How to Reflow a Laptop Motherboard
This article describes a reflow procedure that can be performed at home in a conventional household oven for a common laptop motherboard repair of the broken graphics chip.
What is a Reflow?
The term ‘reflow’ describes a process of briefly melting (reflowing) the solder on an electrical circuit board, in this case a laptop motherboard.
Why would you perform a Reflow on a laptop motherboard?
The solder used in laptop motherboards tends to degrade over time, becoming brittle and weak. It can change from being a solid block of solder into more of a honeycomb structure. This weaker solder joint can fracture causing tiny broken connections in the circuit, invisible to the naked eye. The idea behind performing a reflow is that it melts the solder, allowing it to form a solid block again and joining up the electrical circuit.
When would you perform a Reflow?
Another common example is a laptop that will appear to power up, but there is no graphics output to the LCD panel or to an external screen. In this case, it is likely that there is a broken solder joint around the graphics chip (GPU).
A reflow is a method of last resort. In other words, you would only ever try this on a laptop motherboard that was so completely faulty that it would otherwise need to be replaced. If performed incorrectly, a reflow can damage your motherboard even further. But on the other hand, if the motherboard is broken anyway, and would otherwise be replaced, then performing a reflow won’t make the problem any worse.
Certain makes and models of laptops seem to be more prone to these GPU problems than others. It seems to be particularly common in the NVIDIA chips used in some HP laptops, especially the following models; Pavillion dv2000, dv6000, dv9000, dv9500, dv9600, dv9700 and Compaq Presario V3000, V6000.
How do you perform a Reflow?
Available at Amazon
This might sound a bit crazy, baking your laptop motherboard in an oven, but if performed correctly, it can achieve the same end result, remaking the solder connections which may have been broken.
It is very important that the motherboard is completely stripped down before attempting this procedure. Remove the CPU, heatsink & fan, RAM, BIOS battery, wires, speakers, stickers, plastic sticky guards, foam spacers, absolutely everything that can be removed from the motherboard.
Then preheat your household oven to approximately 200°C or 385°F. If your oven does not have a digital temperature display, perhaps use an internal oven thermometer to make sure the oven is in the right temperature range.
Available at Amazon
If the reflow is being performed because of a faulty graphics chip (GPU) then perhaps wrap the rest of the motherboard in foil to protect it, leaving just the GPU exposed on both the top and bottom of the motherboard.
Then place the baking tray with the laptop motherboard on it into the preheated oven.
Make sure your kitchen is well ventilated at this stage, turn on the extractor fan to full power and/or open an outside door and windows. This will help to take away any fumes. Ideally, you should leave the kitchen while any fumes are still present.
Available at Amazon
After 8 minutes, turn the oven off and open the oven door. Do not remove the motherboard from the oven at this stage, it could be very hot and it is a better idea to allow it to cool down gradually. Take care not to inhale any fumes that might be present.
After 20 minutes to half an hour, remove the cool motherboard from the oven and begin rebuilding your laptop. If all has gone well, it will boot up and the problem will be fixed. If the problem remains, you could try the procedure again, leaving it in the oven for a couple of minutes longer.
After performing a reflow in an oven, I recommend cleaning the oven thoroughly, then turn it on and allow any fumes that may have built up to be completely removed. This is especially important before cooking food in the oven again.
How long will a Reflowed laptop motherboard repair last?
It is impossible to say for certain how long a repaired laptop motherboard will last. It may be a few weeks or a year, there is no way to know. The problem with the solder fracturing does tend to come back again though eventually. However this technique might at least allow you to get your laptop up and running again for a while, long enough perhaps to save up for a new laptop.
Video of a Motherboard Reflow
Here is a quick YouTube video I came across of someone performing a laptop motherboard reflow in a household oven. It doesn’t cover all the points I describe here but it shows the basic principle.
*** Disclaimer: ***
Putting your laptop motherboard in a household oven is potentially dangerous and is a method of absolute last resort when trying to fix a fault. This method of performing a reflow is well documented across various sites on the internet, and although many people have had success with it, it may not work in every case. We will not be held liable for any damage, either direct or consequential, that you cause to your motherboard, to your oven or to any person or property as a result of attempting this procedure.
Please – Be safe and be sensible!
