RETRO GPU: YOU DON'T NEED TO REFLOW!

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Reflowing and Reballing GPUs has been commented and relied upon for magic repairs for a long time now, but do you really need a reballing done? Or even a Reflow? You might be surprised by the conclusion.

Test System Specs

Athlon64 3,200
Asus K8V se Deluxe
1gb DDR 400 Mhz
Maxtor 200gb

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Retro Machines and Gaming Enthusiasts
Intro by Davi w1p30ut3r

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Music credits

When Darkness Comes Against Me - Jan Boyle
Si j'étais - Johnny Zhang

References

#reflowGPU #howtoreflow #fixvideocard

[broklond]

Considering you only have 1.2k subscribers, this was a fairly high quality video, thank you!

[nghithuthanh]

Tôi có 1 thẻ winfast 7600gt 256mb agp và nó có lúc hoạt động và có lúc không hoạt động. Trong khi thẻ đang chạy nếu tôi dùng tay nhấn mạnh vào GPU thì nó lập tức không hoạt động. Có phải gpu đã bị mất liên kết giữa bo mạch không ?

[kylergeston]

Ha, I just watched the Louis Rossmann video and then next one was yours.... how ironic is that?
Actually, I read your comment on his page and then checked out your channel for the video.
I'm going to try this technique with my atifacting GPU. (1070)

Thank you for making this.
I hope I have success just like you.

[jikissgamer]

Good video man! This was an awesome success! I will definitely refer to this video if I ever need to fix up an old GPU

[CPUGalaxy]

Great video buddy 👍🏻☺️. I need to try that on my 9700 Pro wich is defective since years. Keep it up my friend. Cheers

[AshTechCorner]

Nice video man.

I've reflowed many retro GPUs
My reflowed 5950 Ultra is still going strong.
Have reflowed like 6 9700 Pro to no change something else on those cards die, not the solder. Most likely the memory controller.

[ScanLinesAU]

I've heard the shims on these cards have a tendency to move around and sometimes create separation between the dye of the GPU and the heatsink, which causes the card to overheat after a few minutes. Maybe that explains why the after market cooler worked so much better, once the shim was removed? Great video also!

[ted-b]

Nice one Sucra, I've seen people throw them in the oven at 200C + It can work but it risks cooking the caps, which are only rated up to 105C at their highest. Any extra life you get out those great cards is a bonus and we all want that! :)

[classic_jam]

Well it depends how to card dies. If it really is just a broken solder joint a reflow could "permanently" be fixed. 8800Ultra going on 8months has been repaired and card was not even capable of loading drivers. I also had a GeForce 2 Ultra I broke by putting to much pressure on it, and it has been fixed for months from the reflow. My 9700PRO recently died, hopefully it will reflow.

[RetroTechBytes]

Awesome video, Bruno! This was super interesting and I’m kind of curious as to how/why this worked, but it makes sense. I definitely think this video is super useful and your presentation was so easy to follow—this is something anyone (with a heatgun) could do! I know you said it’s only a temporary fix, but I wonder how long it lasts. Have you noticed anything problematic, or has it seemed to hold up? Either way, thank you man for another awesome and super informative video! I loved this one!

[troglodude]

In having trouble getting any video out on my mobos ive tried three different mobos, and for gpus ive tested a riva tnt 2(which did work fine on the oldest board there a Socket A iwill sdr ram mobo), two different geforce 4 ti 4600, a geforce4 ti 4800, two 9800 pros, and one geforce 6800 ultra

[PimpinBassie]

I've got garbled bios text on my 9800 pro. I mounted a Zalman VF700 aftermarket cooler.

[OCROldComputerRebuilds]

I have baked a video card at 375f for 7mins and it works after an year, HOWEVER I worry about the caps getting overheated. so I now have a hot air system.

[mpxz]

I'm going to try this with my ATI x800 today!
I'm nervous as heck, but it's the last thing I can think I can do!
Thanks for the video!

[kyrieeleison]

i dont think im understanding this fully//
so this is basically a diagnostical test?... if it passes this test (ie the card improves) it means there is an issue with the chip itself.. if there is an issue with the chip there is no use in reflowing/reballing...
so first test is a general 100deg heating of the whole card... 2nd test is direct 150deg heating of the chip..
do u immediately use the card after heating it to 150 or is it ok to wait..

[modernandretrogaming]

I reflowed a few cards and some of them worked for months for me. I'm done that with hot air at about 200C for 8.5 minutes at GPU core.

[RiksRandomRetro]

Hah terrific! I was mulling doing this for my broken Ti4600s and here you are with a video covering the very topic. I may consider using a heat gun on mine too since I really have nothing to lose... great video!

[RaPtOr]

I reflow couple of cards, all but one died out in couple days or month most.
And i had most luck with nvidia cards.
All except one Gigabyte 7300GS, that thing is working for years now, in one of my PC that i use just for youtube and music stuff.

[PixelPipes]

Never heard of that method. Surprised it worked!

[VikingoChannel]

Excellent! I'm going to test this on my 9800pro, but sadly I'm pretty sure in my case it's a broken memory.