How I resurrected my MacBook Pro by putting it in the oven

http://ales.io/2014/03/09/how-to-bake-a-mac.html

by alesdotio • 12 years ago

215 200 12 years ago

Kliment• 12 years ago

You might want to get rid of that Vertex 2 as soon as reasonably possible. It has an issue where at some point when switched on or resumed from sleep it will corrupt all your data and refuse to boot. Some have a different bug where it will silently corrupt some of your data and the only way to find out is by the HDD light being on for longer than usual. Back up your data and get rid of it. I had it happen to me twice (warranty replacement after the first one, but then second one did it too). OCZ died as a result of this. Save yourself before it's too late.

bananas2• 12 years ago

+1 for that.

Had exactly the same trouble. Moved to Samsung 840 Pro since - everything works just fine.

slantyyz3• 12 years ago

I had one Vertex 2 just up and die, but another one is still going strong on Macbook, but that one's just for surfing, so it's not critical if I experience a catastrophic data loss.

Will have to agree with you, the 840 Pro's are great.

uptown• 12 years ago

Any idea if the Vertex 3 is in danger of this as well? I've been running it since April, 2011 without a problem - and have good backups - but I'd hate to waste the time trying to recover.

spartango• 12 years ago

Vertex 3 with the latest firmware seems relatively stable.

alesdotio• 12 years ago

That sounds really bad. Guess this laptop is totally doomed now. Thanks for the tip though.

jonmrodriguez2• 12 years ago

How does this work? Is the idea that there's a loose chip, and you're reflowing the solder to re-attach it?

Relatedly, one of my friends successfully revived a bricked playstation by heating up the motherboard with a heat gun.

andyjohnson0• 12 years ago

As far as I know, 170C is not quite hot enough to melt solder. It would need to be around 200C.

ics• 12 years ago

Depends on the alloy, tin/bismuth will melt around 140C. I would've expected over 180C to be necessary as well though. Sn63Pb37 is very common and melts at 180C, but since it has lead I don't think it's used much in large scale electronics manufacture.

benjamincburns2• 12 years ago

If you're talking about a $10,000 reflow oven with tight PID control where you set the profile and go you'd be correct. if you're talking about a kitchen oven with cheap setpoint control that has a tendency to waaay overshoot, you're best off to aim a few 10's of degrees low.

steeve2• 12 years ago

Yes this is exactly that: solder reflow (on which chip is the real question).

Note that on some chips (CPUs in particular) reflow soldering is the only way to solder them.

stinos2• 12 years ago

Not sure if it is real reflow, doesn't seem warm enough. Maybe some contact point was not optimal, and by heating everything and the expansion resulting from it there was some repositioning causing the contact to work properly again. I'm assuming this because we had a similar, but inverse situation once. There was a small soldering problem that would only manifest after the PCBs got heated >50C.

But in the end it all comes down to luck, it's not like 'heat it' is the new tool that will fix all. (My MBP had a swollen battery, wouldn't dare putting that thing in an oven)

ansible• 12 years ago

(My MBP had a swollen battery, wouldn't dare putting that thing in an oven)

Indeed. As a public service announcement: never, ever, heat up any kind of battery, for any reason. Ever. (Now picture Jamie Hyneman glaring at you.)

batoure• 12 years ago

>My MBP had a swollen battery, wouldn't dare putting that thing in an oven

The title of the article is misleading the only thing the author actually put in the oven was the mainboard.

jmpe2• 12 years ago

This sounds like a BGA issue. They also had the on PS3/4 and XBox if I'm not mistaking.

The chip has a grid of small solder balls on the bottom instead of pins sticking out. Due to thermal differences during operation some rows can experience mechanical stress due to uneven heating of the device. When there are cracks the contact disconnects from the board. Some images here:

http://www.playbackups.com/Playstation3-xbox-360-repair-repa...

When it's cooled again the contacts join, placing it in the oven applies an even thermal load across the entire board and you basically anneal the cracks.

bananas2• 12 years ago

Yes exactly.

This happens all too often unfortunately. It's why you didn't see anything BGA packaged in the defence industry for a number of years -- they are not mechanically stable. I did have a reference for this but I can't find it now.