Kyle is spot on. Do not preheat oven, the rapid temperature change can damage the board or some components. What has worked every time is protect everything that is sensitive as described above, put the board in the oven, turn on to 400 degrees for the non-lead solder used for many years now that has a higher melting point. 400 is a minimum for the solder and a max for safety of other components. When the oven reaches the target temp, turn it off. You can open the door right away to start the cooling or wait a minute or two. It does not need a long bake. That will damage electrolytic capacitors. They can explode in 10 to 20 min. Do not touch the board or remove it. Let it cool before handling due to flowing solder.
Warren
15 May 13 at 7:28 pm
I taped all vents in my dv7 3165 and left it on for 5 hours- shut it down for 1/2 hour And it worked to retrieve my files- shut it down after that and it hasn’t worked since- I’m going to try the baking method and if that don’t work I will DO the 12 guage shotgun method and post it on youtube.
Jeff
2 May 13 at 4:34 pm
This works!
John
25 Feb 13 at 7:34 pm
DO NOT PREHEAT THE OVEN!!!!
preheating the oven can cause cracking of the motherboard, as it will raise temperature too quickly, put it in then turn the oven on, once preheated, cook for 7 mins, then turn off and allow to cool naturally.
I’ve been doing this to dv6000s for over a year now.
kyle
17 Feb 13 at 9:26 am
I really don’t know what to do with my Hp dv1000
Joana
5 Feb 13 at 5:55 am
nice video. One question I think that I messed up one of the two connectors for the usb/power jack board. Is it the long or the short set of wires that runs the power? If it is the short one then I think that I can run the power and just not hook up the usb wire. Or do I need to connect both in order to power the board?
thanks
Jim
15 Jan 13 at 2:50 pm
I place a small amount of weight on the gpu when baking seems to help.
twnclick
29 Dec 12 at 12:15 am
Why was the temperature of 200c and the time of 8 minutes chosen?
sempifi99
23 Dec 12 at 8:24 am
Second attemp with another faulty mobo I can confirm that the oven method worked ! Wrapped mobo with foil ( very important ) and carefully removed the foil that was covering the GPU. I have a gas oven and had no idea of the temp but I chanced it as I had nothing to lose. 10 mins cooking I removed board and left to cool at room temp for about 30 mins. Connected it back up and the HP logo displayed. That was that.
braveheartscot
10 Dec 12 at 10:06 am
I’ve just fixed an 5 years old nVidia 8600GT from an Aspire 5920G.
Preheating until 170ºC. Insert the graphics card into the oven set to 200ºC and ‘cook’ it for 9:30-10 min. FInally, left cool down for 30 min.
I controlled the temperatures with a IR temperature gun, I think that this is very helpful in order to do it securely.
The graphics card revived and it’s still alive until now, 2 weeks after. Now I try to use it the coolest possible, reducing its MHz with nTune (the easyest way).
Thanks.
David
6 Dec 12 at 5:28 am
If the BIOS battery is soldered on, just leave it there. Cover that part of the board with foil.
Computer Repair Tips
25 Nov 12 at 10:46 am
have one question my laptop motherboard has the bios battery solderd on it ,do i need to unsolder this or can i leave it on it ?
jamie
25 Nov 12 at 7:08 am
Tried the oven method on a dv9500 mobo but unfortunately it only changed the gray / white screen to a blank one. Before I cooked the laptop there was disk activity booting into windows i presume but thats not happening anymore. i am receiving power to board and i get the4 bleeps alerting me that the ram is not installed.Cooked it twice now dont know if its completely gubbed.
Braveheart
24 Nov 12 at 10:27 pm
Great ! It worked
I wrapped the whole mainboard with aluminium foil, excepting the gpu top and bottom, pre-heated my oven to 200 deg celcius, and put the board into it for 10 minutes. After 10 mins, i switched off the oven, open the door and let it cool. Then i re-assembled the laptop, put two pieces of copper shims under the CPU and CPU, and screwed. I disconnected the fan from the board, switched on the laptop for 2 minutes, then removed the heat sink again and put some more thermal paste. connected the fan to board, and finally my Acer works like a charm 
Thanks for the tip bro!!
