mobilenvidia Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 This evening I was happily posting here when all of a sudden my trusty old laptop just turned off in mid post. Pressing the power button meant LED's would come on for a second or 2 then turn off. After pulling more and more devices out of the i9400 it finally came the turn of the video card and this allowed the machine to boot (well flashing LED's) Some may remember a long time ago my original go7900GS died due to over heating (corrupt screen) This time it looks to have died completely, I now have 2 door stops. I'll be out of action for a wee bit. I need to decide what to do, get another video card or splash out on a new Notebook, video cards are not cheap to get and the i9400 is getting on in years now. But in the meantime my Wife's Dell D820 is borrowed (when I'm allowed :P ) Any suggestions are welcomed. [uPDATE] :) Some kind folk pointed me to the 'Put the Video Card in the Oven for 10min' and may fix it. Guess what, it has :) Well it boots to flashing lights, I still need to reattach the heatpipe which fell off during the bake (good thing) So can't confirm 100% working yet till I put the whole thing back together again. I'm not sure who the deserves the Kudos for this procedure (as links point all the place) but it's an awesome fix that saves forking out a lot of $$ on a replacement. I'll do some piccies of the procedure. The pressure is now off the new Notebook the i9400 lives again :unsure: The 10min Bake works !!!!!! I'm in Win7 posting this now now that laptop is mostly assembled again. If you have a dud NVIDIA (some ATI boards have melted) you have nothing to loose after all. Preheat Oven to 200degC for about 1/2 hour (I used fan forced) Place 4 balls of Tin Foil (baking foil etc) on an oven tray. Place the video card with Heatsink (big aluminum one for the i9400) down, so the main circuit side is facing up. Place the card with a ball of foil under each corner (or the oven tray will suck all the heat from the Video card) Place the oven tray in the middle of the oven. Close the door for 8-10min (don't over cook it) you can always try it again if it didn't work first time if too short a time was used. Once 10min is up open oven door and let the Card cool down for at least another 10min. Now take the video card of tray and place somewhere to cool down. A successful bake should mean the heatpipe of the i9400 cards should fall off (soldered) Now you can find some Heat transfer Glue and get ready to glue the Heatpipe back on Wait until the Video card is cool and glue the Heatpipe back on (USE a proper heatsink glue !!) Place the video card back in the machine and assemble it to a point where you can check if it's working If it didn't work you could try it again or give up and go to Ebay/NewEggg The above should work for Notebook cards and PCIe based cards. The above procedure is at your OWN RISK. Do your homework before beginning and have everything ready before even attempting it. It will void any warrenties You can easily break more stuff by fixing this If it does go wrong you have been warned If works you have saved your self many $$ But most important enjoy, it's quite cool to play with this stuff and having it work :w00t: Anybody know who deserves Kudos for the initial bake ? Glad to give credit where credit is due. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mushi Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Hurm, a tough choice there by all means. But here's a Chinese saying (my favourite one) that might help you out a bit: If the old one doesn't go, The new one wouldn't come. Would love to see what you buy to replace your old faithful, if ever you're convinced enough by the Chinese saying to do so :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squall_Rinoa89 Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Ouch.. RIP Laptop... Poor thing.... Eh I like my toshiba very well but i hear tech support sucks on it. (Havent had a problem and i got it back in oct so far all is good with not a single hitch!) W.e you do, dont buy HP's unless they've turned themself around a year, their a huge waste of cash. I used to be a huge HP loyalist until my laptop died repeatedly after being repaired. I'd have it for a day and something else died. My sister just got herself a dell. Can't remember the model or the price she paid for it but shes got a 2.4GHz with 4GB DDR2 and a HD4800 something or another.. I'll get all the specs off of her later for it. She likes it. I personally despise dell and gave her a lot of s*** for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Suggestion Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 I suggestion Acer Aspire Timeline. There is a version with discrete graphics ATi 4330HD very hard to find though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrZero Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Personally, I'd look at another system. If you aren't planning on heavy gaming with the thing and want to stick with Dell, you can find a decent mid-range at a good price. If you want to salvage your system, take a look here: http://www.renwerxtech.com/c-3794-video-card.aspx (their web dev is whacked so you'll have to scroll down to see the cards and prices) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 my recomendation is that u never ever buy an acer, probably the most cheap and badly made laptops. u can find something that fits u at asus, they have every kind of laptops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galdere Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Put the card in the oven, for about 10 mins at 200 degrees centigrade. As documented here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread...light=card+oven and here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread...light=card+oven Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TehSuigi Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 (edited) Maybe in the old days, but ever since the Gemstone models, Acer has really turned around their build quality. But I think that the owner of an Nvidia driver website should have an Nvidia GPU at his disposal. Maybe a Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 with a GeForce 9300M GS? Alienware m15x? Edited July 4, 2009 by TehSuigi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aliveanddead86 Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 I agree with the oven trick. My 7900GTX died from the same symptoms half year back, and swapped to my 7900GS again. I then saw about the oven trick, and tried it out. my 7900GTX works like a charm now, plus I do also have a spare 7900GS lying around in my room now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GanGstaOne Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 (edited) If you are going to buy new one get Clevo you will not regret Edited July 4, 2009 by GanGstaOne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 You should build your own laptop like I'm doing, custom cooling system = WIN. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted July 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 I must give the Oven trick a try :) What a hoot if this should work. This latest Video card is dead, it stops the Notebook from booting so less chance here. My original card, still boots but with corruption issues, so may work. If I do replace notebook will most likely be a Dell. I need nVidia based ofcourse :) And I need a non Whitelisted WLAN based Notebook, as I test these cards. I also prefer to work on IDT sound Codecs to continue my modded INF/INI's. The latitude E6500 is looking probably most likely at this stage. Has pretty well everything I need to keep this place running. 