Bring your video card back from the dead! - Oven method
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
2,502 words · ~12 min read
0:00
welcome to Resurrection blog this is something that I have been planning to
0:03
do for quite some time with this dead
0:06
GTX 780ti you see nothing NADA dead no
0:11
signal boom done but had my hand forced
0:17
a little bit by the death of the Intel
0:20
750 series SSD in personal rig update
0:24
2015 yes my friends while I was affixing
0:28
this lovely EK water block or more likely while I was removing the stock
0:32
heat sink the 750 series SSD died so we
0:37
are going to use a tried and true well a definitely tried and
0:42
hopefully true method of bringing it back to
0:55
life the master case 5 by Cooler Master gives you the freedom to truly make your
1:00
mid Tower PC case your own with a variety of modular parts and accessories
1:03
check out the link in the video description to learn more all right so I
1:07
know technically you're not supposed to run it with no heat sink no that is not
1:10
how it died I am only running it for a couple seconds to demonstrate that it is
1:16
in fact not working um before we get started here
1:22
this is a lot faster than putting the stock heat sink back on it uh since I'm
1:26
going to have to remove that to attempt my resurrection anyway
1:30
NVMe configuration
1:34
nothing also this monitor does that
1:37
sometimes boom dead drive here we go so
1:41
the science behind this Resurrection method is actually fairly simple whether
1:45
due to uh Heating and Cooling therefore
1:48
expanding and Contracting or some other type of physical stress the theory is
1:53
that some of the solder joints on the board between the chips and the PCB
1:58
Could Have Become broken over time and
2:02
by heating up the component to the melting temperature of that solder you
2:07
could allow it to Reflow and reconnect becoming fully functional again but
2:12
before we get into all the stuff you'll need to perform this particular little
2:16
miracle I want to start with a hefty disclaimer this will Avid the crap out
2:20
of any warranty you may still have so if your product is covered by the retailer
2:26
or manufacturer warranty do not do this
2:29
instead go through the proper warranty channels in my case both my video card
2:33
and my SSD are review samples with therefore no warranty coverage
2:38
whatsoever so we have pretty much nothing to lose at this point except our
2:42
time and if you're going to watch this video I guess yours as
2:46
well so let's run through what we got here we have ourselves a Wolf Gang Puck
2:50
oven that was generously donated by Luke to lonus Media Group because Linus media
2:55
group's employees made it so filthy and disgusting that he pretty much doesn't
2:59
wanted anymore so I'll be cleaning this out uh before trying to repair any video
3:03
cards in it it's important to use an oven that can reach 385 degrees fhe and
3:09
that you never intend to cook food in ever again because as the guide that I'm
3:14
following on over clockers from like 2009 pointed out if you are reheating
3:18
stuff like this in an oven there can be um gases and materials LED off that can
3:24
contaminate future food that you cook inside it the next thing we'll need is
3:28
screwdrivers for taking apart our components our SSD is conveniently
3:32
already disassembled but the video card will need its heat sink removed then we
3:36
will need aluminum foil this will be to wrap the oven tray as well as to uh
3:41
separate the PCB from the oven tray we'll show you guys how to do this later
3:45
on and we will need some replacement thermal compound for our hardware for
3:49
when we reassemble it assuming that it survives the baking process all
3:55
right so let's get to cleaning then ew
3:59
oh that's
4:09
gross why don't we have a host uh cuz
4:13
Ivonne wouldn't let us get one Ed asked why we don't have a hose
4:18
see she doesn't deny it that's why isn't
4:24
it I wanted a hose I also wanted like a utility sink
4:29
out there there why did they get the large ones it's like whoever bought
4:33
these forgot that I work here swimming in
4:40
there new one for that and I take the
4:44
old one here's a funny idea anyone who
4:49
leaves their dishes in the sink unwashed I'll wash it with
4:52
this look at that it's like wearing right through the uh scouring pad yeah
4:58
I've never used it either I suspect Brandon and
5:02
Taran ew look at this one there's like a hanger in