Shahir Jaunoo
23 Nov 12 at 7:00 am
Well, had an acer aspire 5535. I just changed the mainborad of the laptop and it worked great! But after a couple of weeks, same problem again. Gonna try this method with both mainboards and see if it works
Shahir Jaunoo
22 Nov 12 at 8:17 am
Computer Repair Tips,
Thanks for clearing that up, I just wanted to know for definate the the components on the bottom were OK being as it is my first time doing this.
Luke
15 Nov 12 at 11:59 am
Hi Luke,
It would be highly unusual for any components to fall off the bottom of the board. Even if the solder in those places was sufficiently melted, it would still require some small amount of pulling to remove a component from the board.
Computer Repair Tips
15 Nov 12 at 11:24 am
So what about all the components on the bottom of the board??? Sounds stupid but wouldn’t they all drop off when the solder melts? Comment back please cos I’m about to attemt one for the first time.
Luke
15 Nov 12 at 11:02 am
Had a previous post on August 4th, now the laptop is not starting up again, ready to try the 2nd reflow, the first reflow last for 3 months.
Lam
25 Sep 12 at 6:38 pm
if you put some flux liquid ,
How long have it to be in oven ?
many thanks
Claudio
figo
12 Sep 12 at 4:07 am
Thank Goodness, I have been looking to get some reflow course then I found this site, thank you for turning me to a gormet chef, let get baking.
NanaDany
4 Sep 12 at 12:59 am
Still a working Laptop after 1st reflow 2 months ago.
Lam
4 Aug 12 at 2:32 am
I do computer support as a business…. mostly tutorial work, virus removal and computer tuning for seniors. I usually don’t open up computers but when my own hp pavilion dv9500 gave me the black screen of death last week I didn’t want to chuck it right away. I paid $1400 for it and was hoping I’d get a little more life out of it. I’ve used it a lot for five years with no problems. Mine has an Intel processor; a friend of mine bought the dv9000 with AMD about the same time as mine and his video/motherboard failed within the warranty period so he got a free repair from HP. I was aware that this was a potential problem for mine but hoped it wouldn’t surface.
About a year ago I noticed the cooling fan was on more than it used to be; I considered taking the whole thing apart and cleaning the fan area but was lazy and didn’t want to break anything. A couple months ago it started crashing during heavy graphics usage while playing Battlestar Galactica Online. I thought it was the BSG Online interface but now I think it was probably the Nvidia chip connection starting to go. Last week it crashed a couple times; then it would not get past a mostly black screen with greenish/yellow vertical lines, all the lights on the keyboard blue but nobody home. Seemed like the classic symptoms of Nvidia video card death.
Anyway after reading all the posts here I was apprehensive of this actually working but I figured I had nothing to lose; checking out the replacement motherboards online for $100+ made me guess that many of them had probably been reflowed anyway (why not, the warranty on them is only 30-60 days, perfect guilt-free profit on a reflow for those churning them out). I figured if that was what I was going to get I might as well try that on mine first.
I disassembled the machine following a handy video I found on youtube for my model of hp. I noted that there was a lot of dust in the air handler area, this probably meant the whole thing had been overheated for long time. I stripped everything off the board that I could. I wrapped the board in aluminum foil but left the video chip exposed on both sides. After preheating the oven it was still below 375F so I turned it up to 420F and put in the board with chips facing down for about 9 minutes (it seemed like the best way to get full exposure to the Nvidia connections on the bottom of the board). The thermometer showed 400F when I turned off the oven, cracked the door open, had the fans going to get the fumes out, and let it cool.
A day later I put everything back together. The system came on, wanted to use a restore point, and voila — back in business. I immediately copied all the data off both drives in case it was a temporary fix. Left the thing on, copying 80 gigs of data to an external drive, went to bed. The next morning it was still on — and working. But the wireless wasn’t. Popping the panel off, I realized I hadn’t reinstalled the thin plastic protector that had been between the wireless card and the rest of the board. I found the protector in the trash, inserted it under the wireless card and… I’m writing this now using the wireless network. I guess many of these components must be pretty heat sensitive.
All I can say is … thank you for sharing this technique and for all the helpful comments. I never would have guessed that I could reflow a failed motherboard in the kitchen oven. I’m hoping this will last for another year (or even two) while I save up for the next machine. It probably won’t be an HP.
Levi
28 Jul 12 at 2:01 am
Another great method is with an airflow station …. set to 450 C for nvidia large chipset… smoothly move around for 2 min. from up to 3 cm !
