Can You Re-Solder GPU Chips to the Board?

[asmcint1995]

I know about the common trick to bake a dead GPU in an attempt to reset the solder and bring it back to life, but I'm curious. Is it possible to just take off a chip entirely and re-solder it and have it work correctly?

I told my mother(who taught me nearly everything I know about computers) about the idea of baking a dead GPU, specifically one I have already, and she expressed concerns about the safety of such an idea and pointed out that she has a soldering iron and plenty of experience using it. So I'd like to make sure that this is indeed a viable option.

Any answers and advice are dearly appreciated.

 

[Gam3r01]

Baking a card is only a temporary solution to a bigger problem. It is also unhealthy to do, since you know, you cook food in the thing.

You can sure try to solder the card, but its highly unlikely it will be successful or even fix the issue.

If you ever consider baking a card, you should probably be buying a new card.

 

[asmcint1995]

Baking a card is only a temporary solution to a bigger problem. It is also unhealthy to do, since you know, you cook food in the thing.

You can sure try to solder the card, but its highly unlikely it will be successful or even fix the issue.

If you ever consider baking a card, you should probably be buying a new card.

Well 1: If I were to bake a card, I'd grab a sufficiently powerful toaster oven at a thrift store and use that. I absolutely would not bake a graphics card in an oven I intended to prepare food with. 2: I don't really need the card in question, it's just that I'm looking into making a gaming PC for my stepdad on the cheap(ideally by upgrading an old workstation acquired for cheap) and if I could revive that old card it'd cut the cost by at least $100, and if that died again I wouldn't have spent much in the first place and he'd still have an iGPU until I could order a new one.

 

[USAFRet]

Can it be done? Maybe. Given the proper tools and experience.
Can you do it? Given the question asked, probably not.

How do you know the solder is the actual issue? Baking or otherwise?

 

[Gam3r01]

The issue you are going to run into is how small and sensitive the solder joints have to be, you realistically cant achieve a reasonable result by hand.

 

[toshibitsu]

I had a video card go bad in a 2011 27" iMac(started by having weird lines on the screen, then eventually would just get a white(grey'ish) screen and that was all. I disassembled it and baked the video card in the oven. Afterwards, re-assembled it and tried it out. The iMac was working just fine again and has continued working just fine. This was roughly about a year ago.

 

[norcalsc]

Buy a new card........game on

 

[asmcint1995]

Can it be done? Maybe. Given the proper tools and experience.
Can you do it? Given the question asked, probably not.

How do you know the solder is the actual issue? Baking or otherwise?

I don't. I have no clue, but I figured if I could try it cheap enough, worst case the card's still dead.

The issue you are going to run into is how small and sensitive the solder joints have to be, you realistically cant achieve a reasonable result by hand.

And that's the end of that. Thank you. If I do try it it'll have to be a bake.