Also the multi-layer boards tend to bend when you repetitively heat/cool them resulting in the actual metal traces cracking inside.

Sometimes there's enough contact after this oven cycle for it to reconnect BGA packages and board traces semi-reliably but like hell I'd rely on this method for long-term stability.

I did a spell post-university reworking things that pick and place machines had screwed up and it was pretty much entirely packages like BGAs where there were arrays of solder connections. The production guys were always returning prototype devices due to mechanical problems on the boards as well and they were coming back with socketed LGAs and soldered PGAs.

danmatan5• 12 years ago

And from a manufacturing/engineering point-of-view (which I am neither), I guess it's really hard to solve this problem.

You have some unpredictable 1/100 or 1/1000 defect that occurs long after production and sale.

Just how do you go about isolating the cause, and testing a solution? Make 5 changes, and put through a production batch of 1000 units, and then do accelerated testing? If 5 fail from one batch, and 2 from the rest, is there even enough statistical power to confirm that you've come across a solution? And you just burned through 5000 units.

Sounds like fun trying to solve this kind of problem.

cordite• 12 years ago

For anyone who doesn't know what BGA stands for, it is Ball Grid Array.

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

Cthulhu_• 12 years ago

What I gathered from colleagues who had similar issues (and who also successfully fixed it using an oven), the soldering or something else tends to crystallise and form thin threads, eventually causing a subtle short circuit that b0rks your laptop. 170 degrees may not be enough for flow soldering, but it should be enough to melt those threads / crystals down and break the short.

gregsq• 12 years ago

The temperature is just on ok for reflow, but the board temperature wasn't ramped to the normal reflow curve. Stresses can cause problems as well, so he's certainly on the winning side of things that could go wrong. That indicates to me that the assembly quality is pretty good to begin with.

Symmetry• 12 years ago

The problem is that NVidia switched the solder connecting their chips to the board without switching the potting material they used to something with the new thermal expansion coefficient. So as the chip changes temperature the thermal stress is turned into mechanical stress, until one of the contacts breaks. The fix in the article will re-form the attachment, but you'll still be accumulating stress and it will eventually fail again.

Google for "bumpgate" for more information about this than you'd ever want.

steeve2• 12 years ago

Or you can use a hot air gun if you have one. Reflowing does work wonders.

DanBC4• 12 years ago

Be careful not to use vigorous airspeed. It's possible to blow balls of solder away from the pads. These then cause shorts and are annoying to fault find and repair.

fnordfnordfnord7• 12 years ago

Huh? The solder balls are under the chip sandwiched between the IC and the PCB. There is no direct contact with the hot air.

shabble• 12 years ago

http://transistor-man.com/macbookpro_gpu_reflow.html

Pitarou• 12 years ago

Do NOT try this with a microwave oven.

If you do, there will be a bad smell, and lots of sounds and lights, and you will not read Hacker News today.

egeozcan• 12 years ago

and you will not read Hacker News today

not from your laptop, at least. and most probably not from within your house too.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Will%20It%20Mic...

core1024• 12 years ago

You can use even a microwave oven, but only in GRILL mode ;)

aidos3• 12 years ago

I'm sure it wasn't a great idea but we used to microwave things for the effect. At one point there were no lightbulbs left in our house because they'd all gone in the microwave. Your very own Aurora Microwavas from the comfort of your own kitchen.

MichaelGG2• 12 years ago

Wait doesn't this break the microwave? If not, I'm gonna show my kids something really neat.

rizalp• 12 years ago

Sorry, but why?

Why it is bad to do this with Microwave Oven rather than conventional oven?

mikeash3• 12 years ago

Microwaves interact with metal in interesting ways. It will likely induce high voltages in the computer's wiring, causing the chips to release all of their magic smoke.

kcbanner• 12 years ago

Because a microwave does not produce heat from a heating element. It uses microwaves.

alex_doom• 12 years ago

You don't put metal in the science oven.

kiallmacinnes• 12 years ago

This should give you an idea why you can't use a microwave oven - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vGZcbkNtCw

vacri2• 12 years ago

A regular oven provides heat from a heating element (which may be gas, electric, wood fuel etc), which heats the air in the oven. A microwave provides heat by using radiowaves to agitate responsive molecules (water is one) in the food - any warmth you feel when opening a microwave has come from heating the food, not the microwave itself.