Bogdan
24 Jul 12 at 2:58 am
Works everytime, well 90% of the time…but still the only last thing to do before throwing them into the trash can…
Den
7 Jul 12 at 6:42 pm
Bob – that’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.
Matt
3 Jul 12 at 10:19 am
Try this method 3 weeks ago, I put my Toshiba satellite L655D motherboard into the oven (make sure remove the battery on the motherboard, rams, other stuff, if u dont’, then the battery will be explored while u put into the oven) , turn on the oven to 385degree for 8 mins, after 8 mins,turn off the oven, leave it inside for half of an hr. After the motherboard cool down, put everything back. Restart the laptop , the screen comes back on, solve the blackscreen problem. Its still a working laptop for now, make sure place the coolant on the GPU, proccessor chip, etc. That helps to reduce the laptop tempurature, avoiding to overheat the GPU again. Not sure how long it will be last tho, hope it can be last over years til u get a new one.
Lam
24 Jun 12 at 7:23 am
Thank you so much.I cannot believe make iron sheet because its destroy in motherboard.
Fredrick Owino
22 Jun 12 at 2:59 pm
Computer Repair Tips – I think I got the wrong end of the stick. I thought this would make it go faster like when it was new but it didn’t. Some of the blue bits that look like sweets have gone black. I tried putting it in the freezer over night to undo whatever I broke but that hasn’t helped – I just got condensation on it when i took it out and the lines on the bottom have gone green now. Should I try it in the oven again?
Bob
16 Jun 12 at 9:34 pm
Just buy an smd rework station and do it the right way. You can get them for about $100 now
Dennis
5 Jun 12 at 10:00 pm
Just wondering if the oven method will work for my laptop.. this would be the second reflow.. any idea? I’m scared that i would totally loss if i try the oven trick..
HopingForMyLappy
1 Jun 12 at 6:39 am
This is a great fix – worked for HP Pavilion DV5 ‘black screen’ problem:
The laptop lights would come on but the the screen didn’t display an image. Wouldn’t work with an external monitor either. The Caps Lock and Num Lock lights would flash once every few seconds. Other than that nothing, no life, dead, etc…
Oven baking the motherboard for 9 minutes at 200C solved the problem and the laptop is now working fine! Thanks!!
(HP’s site says this error comes from the CPU, but I baked mine with the GPU uncovered, and the CPU socket ((CPU REMOVED)) along with the rest of the board covered with foil – and its solved it no problems!)
Ed
31 May 12 at 4:23 pm
We use an electric grill in the shop. About 400F for 20-30 minutes. Works great.
Big John
25 May 12 at 1:20 am
Bob – Why on earth would you bake a motherboard if your laptop was working fine?!? Baking a laptop motherboard is a repair method of last resort when your laptop will not work at all, and all other methods of repair have been tried.
Computer Repair Tips
22 May 12 at 12:32 pm
I would warn against trying this. My laptop was working fine until I baked the motherboard in the oven – now it won’t boot up at all
Bob
21 May 12 at 4:17 pm
i did this to my toshiba p305d-s8900….did it for a little over 8 min. it worked!!!! i cant believe it actually worked. i understand the concept, and ive used a heat gun on a few 360 boards, but i didnt think it would work on a laptop mobo. im amazed. the computer wouldnt turn on before i did this but the light would come on like it was but it never did. did this worked first time. still cant believe it! you just saved me 170$ for a mobo from ebay!!!!! thanks
robert
17 Apr 12 at 1:00 am
Hp Pavillion dv2000, WORKED!
I baked the motherboard for 9 minutes at 200° celsius.
I did remove all components and stickers, wrapped the board in aluminum foil and cut over and below the NVIDIA chip.
Happy cooking!
Frank
18 Mar 12 at 11:40 am
Baking you MB really works. My hp dv2535 was driving me off the wall and was about to throw it out the window. Luckily came across this reflow thing and woilaaa….
