• Bake your graphics card?

    From Otto Reverse@21:2/150 to All on Thu Feb 10 05:37:31 2022
    So I've been building a (not quite yet) retro computer for circa 2004-2007 PC games. Trying to get ahead of prices before this era becomes nostalgic lol. Anyway, the Nvidia 8800 GTX (a high end card for the time) arrived yesterday but had vertical lines on the display and crashed Windows (XP 32-bit) after 10 or 15 minutes.

    Being an older card (2006 I believe) but well into the Internet age there were many search results for that card and lines on the display. I started seeing people claiming you could fix it by baking it in the oven. The cards get very hot and the solder joints crack. But this is mostly surface mount components, making it hard for someone with just a regular soldering iron to fix.

    I was a bit skeptical that it would solve the problem but I had nothing to lose (wasn't going to get a refund with shipping on this old card). So I removed the giant heatsink/fan combo and cleaned the board (lint, thermal paste etc). Then I pre-heated the oven to 385F, place the card (GPU side up) on a baking sheet. I put four small tinfoil balls (about 3/4" in height) between the baking sheet and the card.

    In the oven it went. 8 minutes later I took it out. Let it cool for about 45 minutes and then re-assembled the cooling part/brackets etc. Placed it in my computer and viola! It worked and the display was clear of any artifacts!

    I wouldn't do this with older retro circuits as they tend to be rarer and without surface mounts you can re-flow the solder by hand. But I can see more people baking circuits in the future!

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  • From Greenlfc@21:2/150 to Otto Reverse on Thu Feb 10 06:07:17 2022
    I did something similar with an xbox 360 I got at a yard sale for $1. The difference there was that the fix was to add extra bolts to the cooling mechanism, clamping down the weak chip, then running the system for something like 20 minutes to let it overheat and remelt the solder. It's a good technique if you don't have the smd soldering skills.

    Now dosdude1, some of the repairs and upgrades he does requiring BGA soldering are just nuts...

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  • From Mewcenary@21:1/189 to Otto Reverse on Thu Feb 10 14:49:23 2022
    Re: Bake your graphics card?
    By: Otto Reverse to All on Thu Feb 10 2022 05:37 am

    In the oven it went. 8 minutes later I took it out. Let it cool for about 45 minutes and then re-assembled the cooling
    part/brackets etc. Placed it in my computer and viola! It worked and the display was clear of any artifacts!

    You should put it in the freezer next to see if it improves the performance ;-)

    Mewcenary.
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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Otto Reverse on Thu Feb 10 09:12:30 2022
    Re: Bake your graphics card?
    By: Otto Reverse to All on Thu Feb 10 2022 05:37 am

    So I've been building a (not quite yet) retro computer for circa 2004-2007 P games. Trying to get ahead of prices before this era becomes nostalgic lol. Anyway, the Nvidia 8800 GTX (a high end card for the time) arrived yesterday but had vertical lines on the display and crashed Windows (XP 32-bit) after or 15 minutes.

    Being an older card (2006 I believe) but well into the Internet age there we many search results for that card and lines on the display. I started seein people claiming you could fix it by baking it in the oven. The cards get ver hot and the solder joints crack. But this is mostly surface mount components making it hard for someone with just a regular soldering iron to fix.

    I was a bit skeptical that it would solve the problem but I had nothing to l (wasn't going to get a refund with shipping on this old card). So I removed giant heatsink/fan combo and cleaned the board (lint, thermal paste etc). Th I pre-heated the oven to 385F, place the card (GPU side up) on a baking shee I put four small tinfoil balls (about 3/4" in height) between the baking she and the card.

    In the oven it went. 8 minutes later I took it out. Let it cool for about 45 minutes and then re-assembled the cooling part/brackets etc. Placed it in my computer and viola! It worked and the display was clear of any artifacts!

    I wouldn't do this with older retro circuits as they tend to be rarer and without surface mounts you can re-flow the solder by hand. But I can see mor people baking circuits in the future!

    That process is called "rebailing" and, as far as I have heard, it works in a pitch but the component so fixed won't last lont anyway.

    IN any case, enjoy it while it lasts \o/

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  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Arelor on Fri Feb 11 07:32:03 2022
    On 10 Feb 2022 at 09:12a, Arelor pondered and said...

    That process is called "rebailing" and, as far as I have heard, it works in a pitch but the component so fixed won't last lont anyway.

    Why do you say the component won't last long?

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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to tenser on Fri Feb 11 05:15:19 2022
    Re: Re: Bake your graphics card?
    By: tenser to Arelor on Fri Feb 11 2022 07:32 am

    On 10 Feb 2022 at 09:12a, Arelor pondered and said...