5:06
here ew got to be
5:19
cheese uh okay so this is a really short cord but that's okay because that's why
5:23
extension cords exist I'm not a huge fan of run running like an oven off an
5:27
extension cord but what
5:34
um okay here we go standard bake
5:37
convection bake slow cook roast
5:40
broil rotisserie let's do standard
5:45
bake temperature 385 or
5:51
375 does it make a sound when it reaches
5:55
the I would think so should go beep beep
5:58
beep so we can use the time while our oven is preheating to strip down our
6:02
video card that definitely stinks that is
6:06
gross oh kind of smells like cancer yeah
6:10
it smells like an oven that hasn't been turned on in a year and that was
6:15
disgusting the last time it was turned
6:20
on now this is one key difference between stripping down a card for water
6:25
cooling For example and stripping down a card for baking is that you're actually
6:29
going to want to remove as many of the plastic housings on things like fan or
6:34
LED connectors as you can make sure you note the orientation as you pull them
6:38
off otherwise you're going to have a bad time putting them back together don't
6:42
try to take off stuff like the PCI Express power connector housings uh
6:47
those Will Survive the bake just fine oh
6:51
shoot oh I'm an idiot oh wow oh that
6:55
smoke that is so gross okay
6:58
well I have to pull the tray out because
7:02
you're supposed to wrap it
7:05
okay damn it oh weird it's like curling
7:09
can can you not do that Mr Trey thank you so this y this is cool enough
7:16
now so let's wrap this baby up now the
7:20
guy doesn't say shinys side out or shiny
7:23
side in but that looks like the shiny
7:26
side out it's amazing how how many like non baking people will not realize that
7:32
aluminum has a reflective side and a matte side for not reflecting as
7:38
much yep you learn something every
7:42
day every day that you watch this show
7:46
which should be every day you have videos every day un now the next step is
7:52
to create little aluminum
7:55
balls just like that we're going to use these to keep
8:00
the PCB of our SSD or graphics card off
8:04
of the tray itself it's important not to
8:08
position them on top of one of the components that we want to resolder so
8:12
you want this just touching the bare PCV which might make it a little tricky just
8:15
be careful and go slow I think this side
8:18
is probably my best bet but then this is
8:21
probably the side I think was most likely damaged by removing it so maybe I
8:25
want H okay so if I went like
8:30
this kind of wish I had smaller balls
8:34
aluminum balls so let's make sure we're
8:37
not making contact with anything we shouldn't be any surface mount
8:42
components or anything like that looks like we're good it's at 385
8:48
standard bake okay let's get
8:58
baked okay
9:02
timer start start start
9:09
timer I don't know well okay it's 4:33
9:13
so at 4:41 we pull it
9:17
out and hope for the best you should
9:20
never just pull it out and hope for the best that's why you only need one glove
9:24
cuz it can do up to five at a time although that might be a bit of a
9:28
bottleneck I'm pretty sure it's working it's hot gentle now okay this is a terrible
9:37
terrible situation because oh no wait wait no maybe it's
9:43
okay uh okay I need it to come out a little bit further I don't want it to
9:47
shift on those balls
9:51
though okay here we go I got to be
9:55
dextrous with this glove
10:01
okay now we let it cool to room
10:06
temperature um it's very cold in here maybe I'll cool it to a room temperature
10:11
near the oven um or on top of the oven or well
10:17
okay that seems like a bad idea yeah I don't want to put it
10:20
down I don't know what to do with it I don't want to hold it the whole
10:24
time okay well I want to start baking the video
10:28
card here at some point can you reuse
10:32
the balls yeah no it's okay I'll just hold it
10:37
actually I think I can probably I can
10:41
probably do this without yeah there's like nothing on it
10:45
here so I'll just put one there ew ow ew
10:53
okay this whole I had the glove
10:58
pan okay I forgive you all right okay so
11:03
the video card is done now too it's
11:06
definitely warm ouch um I'm just going
11:09
to put this here for now and let's try the
11:16
SSD come on well there's lights on on it
11:21
I don't remember if it had those before Oh I don't see it in the boot
11:25
priority thing I don't know if it