Thanks whoever came up with this, you are legend man.
hp baker
2 Mar 12 at 1:14 am
Baking works great, I have done hundreds of reflows / reballs, and even though not all work, many do. For those of you getting upset because it didn’t work, or broke soon after keep in mind that solder is metal, and the more you heat and re-heat metal the more tempered it becomes. Also Solder will not stick after a while of being heated and cooled and either flux or fresh solder must be applied. This can be done by using a heat gun to heat the chip and remove it, then clean up all the pads on the chip and board, apply new paste with the correct ball size and re-attach the chip through reflow techniques. It is a lot of work, but if your willing to give it a try it can save you money. Otherwise selling it off or trading is a reasonable alternative.
jeicrash
23 Feb 12 at 6:27 pm
Hi there!
I just like your idea baking the motherboard. But knowing this is an dangerous case.But I think it would not be applicable in everybody’s case.
ABIE
22 Feb 12 at 6:27 am
I used this on my desktop motherboard. The “South Bridge” had, well, gone south. The PC wouldn’t boot anymore. After “reflowing” it, it now boots fine.
I give it two thumbs up.
I used wine bottle corks instead of balls of tin foil. The corks got a bit roasted, but held up.
tintinmilou
20 Feb 12 at 6:37 am
I tried heating the graphics chip by placing an iron on the chip placing a thin sheet of paper in between for about 25-30 minutes and guess what my laptop is breathing life once again
David
18 Feb 12 at 10:30 am
The laptop only lasted about a week after a reflow. Overheated again. Installed some 3d games and it overheated. I will reflow it again just to try one more time.
Sven Blidstrand
8 Feb 12 at 6:29 pm
I can confirm that this worked perfectly using the instructions provided on a HP Pavillion DV2000
anthgav
2 Feb 12 at 6:28 pm
Baked it saturday. Now it is a working laptop.
Baked it in 9 minutes in 200 degrees and let it cool down.
Sven Blidstrand
30 Jan 12 at 5:15 pm
Oven worked for me. 10 Minutes at 200c sat on 4 balls of tin foil. Let it cool down, connected up and Bingo! Up and Running. Whoever came up with this fix is the Dogs Bollocks. Thanks
steve
23 Jan 12 at 10:13 pm
I Just did this on a Dell XPS M1210 yesterday morning. Preheated to 385. I put the motherboard on a cookie sheet on top of 3 balls of tinfoil so it was not sitting directly on the cookie sheet. 8 Min in the over after preheat. at the 8 min mark I opened the oven door and turned off the oven. I took it out aprox 5 min later. Put everything back together and BAM – IT WORKED!! I left the paotop on for 4 hours lesterday and it worked perfect. Before the fix I would get TONS of colored lines arcoss the screen after 5 min of the laptop being turned on – then it would lock up.
I didnt think this would work as it was a last resort before purchasing a new motherboard but IT WORKED!!! SEEING IS BELIEVING!
Andy
3 Jan 12 at 11:14 pm
i posted previously, and this is a follow up: the laptop (sony) worked fine, for two month and then the screen/graphics when out again, will do this reflow again but at this point want to take a torch to it… has any one done that? please post your experience and what you did. but oven works so far temporary… i wonder if there are ways of improving it? like different time or temp?
dave
22 Dec 11 at 12:22 am
Just did the reflow on a toshiba L350D with a bad graphics or southbridge chip. I did 9 minutes in the oven, and let it cool slowly. Assembled it up and – BAM – works a treat. I recommend this guide to anyone with such a dead laptop!
SEB
18 Dec 11 at 2:56 pm
this guide is okay, but one thing to ensure you don’t break your boards. when your done with your baking and are ready to turn it off DO NOT open the door. leave it and let it drop to room temperature slowly. if you open the door you will cool it too fast and break things.
Xero
16 Dec 11 at 11:10 am
im gonna try this tomorrow, i just bought a laptop on a pawn shop, after a week and ha half the problem started, i was playing a game and then werid grey and RGB colors in the screen showed up, i tried with a hairdryer and didnt work, weather wasnt helping. i dont have money for a heat gun so this is my last shot, hope it works, at leas for selling to another pawn shop, the werid thing is when i turn on the laptop, while pressing the WSDFVC keys (where the graphic chip and the screen cable, the screen shows backlight with no color, ther turns in red, green, blue, grey, black and then blank (sorry for my bad english, i speak spanish)
JFBP
15 Dec 11 at 6:59 am
Fascinating video! – I have seen this done numerous times with GPUs (8 series Nvidia mainly) but haven’t seen this successfully performed on a MB before – good work!
