Baking your 8800gtx main board

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scrag_meister

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Jan 10, 2007
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Ok so it turns out that XFX "Double Lifetime Warranty" is not worth anything in the UK!!! We get a mere 2 years! Grrrrr!!!!

My card is out of warranty, XFX have suggested helping me in selecting and buying another, cheeky sods, so there is really no where to go. Like I want to spend another £500 with them on a card that lasts a couple of years.

Anyway, I have read of a number of people having exactly the same issue, (http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=106510 ) with corrupt characters pre-post and in BIOS setup, and lines appearing on the Windows boot up screen.

They have suggested stripping the card down and baking the mainboard at 195 degrees C for 9 minutes, to cause the solder connection to re-fuse.

Has anyone else tried this with any success?

Obviously last resort, but that is where I am.
 
the method works in some cases, namely when the solder interconnections have cracked. But 195C is too low*, cranck it up to 240-250C to melt the solder joints properly. If you like you can 'preheat' the card up to 195C for couple of minutes and then increase the temp to 240C for few minutes, depending how fast the oven reaches that temperature. And if possible use the convection fans in full blast to make the heat transfer faster. Typical components used in electronics can withstand temperatures up to 260C, so dont overheat the thing. It would be advisable to have some sort of temperature meter in there as well.

*if the card is pre-RoHS, ie contains tin-lead solder with melting temperature 183C, 195 would be enough. But lead-free RoHS compatible solders have melting temperatures around 220C.

and there are lots of threads about succesfull repairs over the net.

And dont worry, I know what I'm talkin about, MSc in electronics production 😛
 
I am still absolutely amazed.

Thanks to all the author of articles I read over various forums, and to Kari for the reply, I bucked up the courage as the warranty is out, so it either kill or cure, and I am ecstatic cos it cured.

I put my apron on, got out my screwdriver and stripped the cooling off the card, and baked in a pre-heated oven at 235 degrees C for 8-8.5 minutes.

My card is working again.

Saved me a packet.

Thanks again from a very happy gamer.

If your warranty is in get it replaced by the reseller or the manufacturer, else I would highly recommend baking your card. 🙂

RESULT!!!!!!
 
Yup- its been shown to work several times- there is a great thread on it over at HardOCP. Pretty cool way to fix your card, but still- just shows that those cards were not manufactured properly if their solder joints are cracking.
 
I've done this to my 8800 gts with success ...for a limited time First time I did it at like 195 for 8 minutes. It lasted for a month or two, then I did it again for like 10 mins. It still works mostly but still gives me some problems. Decided to just buy an 5850... grrr
 


Yes am already planning and saving for the next build, had this machine for 3.5 years, but its still doing all I want it too and playing all the games I currently play so no need at this precise moment.


 
3.5 years is a great run for a machine🙂 Especially if you are still playing what you want to and happy! Hope it lasts you a bit longer until you are actually ready and have the money for the new build🙂
 
no matter how well the card is manufactured in the first place, the joints will eventually fail. The joints are under quite a lot of stress when the card heats up and cools down, because of different coefficients of thermal expansion of the silicon/chip carrier/pcb-structure. Typical wear and tear so to speak. And since the failures follow some sort of weibull distribution, some joints will fail sooner rather than later, even if there wasn't anything obviously wrong with them in the first place...


anyways... it's likely the card wont last for long as mentioned already by others, there are plenty of other failure mechanisms going on in there, and even if this repair method fixes some, it will likely worsen some others.

But I'm glad to hear it worked again, even if it is only a temporary fix. 😉
 
I understand the physics of the solder joints- I'm an electrical engineer after all🙂 However- the 8800 series boards are the only ones I've heard of to have this particular failure and fix, and it seems to me there is some problem either with manufacturing process or design that causes this type of failure before it really should. I'm sure there are other cards that fail this way, but not, seemingly, in the same quantities and time frame as the 8800 series. Plenty of people have and use their cards much longer than the 2-3 years that these 8800's fail in. Maybe its just something thats been found on the 8800s and other fail the same and just haven't been fixed the same way. But yeah- anyway- thats just how I see it from what I've seen and read.
 
Most of the time, once you take care of your equipment, they take care of you.

3.5 years is a good run and for only one part to act up isn't bad at all.
 


I agree, my 8800 GTS died just under 2 years into its life and it seems to be happening to quite a few people.
 
Nice Scrag-Meister. I still love that baking a board can make it work again, especially when we are all so worried about our hardware overheating🙂

Dark- exactly too many of them failing the same way right around the 2 year mark for it not to be something inherent in the design or build of the board.
 
Any one still remember when most ICs were made at or close to M spec or better?

They could have done better with this generation as with most and as usual they skimped on cooling allowing for hot spots in the VRM to even the core it's self. For some who come into the profession/hobby of PC repair still come across hardware that is decades old and yet functions as the day it was taken out of the box.
 
Yup- there are plenty of electronics that work consistently forever. Part of the problem is that today, manufacturers want you to upgrade and spend more money, so they don't focus so much on making things last.
 



Correct, not to many have seen a working TV from the 50s with all original parts except for a few caps. I miss the quality American and European electronic manufacturing every thing even the cheap crappy stuff is quality by today's standards. Just like cars every thing else is just the bottom line sigh. 🙁
 
Yup. Used to be appliances lasted. My parents had a dishwasher that worked well for like 20 years. They finally decided to replace it, and have replaced it like again and its not even been 3 years yet.
 
back in the day the components were the size of a matchbox with two leads, today your gadgets have tiny csp-packages with lots of tiny solderbumbs, theres so much more to go wrong with them.... but yeah, cheaply made crap is just depressing.....
 
Yup- Its too bad people can't plan more for sustainability rather than immediate cost cuts or looks or whatever. It is true that there is more that can go wrong with the much more complicated gadgets today, but theres also a ton more knowledge of how to mitigate those types of issues today.
 
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