    That process is called "rebailing" and, as far as I have heard, it work in a pitch but the component so fixed won't last lont anyway.

    Why do you say the component won't last long?

    Just what I have heard from people doing rebailing themselves.

    But then, the people doing rebailing who I know are the sort that put the components to the limit. That is why they need rebailing in the first place.

    Rebailing helps with some false contacts by melting the soldering and giving it a chance of falling back into place, but you don't have much control about it so you don't know how well fixed it ends up being :-)

    So it is a great way of buying time but the advice I usually get is not to trust it to last long.


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  • From Otto Reverse@21:2/150 to Arelor on Fri Feb 11 12:25:36 2022
    Why do you say the component won't last long?

    Just what I have heard from people doing rebailing themselves.

    But then, the people doing rebailing who I know are the sort that put the components to the limit. That is why they need rebailing in the first place.

    Certain graphics cards have a reputation for failure due to heat (this being one of them). Couple that with people overclocking them and the failure rate is higher than "normal".

    My use case is for circa 2003-2007 games for which this card is plenty powerful enough without overclocking. Couple that with limited use (as I just don't have time for hours of gaming day in day out) and I expect it will last a long time. I'll re-bake it if it fails again anyway. And if that fails then it goes to the recyclers.

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Otto Reverse on Fri Feb 11 20:05:34 2022
    I was a bit skeptical that it would solve the problem but I had nothing
    to lose (wasn't going to get a refund with shipping on this old card).
    So I removed the giant heatsink/fan combo and cleaned the board (lint, thermal paste etc). Then I pre-heated the oven to 385F, place the card (GPU side up) on a baking sheet. I put four small tinfoil balls (about 3/4" in height) between the baking sheet and the card.

    In the oven it went. 8 minutes later I took it out. Let it cool for
    about 45 minutes and then re-assembled the cooling part/brackets etc. Placed it in my computer and viola! It worked and the display was clear
    of any artifacts

    Wow, what a way to resurrect a card. I've got a GTX 285 that might need to go in the oven!

    Just curious, what OS are you going to run? I can see why someone might want a "retro" machine that can run DOS natively, with a SB compatible sound card, etc, but the early 2000s, I would imagine most of that software is still compatible with modern hardware?

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  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Arelor on Mon Feb 14 07:42:44 2022
    On 11 Feb 2022 at 05:15a, Arelor pondered and said...

    By: tenser to Arelor on Fri Feb 11 2022 07:32 am

    Why do you say the component won't last long?

    Just what I have heard from people doing rebailing themselves.

    Ah, I see; so nothing about the reflow process itself that causes
    component failure.

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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Arelor on Wed Feb 16 18:03:00 2022
    On 02-10-22 09:12, Arelor wrote to Otto Reverse <=-

    In the oven it went. 8 minutes later I took it out. Let it cool for about 45 minutes and then re-assembled the cooling part/brackets etc. Placed it in my computer and viola! It worked and the display was clear of any artifacts!

    I wouldn't do this with older retro circuits as they tend to be rarer and without surface mounts you can re-flow the solder by hand. But I can see mor people baking circuits in the future!

    That process is called "rebailing" and, as far as I have heard, it
    works in a pitch but the component so fixed won't last lont anyway.

    IN any case, enjoy it while it lasts \o/

    I had a similar experience with a Philips FM-900 commercial 2 way radio. In the late 90s and early 2000s, many of these radios became available surplus (ex CFA) and were made available to hams for conversion to 2 metres. They were quite a good radio, and I had used them when they were in service in fire trucks in the mid-late 80s as a firefighter. So for me these radios are a bit of nostalgia.

    However, they had a significant issue - after years of being being joilted around in fire trucks, the VCO often developed a fault which caused audible noise on the transmitted and received audio, and in the more severe cases, the radio would stop working altogether.

    The process to fix this was similar - heat the VCO module to reflow the solder.
    On the radio I had, this did fix the problem, but it only lasted around a year, before the fault returned. :/


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Arelor on Wed Feb 16 18:04:00 2022
    On 02-11-22 05:15, Arelor wrote to tenser <=-

    Why do you say the component won't last long?

    Just what I have heard from people doing rebailing themselves.

    My experience with 2 way radios suggests the same.


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  • From Otto Reverse@21:2/150 to boraxman on Wed Feb 16 15:57:32 2022
    Wow, what a way to resurrect a card. I've got a GTX 285 that might need to go in the oven!