PC Repairs Watford
11 Dec 11 at 7:59 pm
Patience is a virtue!! This procedure does work – eventually. I tried an 8 minute bake the board worked for about 3 hours. So I redid it going for 210 degrees this time and an intention to leave it for 10 minutes. Regretably the phone rang and I ended up with a 12 minute bake. However when I refitted board it all worked and so far has for a week.
This is probably not a long time solution but it will give me enough time to sell the wretched machine and buy a new one!!
anoninspain
5 Dec 11 at 1:09 pm
I’m sorry this guide didn’t work for you, but as it says, this procedure is not a guaranteed fix and just something to try as a method of last resort. I know it’s frustrating when it doesn’t work, but perhaps your laptop was just beyond repair.
Computer Repair Tips
29 Nov 11 at 10:56 am
unfortunately it didn’t work! this guide sucks! witnessing (again!) the blinking light from this laptop crashed my hopes.
Erven Aragon
28 Nov 11 at 4:06 pm
[...] How to Reflow a Laptop Motherboard in a Household Oven | Computer Repair Tips looks like 200c for 8 mins is the way to go you must strip it down to nothing on the board and just bake the board on its own [...]
Advent 5612 black screen dosnt boot up.
27 Nov 11 at 6:20 pm
I just did my second reflow on a Compaq F730US mobo. First lasted almost 2 years. This time I researched the engineering and process for wave soldering and reflow soldering machines. They expose the board to the heat for 60 to 120 seconds. Also, there is a ramp-up to target heat and a cool down cycle. It’s dangerous to put a board in a 385 F oven as it might crack it. The fine foil circuit(s) that crack finish the board. This time, I stripped the board, put it in a cold oven, set the temp at 360 F. It took 8 minutes to get there. As soon as it hit temp, I turned off the oven, opened the door and let it cool. Residual heat was plenty to keep the reflow going as long as it needed. It works fine. Also, I put the board on pencil sized wood strips, chip side up, with nothing underneath it in the center of the oven, so it got a good amount of heat where it needed it. I doubt the tin foil under it helps anything, just prolongs the required time which is not good for caps. Various solders are used on the boards…60/40 melts at 371F, 63/37 at 362F, 63/36/2 at 355F. Lead free melts about 40F-50F higher. I suspect lead free has been phasing in since the early 2000′s, depending on where the board was made, but I did not research that aspect. Good luck on your bake. Throw some cookies in there alongside the board and celebrate when it’s done and working. If the cookies burn, you’re overdoing it.
Warren
25 Oct 11 at 3:36 am
Hi guys! Just wanna let you know me too succedeed in baking my motherboard.
Pavillion DV9500 w/ NVidia GEForce 8600 GS with Nvidia defect.
Everything works fine. Just to tell, I replaced cooling paste on GPU and CPU
Thanks everybody
Enrico
27 Sep 11 at 6:05 pm
People, if you are smart enough to fix the computer by this method, or at least to attempt it, then you should also state the obvious- you do not need to do this in order to back up your data. the data is stored on the hard drive or its equvivalent (flash drive) either way they are removable, and all you have to do is get the usb adapter for it and you can use it as portable drive/back up your other stuff from it. but as far as this method i used it and fixed the laptop, though broke it again on the “final lap” asembly, that means first time i assembled it to see if it starts up, then second time i wanted to do proper assembly with all the screws in and tightened properly, so then it didnt work and the reason is this: when you put things back together, you have to remember not to flex the board, mine got flexed cause i had to press the screw driver tighter to the screws so that i have a better torque on it. if i cared lesser then who knows it may have still been working. but now i ordered some flux and thermal paste, and will try this method again, and hopefully the flux will make better connections. sorry for my spelling. hopefully my reflow abilities are not reflected by my spelling LOL
dave
27 Sep 11 at 12:31 am
Did it once to an Nvidia 8600 gt portable and worked for a month or so.. went bad today, gonna try it again let’s hope it works again (sadly i broke a cable of my wirelles card so the portable is probably gonna end in the trash, damn it..
ah_burn!
12 Sep 11 at 6:16 pm
I tried this today on my Dell XPS M1530 and it worked! Massive thanks!
