Frankenvidia

[Vlaad]

I suppose mot many of us players have time or money to invest in new graphic card witch is crucial component for any game. My configuration ran mwll pretty decently in high but medium details were a choice when playing in larger games. It is composed of:

Gigabyte ds4 965p motherboard
Intel 6400e @ 2.13/oc-ed @ 3.2 ghz
4 gigs 800mhz ram
msi 8800 320mb gts graphic
Win 7 32 bit/winxp 32
750 wd black edition hd (just got to hate that edition prefixes no? )

I composed a configuration 5-5 and 1/2 years ago and still I cant find a good reason to replace it completely. Now the older gtx cards are known to “kick the bucket” before their planned end of date for “expected death”. Considering that in that price range there is little hope for people who don’t really care too much for frames that their eye does not even catch or are not regular gamers, except for unexpected departure of graphics card there is almost no reason to by a new one.
/disclaimer: its an opinion of an occasional modest gamer/

My graphic died recently and was happily heading to gamers trash heap/paradise but then I decided to resurrect it. Here is a short guide how I did it (most photos are with mobile phone camera, it was bothersome to use a real camera).

The symptoms of a dying 8800gts/xxx nvidias is unstable system, artefacts during load and occasional artefacts under heavy load and from what I saw/heard most of them end this way. Being a nervous/impulsive guy I gave her first a good smack. That did not work so I moved to the next phase of torture: the freezer. I heard this one somewhere and wanted to try it out (no logic on this one but wanted to test it anyway). One week and she still was out. Then something far more logical: replaced the exhausted capacitor (bad psu, got it replaced) and still no results. Now the problem points to memory. No tools to remove/test and by this time she refused to work with any drivers and crashed on windows on load when drivers were loaded.

This is what artefacts on load screen look like:


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[Vlaad]

Since I have no tools for memory removal/tests I decided to give a good burn to my card. Read it somewhere and since the card was done I had nothing to lose (warrant expired 4 years ago). In short, “cooking” your card at certain temperature softens up board solders and there is a chance of the card reviving. Since this worked for me, ill explain here what happened to unfortunate 8800.

Next set of pictures shows the “procedure”: unfreezing, stripping.


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[Vlaad]

Strip the card naked to the printed circuit board. Clean the card from excess materials like dust, thermal paste and so on paper markings, RECUCLE MARKING (this one tends to light up). Put it side down on level plate with aluminium foil (to reflect the heat up). Preheat the oven at 220c an roast it for 10 min. Add olives and soya sauce… no wait. Let the thin cool down at room temperature for ~20-25 minutes. And that should do it.
Toast images:



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[Vlaad]

It works. It lives again.
Subjected it to punishing 3 hour long bechmarks, overclockings and even wraped it into alluminium foil to test out at what heat it crashed. It took it all and worked fine without crashing at 700mhz core (575 factory oc) and 870 memory an shaders at... a lot.  (forgot to print screen gpuz)
Proof:
 

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[Vlaad]

Hope that that will help someone!

The next series of posts will be showing sadistic pictures (pg rated +18) and my final creation in the name of better cooling (and Boris Karloff the only true, original and the BEST Frankenstein's monster witch should slam all those emmo-vampires).
It was pure for fun ill post pictures in some short time.

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

wow congrats on the experiment!  Did you put the stock cooler back on?

[~SJ~NotSoCoolJ]

Nvidia was having a terrible time with the RoHS solder type they decided to use from the 6800 line all the way to the gtx200 series cards. They were not the only ones with problems but, they had a hell of a time getting a temp stable connection on BGA processes. I have also been successful using this technique to bring Video Cards and even entire Main boards back from the dead.

Here is the [H]ard-OCP mega thread on the subject.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1421792

Don't be surprised if you have to do it again in about 6 months. I have found it tends to help to try to keep the temp changes to a minimum. A larger CPU heatsink seems to keep my 8800GTS from needing re-treating nearly as much. I haven't done it in 9months and it's still going strong in my wife's rig. Granted Mahjong Masters isn't exceptionally intensive.

[Vlaad]

wow congrats on the experiment!  Did you put the stock cooler back on?

Thanks Square! Ill post my cooling "solution" but you ain't gonna like it! 
Btw I kept the stock... for most part.

Nvidia was having a terrible time with the RoHS solder type they decided to use from the 6800 line all the way to the gtx200 series cards. They were not the only ones with problems but, they had a hell of a time getting a temp stable connection on BGA processes. I have also been successful using this technique to bring Video Cards and even entire Main boards back from the dead.

Here is the [H]ard-OCP mega thread on the subject.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1421792

Don't be surprised if you have to do it again in about 6 months. I have found it tends to help to try to keep the temp changes to a minimum. A larger CPU heatsink seems to keep my 8800GTS from needing re-treating nearly as much. I haven't done it in 9months and it's still going strong in my wife's rig. Granted Mahjong Masters isn't exceptionally intensive.

Yea, nvidia continued that trend all the way to fermi generations . Right now i'm turning to new nvidia gpu (460gtx 1gb, should arrive next week, this one goes at my brothers comp) only because its a (lot) better buy for me.
I did not buy new cooling, wanted to keep experiment to non-profit/expence levels. Even repaired some 6-7 years old cooler.
Anyway here's my current cooling solution and the process. My msi usually worked at ~ 64c idle and ~78c at peek under load (5yr of age maybe or my cramped computer casing). Translate it to close case ambient and it is ~17c plus ambient all at base cooler settings. Its all well, under her bios limits: 78 c operating, 92 c for max cooler setting 110 c shutdown. But since it is technically dead I performed the “surgery”. I “installed” a cooler (got it from a friend was broken down but I fixed it, didn’t want to spend any money on a new one).



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[Vlaad]

Results are satisfying: 9c over case ambient at idle factory cooler setting 68c at peek at full load and +-54 idle. With cooler at max it’s at 5c lover average so its ~49 idle and ~65. But in the end, it’s all dependant of ambient temperature and new cooler worked sufficiently at least. It is not pretty as it was too bothersome to remove excess foil after tests and i kinda like it this way: nvidia veteran knows whats gonna happen if it decides to die once again.

Anyway I heard that in us market this/or better card in similar broken-down condition can be found for 5$ and it runs mwll fine within the limits of its modest 320 ram.

To conclude: not pretty but well cooled. 




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[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

lolz hey man it keeps it cool

[(TLL)Siilk]

 Glad you could fix it, Vlaad. Nice cooler, BTW

[ratbuddy]

Why are you running the video card in the PCIe x4 slot instead of the x16?

[[MPB]OM_Sannyasi]

my guess- oven did nothing- more like heatsink wasn't properly attached before until u reattached after ur barbecue

[ratbuddy]

my guess- oven did nothing- more like heatsink wasn't properly attached before until u reattached after ur barbecue

No, the oven trick is very well known and is basically a poor man's reflow station. See http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=606658 for more.

[-SM-SUCKER]

Cool story. read it before as well, but ever since never had a broken card to try it with. Glad it worked out for you!