Took a heat gun to my dead logic board! Success!

[devilstrider]

I do the same with XBOX 360's that have the red ring of death.

 

[puttputt]

puttputt,


I'm just throwing this out there, but have you tried to divide up your logic board into sections and heat each one at a time and then check it? I don't know if I'm making sense...

For example:

Do just the upper right
Check if it works
Yes - you have an idea of the solder break

Do just the lower right
Check if it works
Yes - you have an idea of the solder break

etc...


I just thought if you knew what section it was in you could test for intermittent connections.

Just a thought.

Cheers!

-P

Thanks. I'll try different sections next time... which is probably going to be 6 or 7 days

 

[DIMEZ]

pretty intersting...will have to check this thread out again and see your progress

 

[puttputt]

another update....

since the last update I have had to reheat the logic board twice. Once it lasted 2 weeks, the other 1 week. Going over a week now since the last time.

I've been targeting only the 3 chips that have thermal paste on them.

It's still a pain to do this every week or 2, but feel a need to wait for the new models before replacing it.

 

[Ricky30165]

PuttPutt

Hey pal,

I have had this problem with my macbook 15 and 17 inch.
the cause is from the GPU chip which if you are looking at the chips the very left one which actually says Nvidia on it.

To produce products so small they attach the chips to the mother/logic board with tiny balls of solder, unlike desktops which use a PCI or AGP slot. The solder Gets so hot in some cases especially with the Nvidia 8600 chip which our mac books have that it melts and once the machine is asleep or off for a while the solder dries detaching it self from the chip.

I have found a solution which so far has lasted me just over a month and still going strong. By using a heat gun at 400degrees about 10'' above the GPU chip for around 3min and moving to 8" away for 1min. once cooled i have a thin piece of aluminium a millimeter thin which i put in between the GPU and heat sink with paste on both side, which applies pressure to the chip.

I will post back if i encounter any problems, but if you are looking for ideas this is what i've done.

Regards Riccardo

 

[RedReplicant]

The reason this is so common in electronics lately is because of the switch to non-leaded solder.

 

[propalitet]

Actually it's not so complicated, nor is it technical.
Just un-thought off by most people.

Ever seen how computers and other electronic goods are manufactured?

Most modern day electronic equipment contain tiny surface mounted components, usually placed in position and glued on glass-fibre boards (containing pre-soldered contact pads) by robots, then baked until the solder melts... thus making the circuit complete.

Occasionally, some contacts, for one reason or another develop a dry joint, or a weak joint, leading to a premature device failure. The simple process of components in a computer heat up and cool down increases the chances of failure; especially where there's a dry-joint. Basically, using a heat gun replicates the manufacturing process. Provided the heat is intensive enough and the user doesn't attempt to move the PCB while it's still hot, components with dry-joints will reconnect.

Yep. We did some SMT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-mount_technology) stuff in school. We had a small oven though, you would place it on a belt and it would go through it at a certain speed, with temperature set at 3 stages. It was cool, and pretty hard to do if you had shaky hands since we placed the components by hand (not literally of course, but with vacuum pumps). There was a lot of resoldering after...

Actually I just found this article about baking SMD's in a toaster oven

http://www.ustr.net/smt/index.htm

 

[Anic297]

Hello,
One of my Macs starts fine but will freeze after some time of use (around 45 minutes). I'm guessing the logic board doesn't support “high” temperatures; if I restart immediately, it will freeze again, I have to let it cool down to be able to use it 45 minutes again.
So, my question is: is heating the logic board supposed to work in this case? Anyone tried?
I don't want to look for a heat gun and take the risk to fry the LB if it wouldn't solve the problem anyway (which isn't a black screen at startup, as opposed to all posts I've seen).

 

[Edan2017]

Hi has anyone done this on a Mac mini before? , my 2006 one has just died and I think it's the boad.