When metal is in a microwave, the radiowaves hitting the metal create sparks, and sparks kill electronics.

nichodges• 12 years ago

Reminds me of my first Raspberry Pi. It was from the first batch, and only worked if I gave it a blast with a hairdryer. Once it warmed up it booted fine, but if I turned off the hairdryer it would turn off after about 30 seconds.

At the time it was about a month wait for a new one to arrive, so I did a lot of initial Pi discovery with a hairdryer.

stinos2• 12 years ago

Tried it on mine, no luck. Basically it didn't run properly because the resistance of the fuse was ridiculously high resulting in a voltage drop of almost 1V. Meaning I had to power it with a 6.5V power supply. Well, you don't find those easily so I just got rid of the fuse.

watson• 12 years ago

For anyone interested in the nerdy details of why this works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflow_soldering

Anyway, this isn't new - I remember seeing this on Slashdot, HN and a lot ofter other places over the years:

http://voices.yahoo.com/how-reflow-laptop-motherboard-oven-6...

http://mr-mediocre.hubpages.com/hub/How-Baking-A-Motherboard...

etc...

Munksgaard• 12 years ago

I've done this twice on different laptops. It works like a charm :)

The explanation I got when I did it the first time was this: When the computer heats up and gets cold a lot, over time the solder joints on the motherboard might "crack", or something, effectively giving loose conncetions. By heating the joints in this controlled manner, the metal melts and solidifies properly when cooled down.

kakoni• 12 years ago

So, first reflow your motherboard, then bake some bread, get all those toxic flavours in? (Wondering if this would somehow ruin your oven..)

q3k• 12 years ago

Actually, a lot of electronics from this era failed because they manufacturers were still experimenting with RoHS (read: no lead) electronics production, especially lead-free solder.

While heating a RoHS PCB in a food oven might still be kinda toxic, at least it's lead-free ;).

jonmrodriguez2• 12 years ago

If you use a temperature hot enough for reflow (200C or more, according to andyjohnson0), is there any risk of heavy components on the bottom side falling off?

benjamincburns2• 12 years ago

Except for extreme cases, no. The cohesive force of molten solder is more than enough to hold your components in place. Also interestingly enough, this is also what causes surface mount components to automagically "settle" over their pads when you have the proper amount of solder/flux.

rekwah• 12 years ago

Reminds me of the Xbox 360 "towel trick" tutorials for combating RROD back on the original models.

WildUtah• 12 years ago

I once had a Toshiba laptop that would work only after spending twenty minutes in the freezer, and then only until it warmed up.

I don't think it had the same problem as this MacBook, though.

werid• 12 years ago

That sounds like the old harddrive trick where a harddrive refuses to start until it's cold enough.

dorfuss• 12 years ago

How do you guys invent this stuff? It wouldn't cross my mind... ;)

yardie2• 12 years ago

I unbroke an iPod 5G by slamming it into my desk fairly hard. That was about 3 years ago and it's still working. Something about the HDD bearings seizing because of shock.

I have a Seagate HDD in the freezer for 2 years now. Every method of recovery I've used has been unsuccessful. I'm waiting to send it into a recovery service, and $1500+ that I haven't got lying around.

ddeck• 12 years ago

It's a great trick. I've managed to image a couple of drives that had failed with the help of some long SATA/power cables and a nice chilly freezer.

TacticalCoder• 12 years ago

I confirm here that one day, about ten years ago, I managed to save a harddisk on which I had important data for which I had no backup (well, I had backups but I had lost/forgot the gpg key to decrypt them which in a way is even more stupid than not having backup at all: false sense of security).

You could hear the HDD "wanting" to start but failing. I searched the net like crazy because I really needed the data kinda badly: I even considered trying to find an identical, used (but working), HDD and swapping the controller.

