu card in the oven!!!
ps. Maybe thats how the fix them in the shops and ask 50-100 bucks for "repair"
#23
zipper 
- Old Fart
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- Group: Super Member
- Posts: 2,226
- Joined: 13-April 05
- Country:Finland
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Brand:HP - Model:Compaq 8710w (+ Amilo 4438)
- Resolution:1920x1200 (WUXGA)
- Video Card:(040D) Quadro FX 1600M
- SUBSYS:30C3103C
- Operating System:Vista Business x86
Posted 25 August 2009 - 01:05 PM
I've seen tens of successful reports during a couple of years - go6800 was prone to develop this fault which mostly was baked away.
#24 Guest_Baker_*
Posted 03 September 2009 - 03:37 PM
zipper, on 25 August 2009 - 01:05 PM, said:
I've seen tens of successful reports during a couple of years - go6800 was prone to develop this fault which mostly was baked away.
I sure went on myself since I had the same problem, it seems I am not going to be a baker cause I apparently overbaked mine...
or at least it dont work anymore. Perhaps I forgot the imaginary cheese
mentioned in one of the recepies. I only kept the board in oven for say 4 minutes in the 200 Celcius and now it machine dont even boot.
#25 Guest_Kris_*
Posted 04 October 2009 - 10:14 PM
Hey I just wanted to post this so it will come up if someone else like me is searching for info:
I have a Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 laptop with the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra card. Bought in fall of 2005. The video card went dead on me, starting with wierd line artifacts, and eventually became a black screen at boot. For a few days it would work intermittently here and there, but went to black screen on a permanent basis after that.
I removed the Geforce go 6800 from the laptop and removed the heat sink assembly that was attached to the PCB with 4 torx bit screws.
I took 4 small pieces of foil and rolled them to make little "legs" that would fit through the screw holes on the corner of the PCB and hold the board up off of a surface.
I put the card on a pizza pan covered in foil - GPU facing upwards. I preheated the oven to 385 Fahrenheit and put the card in for 8 minutes exactly. After the 8 minutes I removed the pan gently and let it cool on the top of the stove for about another 15 min.
After the 15 min, the card was cool enough to handle. I took the heat sink assembly and cleaned off the old thermal compound where it makes contact with the GPU. I put a ball of arctic silver compound on the GPU and reattached the heat sink. Installed it in the computer, and reassembled everything.
It worked great. I just did it tonight, but everything looks good so far - no artifacts, video is perfect. I'll repost if I notice it goes bad.
so all in all, this trick saved me like $350 US.. If you've got no better option, why not try this?
PS didn't smell any toxic fumes in the house but had windows open and range hood fan going full blast the whole time.
Kris
I have a Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 laptop with the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra card. Bought in fall of 2005. The video card went dead on me, starting with wierd line artifacts, and eventually became a black screen at boot. For a few days it would work intermittently here and there, but went to black screen on a permanent basis after that.
I removed the Geforce go 6800 from the laptop and removed the heat sink assembly that was attached to the PCB with 4 torx bit screws.
I took 4 small pieces of foil and rolled them to make little "legs" that would fit through the screw holes on the corner of the PCB and hold the board up off of a surface.
I put the card on a pizza pan covered in foil - GPU facing upwards. I preheated the oven to 385 Fahrenheit and put the card in for 8 minutes exactly. After the 8 minutes I removed the pan gently and let it cool on the top of the stove for about another 15 min.
After the 15 min, the card was cool enough to handle. I took the heat sink assembly and cleaned off the old thermal compound where it makes contact with the GPU. I put a ball of arctic silver compound on the GPU and reattached the heat sink. Installed it in the computer, and reassembled everything.
It worked great. I just did it tonight, but everything looks good so far - no artifacts, video is perfect. I'll repost if I notice it goes bad.
so all in all, this trick saved me like $350 US.. If you've got no better option, why not try this?
PS didn't smell any toxic fumes in the house but had windows open and range hood fan going full blast the whole time.
Kris
zipper, on 03 July 2009 - 01:34 PM, said:
These lines are used in Amilo 3438 to slow down the fan of go6800 - you could try altered values to
see if the fan can be forced to higher speed.
