Baked laptop for dinner - what temperature?

[ainarssems]

So here is the situation: I bought this laptop on e-bay as non working looking to use screen from it in to another laptop. When it arrived I tried switching it on before ripping to pieces and it worked. Soon I realised that it has interminent problem where it sometimes switches on and sometimes it does not as well it might switch off when it likes. It can be made to switch off buy bending it or if it does not switch on it can be made to switch on by flexing it in the right bottom corner. Obviously it has loose/dry joint somewhere. Instead of checking all of the joints and resoldering I thought I could take the motherboard and bake it in the oven to melt loose joints together pretty much like it is done when manufacturing.

The question is what temperature to use and how long to bake it? I have been trying to search the net on motherboard manufacturing and while there is lot of results on manufacturing I could not find anything about temp. The solder used probably has melting point somwhere 12-180 C so I would need to use a bit higher I was thinking 220-240C looking to use higher temp and shorter time like 2 min because don't want ot make plastics melt or caps to pop.

If anybody has slightest idea please let me know. And this is experiment so I will not be sorry if it does not work out afterall it was bought for a screen and I will still have a working screen if I frie motherboard but if I can make it all work - why not? - I can always get another screen for that laptop.

Iam looking to proceed with baking tonight or tomorrow at latest. So If You can give me your best advice,please do and I will let everybody know how it worked out.

At this point I am going for 240C and 2 min unless somebody gives me better advice.

 

[montyuk]

please take some pics and post pre/during/after!

 

[ainarssems]

Only camera I have is in the phone and flash is not working anymore but I will see what I can do.

 

[frozenlead]

I second the pictures.

Also, if you've got a soldering iron that tells you what temp the tip is at, you might be able to find a more specific value for your mobo's temp.

 

[williamjacobs]

One success story about resurrecting the graphics on a mobo used 385 degrees F for 7min. 45 seconds.

The gold standard for JetDirect Cards is 375 for 5-8 minutes.
JetDirect network cards

By many reports, at 350, the solder doesn't melt, at 400, stuff starts to burn.
Be sure to PREHEAT, so parts of it don't cross 400 when the heating element first fires up.

 

[renagade13]

Your idea is very strange, but a lot of people are curious, can you upload some pictures a？

Not as strange as you might think. I saw a video on YouTube where this guy baked a video card to resauder the connections to the GPU and it worked great.

here is the link

View: http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gb1ujGfp0M

 

[buckjr117]

I have resurrected 2 8800 gt video cards by baking for 8 minutes at 385 degrees...both working fine. Saw this on youtube.com

 

[necho8_53]

I baked my D630 motherboard. My Nvidia GPU *NVS 135M* Was taking a sh*t. I Preheated the oven, set the timer for 8 minutes and the oven temperature of 380F. Once the timer dinged, I turned off the oven and waited another 30 minutes before touching the motherboard. After that I was golden, tested the Laptop and since then hasn't crashed.

 

[edwinj2004]

it works just fix a hp dv2600 works perfectly .only concern is how long will this last

 

[gr8hairy1]

it works just fix a hp dv2600 works perfectly .only concern is how long will this last

It all depends on heat. Heat is what causes solder problems. Whatever you bake will take a crap again if you don't watch the heat. If it's a laptop, get a cooling pad so it doesn't happen again. If it's a graphics card for a desktop, get some more case fans. The cooler you keep it the longer it will last. I've baked a fee laptops successfully. If you're looking at throwing it away, try baking it first. Nothing to lose. Except maybe lungs. Some nasty fumes come off them than are really not good for your health. Make sure to have the windows open and a fan on, even in the winter. Just not worth the risk.