Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

Collapse
X
Collapse
 
  • Page of 4
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
Previous 1 2 3 4 template Next
    #1

    Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

    I replaced the motherboard in my dv9000 4 months ago. The GPU was fine thank you (i had reflowed it once), but the wired LAN had died, the audio input was fried, and the keyboard was acting up (chipset issue). I specifically asked for another board, not a reball of mine. I got another board alright, but it didn't work on battery. Went back with it, turns out a little diode got knocked off the board when he reballed it... I got it exchanged and the new board worked. Anyway, the point is the board i got wasn't new, but reballed.

    Turns out the 8400M i got with this board was only 128MB instead of 256MB i had on mine. Not wanting to return this board as well i said screw it, i don't game anymore so this oughta do. And i hadn't opened a single GPU-intensive game on it...

    Until Monday evening. I had a friend over and he played some Red Alert 3 while i was playing some oldschool Carmageddon on the old laptop. RA3 worked fine for about half an hour, and then it crashed with a screen full of artifacts. Restarted, again worked fine for a while, then crashed again. It was getting late so we shut it down and went to sleep. On Tuesday evening, it started crashing at the desktop then died entirely. I called the guy who sold me the board and asked about the 6-month warranty... he started talking back at me. I was like "fine, will you get this damn thing off my hands then?" He said he isn't interested in buying it, he's already got 2 for testing, and he isn't selling those (since everyone already knows they're junk).

    Fine. Screw you... Back to our old friend the oven. I love the smell of freshly baked nVidia in the morning... Took the board out, turns i went a little bit overboard with the heat as the connector for the internal modem fell off. I just soldered it back on. I also put some cardboard in the case where the GPU sits so the heatsink is held on tight and presses on the chip, turns out there wasn't anything to support it, and the GPU heatpipe on the DV9000 is only held by two screws to the GPU. Looks like whoever designed this failed their physics exam.

    Put the thing back together, working like a dream. Passed 20 minutes of FurMark with the overclocked settings that i was using with my old board. Maximum temperature the GPU reached was 76C, and then it went down to 70 as the fan kicked in harder. Unfortunately the fan is bound more to the CPU than the GPU temp, but i doubt this is the cause of failure - my old board lasted a good 2.5 years with a failing GPU that would artifact at startup if it was cold, and i gamed a lot on it. And as i mentioned, the GPU on my old board wasn't dead when i replaced it!

    The guy who sold me the board told me that it is recommended to mod the fan so it runs maxed all the time, but that is something i didn't want to put up with and i believe he was BSing me because the fan is temperature controlled after all. Besides, the fan acts like a dust sensor for me - if i hear it running too often it means i need to put the vacuum cleaner in there and pull out the dust bunnies. If it'd be running maxed, besides being annoying, i'd forget it needs cleaning, it would clog up and fail.

    So, not only was i ripped off because he didn't bother to test the new board to see how much video RAM it has, but a "profesionally reballed" board lasted 4 months. That just sucks. I paid $80 plus my old board for it... And i knew the guy from before, i didn't imagine he was such a crook. Note that i'm not dissing reballing as a procedure by any means, i'm just pointing out that like all other jobs, it can go wrong if the user is inexperienced or the materials are poor. I think it's a case of the former here.

    Let's see if you can guess how much my oven reflow will last... Bets are on. I think i posted the oven procedure somewhere, if anyone needs it i'll detail again.
    Last edited by Th3_uN1Qu3; 02-08-2012, 10:58 AM.
    Originally posted by PeteS in CA
    Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
    A working TV? How boring!
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

    its an HP. nuff said.
    sigpic

    (Insert witty quote here)

    Comment

      #3
      Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

      I'd be interested in your oven procedure... I've got a dead DV9000 that I got for free that I'm almost positive is in need of a reflow. Got it for free, so nothing to lose by trying...
      Ludicrous gibs!

      Comment

        #4
        Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

        Originally posted by ratdude747 View Post
        its an HP. nuff said.
        Don't diss them. Like any other computer, they're as good as their user. This laptop did a crazy amount of work until now, and it'll keep doing more work till i can afford to replace it. I just can't lose it at this moment.

        I also have a HP DV5 with ATi 3450 which i bought new, and apart from the touchpad ribbon cable breaking in the first week (replaced it myself) no complaints with that one, and it's on its 3rd year as well. I gave the DV5 to mom and she managed to drop and crack it on the right side, but the screen escaped intact.