(fancontrol.reg)
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak]
"MXMThermalControl"=dword:00000001
"SilentModeControl"=dword:00000001
see if the fan can be forced to higher speed.
(fancontrol.reg)
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak]
"MXMThermalControl"=dword:00000001
"SilentModeControl"=dword:00000001
#26 Guest_jeff_*
Posted 27 October 2009 - 10:40 PM
kris,
i have the same laptop, bought pretty much at the same time and my video card did the same thing so after not wanting to spend the few hundred i stumbled upon this..
Just curious i removed the heatsink, did you not tinfoil anything up just put the card in on legs as is?
i have the same laptop, bought pretty much at the same time and my video card did the same thing so after not wanting to spend the few hundred i stumbled upon this..
Just curious i removed the heatsink, did you not tinfoil anything up just put the card in on legs as is?
#27 Guest_Kris_*
Posted 02 November 2009 - 07:22 PM
Hey Jeff,
I just took off the heatsink and put it on the little foil legs, nothing else. If I'm remembering correctly, the only thing that looked like it might not be cool to go in the oven was a black tough plastic membrane around the GPU - I left it and it didn't have any problem with the heat.
It's Nov. 2 now, my video card is still working. That's about a month!
Good luck with yours!
Kris
I just took off the heatsink and put it on the little foil legs, nothing else. If I'm remembering correctly, the only thing that looked like it might not be cool to go in the oven was a black tough plastic membrane around the GPU - I left it and it didn't have any problem with the heat.
It's Nov. 2 now, my video card is still working. That's about a month!
Good luck with yours!
Kris
jeff, on 27 October 2009 - 10:40 PM, said:
kris,
i have the same laptop, bought pretty much at the same time and my video card did the same thing so after not wanting to spend the few hundred i stumbled upon this..
Just curious i removed the heatsink, did you not tinfoil anything up just put the card in on legs as is?
i have the same laptop, bought pretty much at the same time and my video card did the same thing so after not wanting to spend the few hundred i stumbled upon this..
Just curious i removed the heatsink, did you not tinfoil anything up just put the card in on legs as is?
#28 Guest_Guest_*
Posted 04 November 2009 - 03:47 PM
unreal. this really works!!! 
my dusty xps gen 2 was sitting in the pile of spares when i stumbled upon this.
Having the original card fail outside warrenty i order a second via dell (they pass you on to upgrade options)
this card then failed after 4 months .. turns out they supply repair components so are only covered by a 3 month warrenty ..
feeling i didnt want my 2 grand laptop to go to waste .. i turned to ebay for a 7800 gtx ..
one year later .. built my own pc .. decided to sell the 7800 gtx and remain with 2 6800 ultras and a brick.
i then read this .. think wow .. just like the xbox 360 issue.. so i'll give it a try.. nothing to lose.
removed the heat sink,
wrap the remaining card in foil , but leave underside and top side where the gpu chip is.
oven warmed upto gas mark 5 .. pop in as kris says for 8 mins.
remove (note black membrain around gpu chip did bubble a little)
leave to cool as kris says for 15 mins .. clean and apply some artic silver 5
put all back
and all is alive again!!!!! fantastic.
i'm now toasting the second card
many thanks to all on the thread ..
ps. sorry to hi-jack the thread. my xps just shuts down on boot up .. sometimes it goes further .. sometime it'll be up and running for 15 mins or so .. power brick seems to spike ... it was doing this when all was well hence why i sold the working 7800 ..
replaced the motherboard back then .. same issue? .. guess it still could be the power jack? thanks in advance be it pointing me to the right forum\existing solution.
my dusty xps gen 2 was sitting in the pile of spares when i stumbled upon this.