    Yeah, I had nothing to lose but I was still skeptical lol. Been running the card a couple hours of gaming a day for a while now and it is still going strong.

    Just curious, what OS are you going to run? I can see why someone might want a "retro" machine that can run DOS natively, with a SB compatible sound card, etc, but the early 2000s, I would imagine most of that software is still compatible with modern hardware?

    XP. I wanted to run SP2 but needed SP3 for compatible GeForce drivers with my model of card. Kept strictly offline of course lol.

    I was playing around with NHL 2004 Rebuilt (some people have been modding this particular game continuously for nearly 2 decades now) and while it can be made to run on Win 10, it runs natively of course on XP. There are other issues to with some older games that won't work (without hacks) on wide screen monitors. Not that that has anything to do with OS.

    I just got started with this era, thinking I would get ahead of the curve for a change with what is "retro" and highly sought after on eBay. That way I could avoid the high prices. The system is a little overkill for the era (early dual core cpu and the 8800 graphics card) but that allows me to run all the graphics maxed. Been fun so far.

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Otto Reverse on Fri Feb 18 18:56:50 2022
    XP. I wanted to run SP2 but needed SP3 for compatible GeForce drivers with my model of card. Kept strictly offline of course lol.

    I was playing around with NHL 2004 Rebuilt (some people have been
    modding this particular game continuously for nearly 2 decades now) and while it can be made to run on Win 10, it runs natively of course on XP. There are other issues to with some older games that won't work (without hacks) on wide screen monitors. Not that that has anything to do with
    OS.


    I still run XP (as a second partition, Linux is my main one), and I can't get drivers for my GTX 1030 card for XP. So yes, you would need an older graphics card, though I think the one on the mobo would suffice. Also, some DOS games don't run on newer cards.

    I just use Proton for Windows games, and most I want to play have Linux ports. What I miss the most is the CRT screen, THAT makes a difference, a CRT feels retro. I do have a couple of them.

    I just got started with this era, thinking I would get ahead of the
    curve for a change with what is "retro" and highly sought after on eBay. That way I could avoid the high prices. The system is a little overkill for the era (early dual core cpu and the 8800 graphics card) but that allows me to run all the graphics maxed. Been fun so far.


    Good idea, second hard PC's are a bit harder to find than they used to be. I have one or two that were picked up from the roadside years ago.

    My newest "retro" PC is an AMD Duron 700MHz with 768M RAM, GeForce 2 graphics card and SB Awe64, running Windows 98. It can run DOS games just fine with sound and has a 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 inch drives. The older ones are 486's and an XT, but that is missing parts.

    My current system will run anything after that era with Wine/Proton which is good enough now. I'm really only interested in older games, not older software (I don't feel the need to run Office 2003 or eDonkey) and for me Wine/Proton is basically the same as having that slightly older PC because the hardware is the same.

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  • From Otto Reverse@21:2/150 to boraxman on Sun Feb 20 12:32:07 2022
    I just use Proton for Windows games, and most I want to play have Linux ports. What I miss the most is the CRT screen, THAT makes a difference,
    a CRT feels retro. I do have a couple of them.

    I do a mix of Proton and dual booting. Depends on the specific title. With Valve's pending release of their new SteamOS (Arch-based and what runs their new handheld) I'm hoping 5-10 years from now dual-booting (for games at least) will be a thing of the past.

    I have a 17" CRT but the thing takes up a ton of space ("back in the day" I had a 19" ViewSonic) and I'd rather a 14" or 15" at this point. But they just don't show up for sale locally.

    Good idea, second hard PC's are a bit harder to find than they used to
    be. I have one or two that were picked up from the roadside years ago.

    Roadside pickups haven't been a thing here (Nova Scotia) for a decade or more. The provincial government made "recycling" mandatory. The thrift shops avoided them like the plague after that as they would be responsible for recycling if a donation was unsellable. The recycling depots won't let you take anything that someone has dropped off either. So from about 2010 or so onwards all these older PC's just ended up being shipped off to some third world nation. The thrift stores are starting to take older PC's now. Pentium 4 and up it seems. But still, there aren't many.

    My newest "retro" PC is an AMD Duron 700MHz with 768M RAM, GeForce 2 graphics card and SB Awe64, running Windows 98. It can run DOS games
    just fine with sound and has a 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 inch drives. The older ones are 486's and an XT, but that is missing parts.

    Nice. I bought a GeForce 2 online recently but it has lines and needs baking lol. A project for another time.