Eventually I found a message (somewhere on Usenet I think) saying that some failing drive may start when cold enough... So I did put the HDD in the fridge. After the 2nd try I managed to boot it and to copy all my data and it's the last time that that drive booted!

So, as crazy as it sounds, the fridge/refrigerator trick was working in some cases... And I take it that the grill/heat thinggy may work in some cases too :)

furyg3• 12 years ago

For a perfectly golden and crunchy crust make sure you leave it in there for precisely around 7 minutes.

Comedy gold.

downplay• 12 years ago

I have a friend, that lived in a dodgy part of town. And the day he bought his new Powerbook, he hid it in the oven before he left the house.

Sadly after a visit to the pub, he thought pizza would be a good idea and preheated the oven. Only to suddenly realise his new computer was inside it.

He rescued and cooled it, and oddly, it survived! Only it had shelf marks permanently moulded into the chassis forever more.

sgt• 12 years ago

"that lived in a dodgy part of town."

^ How is this relevant to your story?

raimue• 12 years ago

Why else would you need to hide your laptop in the oven?

pgeorgi• 12 years ago

I read that as an explanation for the "hide notebooks in the oven" thing.

fnordfnordfnord7• 12 years ago

I am surprised the LCD survived. Most don't like temperatures higher than ~150 F.

aestra• 12 years ago

This is why I obsessively check the oven before I turn it on. Always.

We had an incident when I was probably 5 years old when my sister put a stuffed toys in the oven then a while later my mom turned it on to use it. Then we smelled smoke...

There was no lasting damage (beyond my sister losing her favorite toy) and she of course was much too young to know better. That incident however got me paranoid about me turning on the oven with unknown objects in it. So now I check first.

mgkimsal5• 12 years ago

"with people having apparently similar but in reality completely unrelated problems"

Not sure what he was reading - this is a known problem with at least many early 2011 MBP - I had one (still do - it's in the closet). Apple is refusing to acknowledge this as a problem, and will offer to replace the motherboard (or something like that) for ... $300 and approximately 5 business days.

From what I've read, whatever they replace doesn't actually do the trick; by many accounts, even when you drop it off for repair, they've claimed to not be able to reproduce the problem. Hint: use the external video chip, or force a use of it.

FWIW, if you're in the triangle area, sixrig.com gives really good service, and got me a new refurb laptop the day after xmas at 9pm at night.

Source: apple forums and http://mbp2011.com

johnchristopher• 12 years ago

Source: apple forums and http://mbp2011.com

Wow: “The problem might be on the GPU” Said the “Genius”. That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear (he didn’t mentioned this until I pushed them this far.) So I replied, “You all knew exactly what’s going on here and you intentionally kept this from the customers, right?” Right this moment, the “Genius” has left.

That's insane.

mgkimsal5• 12 years ago

They wouldn't run any advanced diagnostics on mine because I had 'too much ram' in it - model was rated for 8gb but I had 16gb. Not necessarily unreasonable, but... it worked fine for 2 years with that ram in it, and the problem was obviously video related. well, nothing's that obvious, but... they didn't offer to just unscrew the back, remove the extra ram, and run more tests - they seemed to want to not handle my issue at the store. "5 business days" without my business computer is a bit too much, and now I realize I need a fallback strategy. :/

slantyyz3• 12 years ago

There's a lot of variability these stories in terms of how you're treated by a Genius when you take your computer in. When I took my problematic 2011 MBP in, they pretty quickly determined that it was a motherboard issue and replaced it.

Two months after my motherboard was replaced the video glitches started appearing again.

Coincidentally (or not?) it happens that I use Coda every day, and Coda forced Macs (inadvertently, apparently -- Panic used Apple's guidelines on how to implement this "gracefully", but Apple's flag was buggy) to use the discrete card all the time.

Interestingly enough, once Panic disabled the 'use discrete gpu' flag in Coda, my screen glitch problems basically went away on my new motherboard.

iancarroll2• 12 years ago

Can I ask why a store (sixrig) has ads on their site?

mgkimsal5• 12 years ago

I didn't say the site was good, just the service ;)

Hadn't noticed ads before - I see one now. Might be trying to take advantage of traffic a bit, because they're primarily serving just one geographic market, but may get outside traffic? Dunno. Again, hadn't noticed before.