Tom
7 Sep 11 at 10:01 pm
Hi, I have done this and in fact it worked! First my Laptop (dv2945se) wouldn’t recognize my dvd drive properly, then one day it wouldn’t turn on at all… found instructions similar to these online and followed them to a tee, and sure enough.. Shes up and running again! I was so impressed that i wanted to post my results (which i never do). Thanks!
Sonny
3 Sep 11 at 11:53 pm
In response to the question – “could someone tell me if new thermal compound is completely necessary?”
I will assume you refer to the thermal compound between the graphics chip and it’s heatsink.
The answer to that is – it depends. On most laptops I have done this on, they tend to have a thermal pad attached to the graphics heatsink. As such, there is rarely any thermal compound on the chip itself.
Under the heat of the baking procedure, there is no doubt that if thermal compound is present on the chip it will dry up and crack/crumble, rendering it ineffective as a heat transfer medium.
So if after disassembly, your graphics ship still has an amount of thermal compound on it, I would recommend removing it prior to the baking process using something like isopropyl alcohol. Then after the baking process apply fresh thermal compound before reassembling.
Standard thermal paste is inexpensive and may help with ensuring heat transfer in the long term. However, if all you are wanting to do is get your laptop up and running again long enough to retrieve data files, etc, it will probably make very little difference whether you apply fresh thermal compound or not.
Hope this helps!
Computer Repair Tips
23 Aug 11 at 3:55 pm
I have a bricked HP Pavilion dv9700 and thought I’d give the oven a try. Its been mentioned a couple times in comments, but could someone tell me if new thermal compound is completely necessary? I’m not sure if I should wait for some to be delivered or go ahead and try without? And, if the oven method doesn’t work it’ll be a waste of money on the thermal compound.
Thanks for the guide!
Mulligan
21 Aug 11 at 11:06 pm
I tried baking my the motherboard on my old acer last night and have just re-assembled it (with a few spare screws left over – oops) and it works. I can rescue my files before it dies again – Thanks!
Victoria
11 Aug 11 at 1:27 pm
My laptop (Gateway P-6860fx) GPU died in November 2010. I replaced the laptop right away. Since the old one was shot anyway, I figure I had nothing to lose besides a couple bucks for some new thermal compound. I removed the MoBo and baked it at 385 for 7.5 minutes. A figure gathered from several websites on the subject.
So far it works. I don’t know for how long though. The bake was performed last night.
Things I’d do differently: Remove the black plastic covering. I’d read that it wasn’t necessary. Much of it melted onto the board, but can still be pealed off, so no major issues with it. Some edges curled. Not sure if they will ever be an issue.
Be a little more careful about removing everything. I forgot the little plastic piece in the SD card slot, so it’s pretty much fused in there now. No SD card for that laptop now, but no big loss considering the nature of the “repair.”
This was a last ditch effort before paying $250 to replace it. I fear that the replacement parts were fixed in a similar manner (albeit a more professional and controlled method one would hope), so I would hate to waste $250 on something that’s going to break in a year or less anyway.
Sharon
8 Aug 11 at 3:14 pm
Re flowing a Laptop Motherboard definitely works, but the problem is how long it works, some work a week others more than a year. For a stress free life cut your losses and sell your laptop on ebay for parts.
PC repair manchester
27 Jul 11 at 1:42 pm
Liked the `bake hp motherboard in the oven` method – it does work! Clean the chip with Articclean thermal material remover and add a copper square & artic silver 5 paste. This is vital to resolve original overheating problem. My guinea pig HP lasted for over a year and is still going!
Regards,
Mike
Mike Searle
23 Jun 11 at 2:49 am
Tried the heatgun technique. Lasted for a week. Now I baked the motherboard for 30 minutes at 300 degrees F and it’s working fine. Now I can transfer everything to my new notebook.
Greg
16 Jan 11 at 2:19 am
Nah, if it is just the graphics chip or main processor chip you can more directly control the reflow with a heat gun or if you are very carefull a butane torch on its lowest setting. No need to bake the entire thing…
Just an option to consider anyways.
Like the article says, it is a last ditch attempt to add life to your system. Most likely if the fix works, you will have to do it again after some time. So even if you are able to repair, it is a diffinitive sign that it is time to start looking for a new motherboard or a new computer or at the very least, get all your important data backed up.
Danno 2001
6 Jan 11 at 5:18 pm