        Originally posted by dood View Post
        I'd be interested in your oven procedure... I've got a dead DV9000 that I got for free that I'm almost positive is in need of a reflow. Got it for free, so nothing to lose by trying...
        Take out the board. Remove all plastics and CMOS battery. The kapton tape (orange stuff) can stay, the black stuff needs to be removed. Take some pics of the board so you don't forget how the black tape was set up, happened to me once.

        Take tray out of oven. Make 4 balls of aluminum foil at least 1cm tall, put them into the tray and place the board over them. Arrange the balls under the board so that the board doesn't wiggle around easily. This is so the board doesn't touch the tray, otherwise the parts on the bottom would stick to the tray and break off the board.

        Preheat oven to 210C. Even if it has a thermostat, don't trust it. I use the temperature probe of my multimeter, i stick it in the oven so that it doesn't touch anything and it measures the temperature of the air inside. A multimeter with temperature reading can be had for $10, and the probe takes up to 350C.

        Put the tray into the oven and close door. Wait 7 minutes, make sure temperature doesn't exceed 210C, i'd stick around and watch that multimeter even if the oven has a thermostat. After 7 minutes turn off oven, open door but don't touch the tray. Wait another 10 minutes. Check tray temperature with your probe, if it's under 80C it's safe to take out. Take tray out and let it cool down to under 50C, then take the board out, put everything back together and hope for the best.

        Of course, if you're doing this on a motherboard with 'lytics, all the lytics have to go beforehand or they'll pop. Polymer caps are safe.
        Last edited by Th3_uN1Qu3; 02-08-2012, 11:18 AM.
        Originally posted by PeteS in CA
        Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
        A working TV? How boring!

        Comment

          #5
          Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

          Surprisingly, in certain applications, leaded solder does not perform as well unleaded.
          "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

          -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

          Comment

            #6
            Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

            I don't think this is a case of solder quality but of poor workmanship. If my reflow will last longer than the 4 months his reballing did then it is definitely so. Time will tell.
            Originally posted by PeteS in CA
            Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
            A working TV? How boring!

            Comment

              #7
              Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

              Perhaps it wasn't reballed to begin with...? Maybe he just reflowed it and figured on it making it past the 6 months.
              veritas odium parit

              Comment

                #8
                Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                I've been to his shop and he does have an IR station, and the chip no longer has the red goo on the sides so it has clearly been lifted off the board and cleaned. I think he just doesn't know how to properly use the tools that he has.
                Originally posted by PeteS in CA
                Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
                A working TV? How boring!

                Comment

                  #9
                  Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                  NV-8400 is a dog. I think there is something internally wrong with those chips besides the BGA. Other reflowed stuff lasts longer in my experience.

                  Comment

                    #10
                    Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                    There has been a discussion over this and yes it appears there's something wrong with the chips themselves, but since i had one that seemed to be on its last legs but just refused to die for over 2 years, and then a "profesionally reworked" board craps out after 4 months, what am i to believe? Also my neighbor had it for 4 years before it failed, but admittedly, Acer did a good job on that particular laptop. I was surprised.
                    Originally posted by PeteS in CA
                    Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
                    A working TV? How boring!

                    Comment

                      #11
                      Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                      My mindset is fix it until you get tired of taking it apart

                      Comment

                        #12
                        Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                        Or until it can no longer be put together... On my DV9000, some of the nuts embedded in the case have made their way out so the screws no longer have anything to screw into.

                        I've had on hand some of the new mid-range HP offerings, with the AMD APUs. They look pretty neat, have decent performance and come with a MATTE SCREEN. I guess they finally figured out that people want to actually use their laptops on the go for work and not just at home with dim lighting watching a movie. As soon as my budget allows i'm going to buy one.

                        Also, fact is that ALL 8000 series GPUs are faulty. And all 6150/7000 chipsets too. And yet you see a lot less failures in desktops. They still fail, but not at the outrageous rate the mobile chipsets have been failing. Which means there is something laptop makers have gotten wrong, and IMO that is inadequate mechanical support of the GPU heatsink and low quality thermal interface material. If the chip is bolted properly to the heatsink and the solder balls and board do not run significantly hotter than the heatsink, the solder will not fail. It's simple physics here.

