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Vent: I fixed a dead 2016 Dell laptop by baking the motherboard, which feels totally wrong but it worked
The thing had a classic GPU failure, no display at all. A customer brought it in and said they had nothing to lose. I was out of reflow stations, so as a last resort I followed an old forum guide: wrapped the board in foil, left the CPU and RAM shielded, and baked it at 385 degrees for exactly 8 minutes. Let it cool for an hour, reassembled, and it booted right up. Part of me knows this is a temporary hack, but the laptop's been running fine for three weeks now. Do you guys ever use these 'last ditch' methods, or is it always better to refuse the job and stick to proper tools?
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loganhart1d ago
Baked a dead Xbox 360 motherboard in my oven once, same deal. Stripped it down, used foil on the sensitive bits, and prayed. Got another six months out of it before it red-ringed for good. Sometimes the proper fix just isn't worth the cost for the customer, so you go with the kitchen reflow. It's a hack, but it gets them running for a bit.
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jesse_barnes371d ago
Wait, you actually used your oven for that, @loganhart?
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