15.4" will take a bit of getting used to, but more portable would be kinda nice too. The Quadro NVS 160M not the fastest but at least I can play with DX10/PhysX finally Would love a 17" Precision but alas budget is tight. The Vostro 1720 is not too bad, comes with 9600M GS, don't need huge graphical power, driver crunching need lots of CPU power 17" WUXGA would nice as I'm used to it with my i9400 but not sure how it will handle being on 24/7 and the riggers of keeping LV2go running. Right oven set to 200degC and will slide in both Video cards shortly, keep fingers crossed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Greg@Bavaria Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 I feel your pain!!! If it's a laptop for general work and web browsing etc... for the budget minded could I suggest the Asus X5DIJ? Fantastic little laptop. Only a pentium dual core I grant you, but an LED backlit screen, very cool running etc. and you can't get better for general work not requiring much horsepower. Not a hell of a lot of money for a good workhorse with a great screen. Just bought one myself and I'm flabbergasted with what you get for your money. This is a european model of course... not sure if it's the same model in the US. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrenchTouch Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Acer roxxx !!!! That's all i have to say to the detractors ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted July 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 GPU cooked for 10min at preheated to 200degC oven. Now cooling down. Heatpipe fell off so a good sign that the solder has melted. The card didn't melt :) ASUS, another safe option for the needs that I have. Must go and have a look at the new notebooks. Acer, I like the look and feel of Acer lappies BUT the cursed WLAN and it's relying on Acers special app to work. Unless Acer have changed WLAN will NOT work on non ACER OEM Windows. I can't remember the Acer app but it has the software switch to enable WLAN with out it = no WLAN. So you can't install a different OS (non Acer) and have the WLAN working. Other than that nothing wrong with Acer. HP/Compaq is out as it's whitelisted WLAN has very limited cards that work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted July 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 The cook has worked a treat so far. Won't know till I assemble the machine back together for sure but the MB boots to fashing LEDs. I'm pretty confident the machine will work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galdere Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 :) Nice one :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted July 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Posting this on the i9400 now :) Very first boot gave pixelation (slight) on the splash screen. But this was before I screwed the Video card down. So far so good in Win 7, not sure how long this will last as laptop is on an awful lot to bring you guys all these drivers and other stuff you see on these pages. Now I just need to find my original Go7900GS and apply the bake for 10min on it. Am a little worried I may have biffed it a few weeks back (very unlike me) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nautis1100 Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Its Alive! Mwahahahah! Great to hear you breathed a bit of new life back in that monster. EDIT: The heat/oven trick sounds like it has to do with faulty solder points. Seems like if you could track down the faulty solder points you could reapply some and have a bit more of a perm fix. I would be careful doing GPU intensive tasks on it as the heat could cause the solder points to come loose again. You may want to look into what can be done to improve heat transfer/cooling on it more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew55 Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Wow that oven trick worked! Glad to see the i9400 lives again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted July 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 No one is gladder than me, new laptop postponed for a wee while longer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aliveanddead86 Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Seems to have a high success rate using the oven! Only worked on one of the 7900GTX cards I had though, but one working is better than none, saves buying a new one. So far it is still working, been about a month now, and whilst I was there also took apart the whole casing, and AS5'd it all, just to help the cooling a tad more... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNetAvenger Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Happy it worked for you... The Oven/Heating trick goes back to probably before you were born, but hasn't been that common for most consumers to 'dare' to do it. If you look up floating a board or fractured solder you can find more info in the tech world where this comes from, and why it works. Any device that is subject to extreme temperatures and/or lots of stress on the boards (i.e. a laptop being moved around) the solder simply starts to fracture and eventually fails. By baking the board (assuming the rest of the board can survive the temperatures), you are re-floating the solder and mending any fractures. As a tech, even if you have to replace low temperature components, or re-glue the heatpipe like you did, it is worth the effort to refloat the board. As for the tinfoil instructions, I have seen them before, but they are not needed to be that specific. Basically all you want to do is keep any solder points from either side of the board from touching anything, and tinfoil is just an quick way to mold your own holders that won't melt. You can also use clips or other clamp like tools if you do a lot of this work. There are other methods and specific tools for refloating solder on boards like soldering plates and specific solder gun designs or directional soldering heaters. But most of these are not so cheap and certainly not worth the expense of the average user. Another trick to add to the Oven Baking method is a Heat Gun. Get one that can produce the temperatures needed to liquify the solder (Many Paint striping heat guns will do this that can be bought at a hardware store.) A Heat Gun has advantages in that you can only do an area of the board, if you have a board that has parts that will melt and you know where the fracture probably is. (Think Integrated Mainboard and your GPU has failed or your chipset is failing or your audio chipset is failing, you can direct the heat at this area of the board and not have to heat the entire board.) (PS This also works well for HDs that fail because of their electronics. Pull the Circuit Board off the Hard Drive, and refloat it using the Oven or Heating Gun method. If the HD failed because of a mechanical problem, this won't help, but 80% of Hard Drive failures are in the circuit board, so you have a chance. -I did this the other day on a personal external drive, worked great and was able to read/write data as if nothing had even happened.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ShnikeJSB Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Long 23-Page HardForum post that kick-started the baking revolution. Been following that since the first post. A LOT of people have been resurrecting broken video cards, motherboards, even RAM chips. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galdere Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Putting dead hard drives in the freezer can bring them back to life as well. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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