                        I've seen quite a few examples of really bad design, and one of good design (the aforementioned Acer, don't recall the model name unfortunately, but i believe i posted about it when i fixed it), and the good design lasted significantly longer.

                        Edit: Look what i found... HAAAAAX! Looks like someone figured how to make the GPU temperature matter more in fan speed settings. http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thr...-algorithm-mod
                        Last edited by Th3_uN1Qu3; 02-08-2012, 05:43 PM.
                        Originally posted by PeteS in CA
                        Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
                        A working TV? How boring!

                        Comment

                          #13
                          Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                          If I had $1.00 for every dead DV9000 I've seen I'd have enough to buy a good notebook. That model has a huge failure rate.
                          36 Monitors, 3 TVs, 4 Laptops, 1 motherboard, 1 Printer, 1 iMac, 2 hard drive docks and one IP Phone repaired so far....

                          Comment

                            #14
                            Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                            Sure there's something wrong in the chip. Each of those BGA chips has two sets of bumps, one on the bottom of the substrate to the board and one on the bottom of the die to the substrate. nVidia screwed the die bump material up and the BGA solder balls get busted by the other nVidia screwup: excessive heat. Dropping temperature helps both.

                            INQUIRER confirms Apple Macbook Pros have Nvidia bad bump material

                            I'd rather get the free replacement valued at $300 for the one I had than $1 for 300 I didn't. I never even seen 300.
                            sig files are for morons

                            Comment

                              #15
                              Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                              Originally posted by severach View Post
                              I'd rather get the free replacement valued at $300 for the one I had.
                              This is Romania. We don't get any free anything. The HP center here has been only established last year - i don't think they even heard of the failing laptops, let alone participate in the replacement program. Honestly i'd go there and check it out because i would love to prove myself wrong, but it's pretty far from my place, and with -10C outside... no thanks.

                              Plus, the replacement would be a Compaq CQ50, which is 15.4" (the dv9000 is 17"), has a crappy single core CPU and a crap battery. With 50% wear the battery in my dv9000 still manages 2-2.5 hours. And on top of that, there are also reports of the CQ50s themselves dying!
                              Last edited by Th3_uN1Qu3; 02-09-2012, 07:01 AM.
                              Originally posted by PeteS in CA
                              Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
                              A working TV? How boring!

                              Comment

                                #16
                                Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                                Originally posted by Th3_uN1Qu3 View Post
                                Don't diss them. Like any other computer, they're as good as their user.
                                I'll rephrase it for him.
                                It's a DV. 'Nuff said.
                                They are the ass of laptops and and when at my last employer we hated them.
                                We bought one DV laptop that was in excellent shape with eight gigs of ram and a Blu-ray drive and a massive screen and all the trimmings and resold it after a reinstall and bench test.
                                It was back less than a week later. Still as clean as when we sold it but with a detached GPU.
                                Last I heard they revised their policy that they will not buy or repair your DV laptop because it's a given that no matter how much you pay, it WILL die again. You literally have to just give it to them and walk away.
                                Find Nedry!


                                Check the Vending machines!!

                                <----Computer says I need more beer.

                                Comment

                                  #17
                                  Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                                  My replacement Compaq Presario CQ56-115DX arrived about 9:30am. I opened it up to ensure it worked and saw that it was a single core. I listed it at 10:50am and it sold at 11:46am for a mail drop the same day.

                                  I couldn't get rid of this turd fast enough!
                                  sig files are for morons

                                  Comment

                                    #18
                                    Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                                    It takes years and lots of boards to get reballing perfected. Countless boards I have fried....

                                    Comment

                                      #19
                                      Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                                      I don't question the fact that it takes time to become experienced with reballing. But if that's the case, don't do it on the customers' backs! Offer warranties and honor them.
                                      Originally posted by PeteS in CA
                                      Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
                                      A working TV? How boring!

                                      Comment

                                        #20
                                        Re: Reballing does NOT mean it'll last long!

                                        I think BGA packages are a nightmare to work with.
                                        My first choice in quality Japanese electrolytics is Nippon Chemi-Con, which has been in business since 1931... the quality of electronics is dependent on the quality of the electrolytics.

                                        Comment

                                        Previous 1 2 3 4 template Next
                                        Working...
                                        X