FWIW, I don't actually like the site - it always works slow on my mobile, and even on the desktop - some weird scripting stuff going on. That said, the personal support and attention I've had on my few transactions over the last year make up for that.

mst2• 12 years ago

Well, you can, yes.

But given he's a happy customer of their hands on service and didn't even mention the site, I'm not sure the answer you'll get will be terribly relevant.

chiph• 12 years ago

I have a new board in mine as well. Without AppleCare, it would have been $550. Estimated value of the machine, from CL, eBay, etc: $575.

The downside to Macs having become popular is the severe price drop in the used market.

mgkimsal5• 12 years ago

I was always told the benefit of Macs is that they hold their value. I don't think it's terribly true - never felt like it when I've come to sell.

cloverich• 12 years ago

Hmm. I sold my 2008 macbook pro on Ebay two months ago and got $500 (average was in $350 range). Just another data point for perspective.

rob• 12 years ago

Wow, thanks for that link.

I have an early 2011 MBP and last year the same thing as OP happened. Ended up bringing it to Apple and did their repair depot option for $300. At least they extend the warranty for 90 days.

Not looking forward to this happening again, though. Especially since last time it came back with a couple of scratches on the bottom case that weren't there when it was sent out. I guess we'll see.

asabjorn• 12 years ago

I experienced the exact same problems with my early 2011 MBP, and the blue screen of death was fixed with a motherboard replacement. The failing graphics card also seem to have done damage to my Apple Thunderbolt Display, but that is incredibly hard to prove so I do not know if Apple will fix that for free.

I must say that this is a bit disappointing for a $3500 piece of hardware. There should be recall procedures for electronics like this as well to protect customers from faulty production.

quackerhacker2• 12 years ago

I gotta say, I would've never thought of baking the motherboard. Makes sense in regards to overclocking and as the op stated, he constantly ran his MBP. Baking, I guess, would kinda resolder connections...total guess.

My recommendation, I repair devices all the time now, after you remove all the little screws and the piece you need (like a motherboard or pcb), take the time and put every screw in the hole it came out of. Trick I learned as a mechanic. It helps prevents losing them and guessing, since sometimes screw threads and height vary.

gus_massa2• 12 years ago

I usually make a map of the board and use masking tape to fix the screw to the map.

quackerhacker2• 12 years ago

Yeah, if I'm running a fast fix (like pull a battery, ect.) I'll usually arrange the screws in an orientation to how I pulled them out, but long fixes like the op had (or when your waiting for parts)... I put the back in.

Not a bad idea with the masking tape, guess a magnet would work too.

eterpstra2• 12 years ago

Similar story: I was at a friend's house, and we wanted to play Nintendo Wii. Tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. My buddy grabbed the power brick, tossed it in the microwave, and blasted it for 3 seconds. After plugging it back in, it started like nothing was wrong. I was flabbergasted (one: because WTF! who puts a power supply in a microwave? and two: OMG! it worked!)

kawsper• 12 years ago

It isn't the best of ideas to cook electronics in a oven also used for food.

eterpstra2• 12 years ago

One detail I forgot to mention: this was at the end of a very successful night of drinking.

fnordfnordfnord7• 12 years ago

Stupid Wii power supplies, these are known to be pieces of junk. I keep a spare for this reason. Simply letting it "rest" unconnected for some unknown duration also does the trick.

outworlder• 12 years ago

That's probably an open polyfuse. Unlike the fuses of old, the new ones actually regenerate themselves (re-crystallize).

danielweber• 12 years ago

I heard it as the Wii power supplies are very protective against surges at the cost of being extremely sensitive to surges. I've done the "unplug it completely for a few minutes" to restore functionality a few times.

kbutler• 12 years ago

It worked because he did a Wii AC power adapter reset:

"The AC adapter must remain unplugged at both ends for a full two minutes."

https://www.nintendo.com/consumer/assets/js/doc_frame.jsp?f=...