Having the original card fail outside warrenty i order a second via dell (they pass you on to upgrade options)
this card then failed after 4 months .. turns out they supply repair components so are only covered by a 3 month warrenty ..
feeling i didnt want my 2 grand laptop to go to waste .. i turned to ebay for a 7800 gtx ..
one year later .. built my own pc .. decided to sell the 7800 gtx and remain with 2 6800 ultras and a brick.
i then read this .. think wow .. just like the xbox 360 issue.. so i'll give it a try.. nothing to lose.
removed the heat sink,
wrap the remaining card in foil , but leave underside and top side where the gpu chip is.
oven warmed upto gas mark 5 .. pop in as kris says for 8 mins.
remove (note black membrain around gpu chip did bubble a little)
leave to cool as kris says for 15 mins .. clean and apply some artic silver 5
put all back
and all is alive again!!!!! fantastic.
i'm now toasting the second card
many thanks to all on the thread ..
ps. sorry to hi-jack the thread. my xps just shuts down on boot up .. sometimes it goes further .. sometime it'll be up and running for 15 mins or so .. power brick seems to spike ... it was doing this when all was well hence why i sold the working 7800 ..
replaced the motherboard back then .. same issue? .. guess it still could be the power jack? thanks in advance be it pointing me to the right forum\existing solution.
#30 Guest_Keith Kirby_*
Posted 14 November 2009 - 12:03 PM
khawarizmi, on 06 June 2008 - 06:45 AM, said:
I sent my laptop AMilo 3438G to a pc shop, i ordered the 7600 go , supposed to be MXM type 3 card, but he said it wasnt compatible
so he 'heated' / 're-flowed' my graphic card (he explained to me that the solder under the gpu chip has been heated)
before the solder was brittle and wasn't functioning well
heat/high temperature cause my graphic card to malfunction and heat again has been used to fix it.
its a small simple process, with many amilo 6800 go laptops going faulty maybe most have this same problem?
mine stopped working just 10 or 11 months after i bought it. most would say u need motherboard replacement other new graphic card.
i suspected it was easy to fix
so he 'heated' / 're-flowed' my graphic card (he explained to me that the solder under the gpu chip has been heated)
before the solder was brittle and wasn't functioning well
heat/high temperature cause my graphic card to malfunction and heat again has been used to fix it.
its a small simple process, with many amilo 6800 go laptops going faulty maybe most have this same problem?
mine stopped working just 10 or 11 months after i bought it. most would say u need motherboard replacement other new graphic card.
i suspected it was easy to fix
#31 Guest_Callahan_*
Posted 16 November 2009 - 04:03 AM
soflip, on 23 May 2009 - 06:41 AM, said:
Hi Mupp,
I have an Amilo M3438G with the same problem, blue dots, only VGA res... but...
Yesterday, I followed your steps and now my Geforce Go 6800 is working fine !!!
I've installed Windows 7 RC, all drivers updated with my 6800 working at 1440x900 !
I'm just curious to know where did you get that info to rework your graphic card...
Thanks a lot!!
I have an Amilo M3438G with the same problem, blue dots, only VGA res... but...
Yesterday, I followed your steps and now my Geforce Go 6800 is working fine !!!
I've installed Windows 7 RC, all drivers updated with my 6800 working at 1440x900 !
I'm just curious to know where did you get that info to rework your graphic card...
Thanks a lot!!
Where or how did you get Windows 7 drivers for your 6800 Go?? I also have a M3438G but i cant make or find suitable drivers anywhere. That is drivers with
multimonitor support.
#32 Guest_Wazzer_*
Posted 28 November 2009 - 12:20 PM
Initially I was a bit sceptical of the "oven method" but managed to fix my daughter's Amilo M3438G which previously would only start in "safe mode".
I have an AGA cooker which makes judging exact temperatures difficult but gave the NVIDIA video card a 10 minute "roasting" on medium heat which seemed to do the trick. Used the silver foil ball technique to keep the unit away from any direct contact heat.
Used my nose to judge matters, when it came out the oven I got that "just soldered" smell but not as far as burning.
Anyway, reinstalled same and everything back to normal.
Guess, due to the age, the video card solder may have become a bit "crazed" resulting in dry joints and the heat just re-fuses same.
I have an AGA cooker which makes judging exact temperatures difficult but gave the NVIDIA video card a 10 minute "roasting" on medium heat which seemed to do the trick. Used the silver foil ball technique to keep the unit away from any direct contact heat.
Used my nose to judge matters, when it came out the oven I got that "just soldered" smell but not as far as burning.
Anyway, reinstalled same and everything back to normal.
Guess, due to the age, the video card solder may have become a bit "crazed" resulting in dry joints and the heat just re-fuses same.