What is a reflow? (Laptop Repair)

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Dougx1317

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Aug 2, 2008
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I have a broken HP laptop. The screen is blank, but the lights come on. It does not work with and external monitor. A guy said that I need a reflow. What is a reflow? Can I do it myself?
 
Solution
Basically, reflow soldering (on your end...it's actually a manufacturing term) re-solders all the points on your board. It's difficult to do by hand, and there are ways to do it with real tools - however, you can accomplish a cheap way by stripping your motherboard and sticking it in an oven, very similar to the procedure commonly done to dead GPUs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflow_soldering

Here's a neato way to make a surface-mount iron, which you can use to heat small points to reflow certain places or smaller boards. It would take a while to do so on a motherboard.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/how-to-make-a-surface-mount-soldering-iron/
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