Question Can my situation be salvaged?

Daddys_Kisses

Commendable
Nov 25, 2016
5
0
1,510
I have an Acer Predator 17x
Model: GX-792-7448
I've owned this for a little over a year.

Yesterday I noticed some artifacting on my screens when I was playing classic world of warcraft, which prompted me to check my CPU/GPU temperatures. GPU was fine, CPU was throttled at 97C. Clearly something was wrong, so I began the troubleshooting process. Started with virus scans and software checks. Clean, and my CPU wasn't being bogged down by any programs. Next I checked the fans. Popped off the bottom, they all worked. Updated my bios (there was a minor new version available), nothing. Backed up my information, reinstalled windows, nothing. Alright cool, went to apply thermal paste.

Simple enough. Disassemble, take off the heat sink, apply a generic bulk paste I had on hand (just to see if that was the issue before I went out and bought better paste). A pea on the CPU, a pea on the GPU, and a nice little spill just under the GPU. Whatever, I thought, wipe it up. I don't have the steadiest hands, but I have 91 isopropyl alcohol on hand. Clean things up, but notice that there is paste stuck under the GPU, which is soldered to the board. Uh oh. The space to get in there is the most razor thin margin. I couldn't get in with the smallest sewing needle I had. So I soaked the area in alcohol and used a small bristle brush I had to scrape out the paste. Seems clean. Clean everything up, let it dry overnight just in case.

Today I reconnect everything, and the GPU isn't recognized by the board. I see television static on the login screen and permanent blue artefacts on the desktop.

My warranty is expired (and well past void anyway). I attempt to call an Acer repair shop somewhere near where I live and ask how much a new board would run me. They apparently didn't have any?

I'm now at a crossroads. At this point I believe I shorted it completely. Should I attempt to bake the motherboard? Would it be worth practicing my soldering skills and attempting to move the GPU chip and replace it with a new one? I did manage to locate a replacement GPU for somewhat cheap. Should I just call Acer directly and play dumb, only describing a shorted GPU and seeing if they'll repair it?

This was an expensive laptop. If it can't be salvaged within regular reasonable means, I'd still like to go to any means necessary to get it working again.

Side note, I checked the temperature of the CPU after applying new paste, and it totally was the previous thermal compound. It would be business as usual if I wouldn't have spilt and smeared the tiniest bit of goop into an uncleanable tiny area. Sigh.
 

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
Baking is a last resort.

Order some contact cleaner (I've also heard brake clean can be used, but I haven't tried it personally). This will have a straw-spray nozzle that might clean out any gunk you potentially got under there.

If that doesn't work, I might suggest a bespoke board repair shop. Would probably be cheaper than getting a replacement system board.

A few companies out there that do board repair, but I haven't had to try them out. So look at reviews, etc, before making any decisions.
 

Daddys_Kisses

Commendable
Nov 25, 2016
5
0
1,510
Baking is a last resort.

Order some contact cleaner (I've also heard brake clean can be used, but I haven't tried it personally). This will have a straw-spray nozzle that might clean out any gunk you potentially got under there.

If that doesn't work, I might suggest a bespoke board repair shop. Would probably be cheaper than getting a replacement system board.

A few companies out there that do board repair, but I haven't had to try them out. So look at reviews, etc, before making any decisions.

I was looking more into what would dissolve thermal paste without needing to be scrubbed. I found a few options, but I'm still wondering if it's just finished altogether. I've read about people experiencing the same thing and still managing to recover the GPU, though.

Also worth noting that I think the bristles of the brush I used might have scraped some of the metal off of the pins on the bottom of the GPU.
 

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
Bottom of the GPU would be a ball grid array, not pins. This would be soldered to the PCB and bottom of the GPU. If you managed to dislodge one you must have used quite a bit of force, and, yes, at that point it would be more or less ruined. However, a board shop could remove the GPU completely, put down new balls and resolder it. This isn't something you do with a handheld soldering iron, but a thermal soldering station. Large chips like GPUs require delicate handling.

The idea behind baking is to reflow any detached solder. The risk is desoldering everything else on the board if you heat it too much, which is a common problem amongst people making the attempt. If the board has components on both sides, the ones susceptible to gravity pulling them off need to be supported.

My recommendation still stands. If you did get something under there that is causing a problem a stream of cleaning fluid pushed out by an aerosol can is about as violent as you can get before it starts being destructive.

Maybe the dishwasher, but I'm not sure how some of the more delicate connectors would handle that. I've seen that done with discrete GPU boards and motherboards that were used with liquid nitrogen cooling. They did that to remove vaseline and putty they used to protect the board from condensation.
 
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