The microwave was like customer support telling a caller to unplug the power cable and blow into the power socket.

zz1• 12 years ago

Same procedure done by Mio Cugino, but way more accurate! :) http://www.miocugino.com/macbook-resuscitato/

gus_massa2• 12 years ago

Autotranlation: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=...

ripa• 12 years ago

This is a known method for fixing this type of problem where the solder has been damaged due to excess heat and/or improper cooling from the start. It's also known that this is most likely a temporary fix where it will fail again in a couple of months (depending on the usage etc.).

This is also why I would take great caution purchasing a used laptop (especially with a discrete graphics card). It's a real risk that the previous user did this trick to quickly sell it while it's "working".

As an owner of a 2011 Macbook Pro with AMD graphics (known to fail) I sure hope that Apple acknowledges this issue soon.

netcan• 12 years ago

Rise again from the ashes.

marincounty• 12 years ago

Did not read story, but if it it what I think; HP had the same problem with a bad nvidia chip, poorly designed cooling system, etc. They denied the problem, until sued. Meanwhile, desperate users where putting their motherboards in the oven, curling the hairs in the nvida chip, and sticking pennies on the hot chip. I will never buy another HP laptop! I'm surprised Apple won't admit to a problem. I think if Steve was still alive he would admit to the defect and offer a fix--why?? Because Steve was one of us--he liked his toys, and expected them to work. A video card problem would have irked the hell out of home, and his engineers would have to pay for their mistake. What's his name--Tim Cook--just worries about the books. Which will eventually be Apples fall from grace.

mst2• 12 years ago

Did not read story

Then please don't comment. This is Hacker News, not slashdot.

PhantomGremlin5• 12 years ago

Right. It's not like the story was War and Peace. Not even the Cliff's Notes of War and Peace. It took about a minute for me to read, including time looking at the pictures.

ninive• 12 years ago

Did it too successfully 3 years ago with my Acer laptop. It worked but as you're saying, didn't lasted so much. Anyway was pretty cool ;) Pic here: http://imgur.com/iDaYpBD

enscr• 12 years ago

Dealt with similar issue with HP tx2000 (HP is a horrible company that refuses to acknowledge a problem that has plagued their entire series). I removed the processor, applied fresh thermal paste with a copper shim & gave it the oven + hair dryer treatment. It worked for a while but failed again. Not worth wasting time on it. It's better to ebay it for parts.

jcd748• 12 years ago

I used to have an HP with this problem as well. Eventually I managed to get my files off the computer, and then promptly bought a new, not-an-HP laptop. Never again.

benburton• 12 years ago

leave it in there for precisely around 7 minutes

Nice.

bcl• 12 years ago

Sounds like tin (solder) whiskers:

http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/background/index.htm

epx• 12 years ago

I used a Sterilair (a small heater that supposedly cleans the air) to ressurect a Sony camera. It also stopped working with no obvious reason, I suspected of humidity and left it hung about 30cm above the heater for one day.

shocks• 12 years ago

I have done this with a handful of Xbox 360s. Works like a charm! Also makes for some interesting questions from your housemates...

tomwhipple• 12 years ago

I printed the article, the GPU kernel panic log and took them to the Genius bar. Apple replaced the mainboard for free, more than 3 years after the purchase.

It took me more than a year of dealing with random crashes and several visits to the genius bar before I found this article.

Though the downside is that you'd miss the excitement described here...

Neeo• 12 years ago

I have searched the definition of existence out of this issue but have never found this article, if I had just seen this article before the 3 year mark. But I have already solved the issue by installing Linux and not installing the Nvidia driver. I will buy a new laptop soon anyways, but I will still run Linux tough. I will try OP's method when I get a new laptop.

kator• 12 years ago

There are chips on both sides of this board, is there a chance you could re-flow them off because of gravity on the other side of the board?

danmatan5• 12 years ago

I recall some years ago (7?), some other mac having some characteristic issue that could almost always be fixed with a little time in the oven.

Having a kitchen with an oven and living in a student area where Apple products were popular, I sensed a business opportunity.

