brode09 :
Post back the results, if there are any. I would like to see how this works out on a desktop gpu 😱
It may work for a short burst of life but the long run, it probably won't hold up. Adding extra massive cooling will help some.
In Europe years ago, they deemed all electronics had to have lead-free solder. This was to combat when old electronic go to die and end up in landfills, the lead doesn't leech into the ground, water, etc. Most electronic companies switched over rather than having 2 lines of products, one for lead-free countries, one for lead. Eventually other countries banded on and about all consumer grade electronics are now fully lead-free solder.
The problem is after time (excessive heat speeds this along) the lead free solder starts to either A, develop tin-whiskers, or B, cracks and results in a cold solder joint. Tin whiskers are basically the solder expands and grows micro hairs, or whiskers that touch the solder ball next to it,resulting in a short. Cold solder joint means, although the solder ball appears to be there, it's not connected, or not connected enough to pass the required signal through it.
This results in the 360 red ring of death, the PS3 yellow light of death, the Wii black screen of death, Laptop that boot with no video, GPU's that die, LCD tv's, etc. In all the above system, the GPU is usually the hardest hit, and with heat and excessive COD or WOW playing of 16 hour sessions while your mom feeds you hot pockets, the problems above start to manifest.
A way to fix this is what's called a reflow. The offending chip is heated till the solder under it heats up to liquid (fluid dynamics and other physics force the balls to stay together usually, and lots of flux helps) so the tin whiskers are destroyed and the short is broken, or the cold solder joint is soldered back to the point it was connected to.
With proper cooling, better thermal paste, etc, a reflowed system can last a few more years. 16 hours session with your hoodie over your 360, it will probably die again sooner or later.
Another option is what's called a reball. You remove all the lead-free solder from the chip and with a stencil, reapply lead solder balls to the chip. The problem with this, is although the GPU is now the strongest part of the chain, everything else is still lead free solder and eventually it fails. Reballing seemed to be the bee's knees in fixes but over time, they don't seem to last any longer than reflows as the CPU, memory, etc will then fail as the GPU is no longer the weak spot.
To do the above properly, you need a reflow machine that will heat the lead-free solder under the chip to 217-222 for 20-30 seconds, so that it become liquid solder balls. These machines aren't cheap, so in the DIY world of Youtube, people will use a paint-heater, their oven, toaster oven, hair dryer, anything with heat, that would, in a sense, ghetto reflow their system.
The problem is 99% of the time, you are not hitting that 217-222 window for the 20-30s needed, and you may temporarily break the tin whisker bond, or reset the cold solder joint so it's a bit stronger, but in no way did you "reflow" it.
These fixes rarely last long, and people usually do more damage than good in trying to fix the system.
Anyways, that's the techy reason most electronics fails nowadays, it's because of a bunch of envrio-hippies that forced the government to switch to something that wasn't long term tested.
Most government and space agencies over the world have exceptions to use lead solder still because it's still the best thing we have and you can't have a 25 billion dollar spy satellite stop working because of a stupid tin whisker 18 months into use.
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