11:28
worked
11:33
crap well I guess I might as well try baking it one more time don't have
11:37
anything to lose maybe I'll try flipping it the other way this
11:41
time the black like under part of the sticker is still there it's like sticky
11:46
but the barcode is completely done by contrast our sticker that we put on it
11:51
is just fine it's not the outcome I wanted but
11:54
if the GTX 780 Ti works then at least this is for something cuz I can use this
11:59
for a new render server concept that I have that I'll be building out pretty
12:03
soon with that said I'm not going to count my chickens at this stage in the
12:08
game anyway but let's see how it
12:12
goes come on baby let's get something out of this
12:17
exercise I'm pretty sure we should have a display by now wait
12:23
wait hey all
12:27
right so the video card is back from the
12:33
dead rock on that's
12:38
fantastic all right let's take another crack at the SSD
12:45
then oh crap I don't know how long this has been
12:48
done well what are we going to do kill
12:51
it more at this point shut up
12:56
Brandon oh wow we overcooked it
13:00
it looks dark I can't tell I thought I saw steam Rising oh you know what it's
13:05
probably from I oh my goodness ow ow my
13:13
fingers no I think the steam is like I accidentally spat a bit I think it like
13:19
well okay I'm not trying to just spit all over shut up everyone just shut up
13:24
one of the tricky things is that different boards will use different
13:27
soldering techniques and different solder materials so just because
13:30
something works well on a graphics card made by NVIDIA doesn't mean that it
13:34
works well on an SSD made by Intel
13:38
unfortunately I don't have like special guidelines for 750 series ssds oh well
13:43
you should use this temperature for this long so we just have to kind of hope for
13:46
the best here the good news is our 780ti
13:49
is running the heaven Benchmark with no issues whatsoever
13:53
so yeah let's take another crack at it eh
13:59
speaking of which Mass drop if you guys
14:03
haven't heard of mass drop well I'm sorry that you live in a hole because it
14:06
is pretty freaking cool all you got to do is head over to massdrop.com sign up
14:12
and they've got all kinds of great deals whether it's on audio products or like
14:17
you know cool knives or keyboards or
14:21
computer parts or whatever I mean they've got they've got like a bunch of
14:24
camping stuff now like ultra light stuff um super cool and basically the way that
14:30
it works is they rely heavily on their Community to find them the products that
14:35
they really want to buy and that they're interested in and then Mass drop Works
14:39
directly with the manufacturers or authorized Distributors to get genuine
14:44
products at a discounted price so the
14:47
more people commit to buy the lower the drop price goes and the better the deal
14:53
is for everyone today we're featuring The Rocket tition a customizable gaming
14:58
mouse with 14 programmable buttons it
15:01
also features their easy shift key which allows you to assign a secondary
15:06
function to each of those buttons as well as an 8200 DPI laser sensor a 1,00
15:11
HZ pulling rate it can handle up to 30 G's of acceleration with no angle
15:16
snapping or prediction and it can do up
15:19
to 16.8 million RGB LED lit colors in
15:23
two independent zones around the outside and on the scroll wheel of the mouse so
15:28
all you get to do is check it out at the link in the video description and get
15:32
signed up for Mass drop today all
15:38
right well 50/50 ain't bad
15:42
right so guys if you disliked this
15:45
video hit the dislike button rub some more salt in the wound thank you I
15:50
appreciate that but if you like this video hit the like button get subscribed
15:54
maybe even consider supporting us by buying a cool shirt like this one
15:57
changing your Amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code which you can find the instructions for which tout to
16:01
do up there or even consider supporting us directly through our community Forum
16:05
you get a cool little contributor badge now that you're done doing all that
16:08
stuff you're probably wondering o what should I watch next maybe you can check
16:11
out the video where we buy a computer at Best Buy to find out just how bad of a
16:15
gaming PC you will get if you do that
16:19
check that out up at the link in the top as
16:22
well