I put up an ad on some local classifieds with a lowball price for these units (but not much different than what the broken ones would sell for on Ebay, minus the hassle). I quickly learned that, after investing in a premium product, people would rather hold onto their brick rather than turn it into at least some cash. I never even got a chance to try out the procedure, people would counter-offer with ridiculous prices for, what is for them, a brick.

The sunk cost fallacy at work.

edit: I think I even offered pickup and some data recovery/security as a part of the offer, no takers.

Edmond• 12 years ago

Some of these weird hardware fixes are due to manufacturers using adhesive.

I believe Creative (creative.com) for instance intentionally uses adhesives that ware out after a certain period.

This would cause your product to stop working, I did a writeup on fixing their MP3 players some years back : http://vistev.blogspot.com/2010/02/harware-fix-for-creative-...

Now merely hitting the device or doing some other crazy stuff may cause the necessary components to align and viola things work :)

caycep2• 12 years ago

This is due to failure of the ball grid array solder, I'm assuming? Most of what I've seen has been due to failure of the video card - I think the nvidia ones were notorious on certain models, but I've had it happen on my 2009 iMac with a radeon card.

Sort of what sold me on integrated GPU's as being the ideal in these form factors - less parts to blow up in your face....

slantyyz3• 12 years ago

> This is due to failure of the ball grid array solder, I'm assuming?

On the longest 2011 MBP GPU issue discussion on Apple Support, there was some speculation that the switch to weaker "green" solder by Apple caused the issue. Some people had their GPUs reflowed at an independent service center, and it fixed the problem, but for others, it was only a short term fix, with the GPU glitch returning after a few weeks/months.

nobleach• 12 years ago

I can confirm that my 2008 iMac had this same problem with the nVidia card. And yes, cooking it in the oven did bring it back long enough to grab the few items that I wanted. At the time, I read that it had to do with Apple switching to lead free solder. Sad to know I may face this with the 2011 MBP that I am typing this on (and I love so dearly)

caycep2• 12 years ago

fortunately, I had my mac setup with ssh enabled...so I was able to rsync it off to another computer off network. (Who needs graphics anyway?)

Apple support, to their credit, handled my case extremely well, even though I was out of warranty.

mjt0229• 12 years ago

One thing that I love to make is mac & cheese.

unicornporn2• 12 years ago

Remember that there might be a law in your country that regulates complaints.

In Sweden we have "reklamationstid"[1] which gives you sort of a legislated warranty (applies to almost all goods) for three years. All goods that I have complained about using "reklamationstiden" have been replaced.

[1] http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&h...

danmatan5• 12 years ago

Is it common to have your replacement/repair refused unless you bring up the "reklamationstiden" argument?

unicornporn2• 12 years ago

Yes, many people don't know about this law. The shops know this and takes advantage of it. Of course there is also the manufacturer's warranty, which lasts for as long as the manufacturer decides.

martydill• 12 years ago

This has been an issue as far back as a decade ago with G3 iBooks. I had my G3 800's logic board replaced twice under warranty, but it failed again after that. The 'hot coin on the gpu' trick solved the problem, albeit temporarily.

http://forums.macnn.com/69/mac-notebooks/210232/diy-ibook-du...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook#Quality_issues

mmastrac• 12 years ago

I resurrected my old 2009 Macbook Pro that was doing something similar by turning it on and putting it under a blanket for an hour. It generated enough heat to reflow whatever BGA had busted and has worked perfectly since.

D9u• 12 years ago

I had a somewhat similar issue with an Acer Aspire Aspire One ZG5 netbook, except my problem was that the device would power off after about 1.5 minutes from powering on.

Apparently a thermal cutoff switch needed some recalibration/replacement, so my fix was 2 hours in the freezer followed by a few more hours waiting for condensation to evaporate before attempting to power the netbook on again...

I used the above method for nearly a year before acquiring my present laptop, relegating the netbook to my growing pile of disfunctional hardware.

fakename• 12 years ago

I had ram slots die in my mbp due to warping. the solution was to loosen the screws around the ram slots, letting the bent board unbend. I imagine cooking would soften things up and allow loose connections to better connect.

dleibovic• 12 years ago

Is there any cause for concern about toxic chemicals being released into an oven that you use to cook food?

greyskull• 12 years ago

This was a "well-known" (quoted because it's well known as far as enthusiast communities are concerned) fix attempt for discrete GPU cards on desktops. I've seen a lot of success stories where old GPUs (think GTX 8800) would crap out; owner would take off the shroud, heatsink, and any other removable parts, put it in the oven for a few minutes, and boom, reflowed solder fixed the issue.

btoptical• 12 years ago

I think this process is really baking out moisture as the PCBA is not in the oven long enough to get to temperature and the temperature is not hot enough to reflow the solder.

Most of the components on the board are not hermetically packaged and there probably are moisture sensitive parts on the PCBA. So the baking at 170C for 7 minutes is essentially a drying process.

Also, I think Apple probably has to be ROHS compliant and that means they have to use lead-free TnSn solder. The transition temperature for lead-free solder is typically about 20C higher than normal leaded solders.

grandalf• 12 years ago

If it's reflowing then couldn't the same be accomplished with more focused application of a heat gun?

nviennot• 12 years ago

That reminds me of http://viennot.biz/reflow_oven.pdf

pyed• 12 years ago

I had the same issue on early 2011, fixed it for 600$+ because I'm not in the US, and sold it for 768$ and got the new Retina with hate.

michaelchum• 12 years ago

This is astonishing... But anyone else feels like this sounds like trolling? There is no actual video, but only pictures. And perhaps, maybe it's just me, but I don't see how high heat can resurrect the logic board?

mmariani• 12 years ago

My MBP17 died one week ago. Way to go Apple!

null_ptr• 12 years ago

It makes me sad to read how some mistreat their laptops. Why keep it on 24/7? Even if you're using your computer 12 hours a day you're letting it burn for nothing for the other 12! And then you buy a new one every year.

sneak• 12 years ago

Burn what, precisely? It's not a woodstove.

prewett3• 12 years ago

Electronics likes being in a steady thermal state, and mechanical devices like a hard drive have less wear when continuously spinning. It's the spinning up and down that causes a lot of the wear.

kkl232• 12 years ago

Hilarious!!

At some point I spilled water all over my MacbookPro and I turned it off and let it dry overnight. The next morning it refused to turn on. I took it to Apple and they say they must send it to repairs for 750 dollars!!

I refused to pay money, went home, asked some friends about it, and concluded that I should put my computer in an inverted position like a teepee.

I let it sit for 2 days. And Voila! Good as new!

josephjrobison• 12 years ago

Same exact thing happened to me! Brand new hot starbucks green tea spilled all over my 4 month old MacBook Air mid-2013. I was devastated. Stupidly I tried to turn it on right after the spill and it turned on for a moment then shut off and wouldn't turn on again. I put the keyboard face down on paper towels and indirectly in front of a fan for a few days and it came back to life! I now have a keyboard spill guard of course...

__david__2• 12 years ago

If you have a gas oven with a pilot lite, it's the perfect place to let things dry out (don't turn it on, just let the small flame of the pilot lite dry things out). These seem to be more rare nowadays, though.

auctiontheory2• 12 years ago

This gives "cooking the books" a whole new meaning.

PhantomGremlin5• 12 years ago

Nicely done. Best quip I've read on HN today.

mncolinlee• 12 years ago

This is a hackish form of "Reflow Soldering." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflow_soldering

I used to work at Cray, the supercomputer company. Back in the 1970s, 30 yrs before I got there, they used to solder the circuits on each board by baking the entire board in an actual kitchen oven. With smaller and more delicate circuitry on mainboards these days, this is less practical and more dangerous, but that doesn't mean it isn't still possible with some degree of luck. I'd still recommend removing the BIOS battery if you're crazy enough to attempt this.

MobsterMac• 12 years ago

There is a huge uprising about Mac Book Pro's motherboard's failing. I wonder if this would work for the issues described here. https://discussions.apple.com/message/25163418?ac_cid=tw1234...

How I resurrected my MacBook Pro by putting it in the oven

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