    My current system will run anything after that era with Wine/Proton
    which is good enough now. I'm really only interested in older games,
    not older software (I don't feel the need to run Office 2003 or eDonkey) and for me Wine/Proton is basically the same as having that slightly
    older PC because the hardware is the same.

    lol, c'mon. eDonkey via Proton is a must have!

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Otto Reverse on Mon Feb 21 22:10:49 2022
    I have a 17" CRT but the thing takes up a ton of space ("back in the
    day" I had a 19" ViewSonic) and I'd rather a 14" or 15" at this point.
    But they just don't show up for sale locally.


    I had a 20inch Trintro flat screen CRT. 1600x1200. It weighed as much as the desk, but was quite an awesome screen. Sadly it died and I moved to LCD after that. I like LCD but it doesn't quite look the same in terms of the deep black and vibrant colours.

    Roadside pickups haven't been a thing here (Nova Scotia) for a decade or more. The provincial government made "recycling" mandatory. The thrift shops avoided them like the plague after that as they would be
    responsible for recycling if a donation was unsellable. The recycling depots won't let you take anything that someone has dropped off either. So from about 2010 or so onwards all these older PC's just ended up
    being shipped off to some third world nation. The thrift stores are starting to take older PC's now. Pentium 4 and up it seems. But still, there aren't many.


    In Melbourne, Australia, it's against council regulation to pick up hard rubbish from the street. Another one of the stupid laws we have here. People will dump garbage on the street to go into landfill, but you're not allowed to take it to give it a second life. The same people who ban this will talk about sustainability etc. Still, we pick stuff up but computers are rare now.

    Annoying, some people would cut the cables off their monitors. Don't know why. Maybe the wanted to salvage a small bit of copper, or maybe they were petty knobs who didn't want other people being able to use it.

    Nice. I bought a GeForce 2 online recently but it has lines and needs baking lol. A project for another time.

    lol, c'mon. eDonkey via Proton is a must have!


    I never actually used eDonkey myself!

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  • From Otto Reverse@21:2/150 to boraxman on Tue Feb 22 16:55:38 2022
    I had a 20inch Trintro flat screen CRT. 1600x1200. It weighed as much
    as the desk, but was quite an awesome screen. Sadly it died and I moved

    That must have been one sweet monitor. Those Trinitrons were some of the best tubes (tv or monitor) out there.

    In Melbourne, Australia, it's against council regulation to pick up hard rubbish from the street. Another one of the stupid laws we have here. People will dump garbage on the street to go into landfill, but you're
    not allowed to take it to give it a second life. The same people who
    ban this will talk about sustainability etc. Still, we pick stuff up
    but computers are rare now.

    From the "Hi, we're from the government and we're hear to help" file. Seems to be universal the world over.

    Annoying, some people would cut the cables off their monitors. Don't
    know why. Maybe the wanted to salvage a small bit of copper, or maybe they were petty knobs who didn't want other people being able to use it.

    Yeah I've seen that here too. I always thought it was businesses disposing of them and because they were once depreciable assets that they got zero bucks for when they "disposed" of them, they cut the cords to prevent a "scrounger" from getting any value out of it. Petty indeed.

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Otto Reverse on Wed Feb 23 22:36:41 2022
    That must have been one sweet monitor. Those Trinitrons were some of the best tubes (tv or monitor) out there.


    It was gifted to my by a friend. An office he was working at was getting rid of it. It did have some discoloration in one corner, but it was the bees knees, and a space heater.

    From the "Hi, we're from the government and we're hear to help" file. Seems to be universal the world over.


    Meddling busybodies trying to make themselves useful. Australia is good at being a nanny state. Ban this, block that, prohibit this. If something causes concern to someone in government, there'll be justification to curtain our freedom to make themselves feel better.

    Yeah I've seen that here too. I always thought it was businesses
    disposing of them and because they were once depreciable assets that
    they got zero bucks for when they "disposed" of them, they cut the cords to prevent a "scrounger" from getting any value out of it. Petty indeed.


    That might make sense, but these were in front of houses. At the very least, the electronics could be recycled instead of ending up leeching into our oceans.

    A company I worked at would just dump them in the skip. I saw a stack of laptops, at least 10 high, working, just get thrown in there.

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  • From Utopian Galt@21:4/108 to Boraxman on Sat Feb 26 21:26:09 2022
    BY: boraxman(21:1/101)


    In Melbourne, Australia, it's against council regulation to pick up hard rubbish from the street. Another one of the stupid laws we have here. People will dump garbage on the street to go into landfill, but you're
    not allowed to take it to give it a second life. The same people who
    ban this will talk about sustainability etc. Still, we pick stuff up
    but computers are rare now.
    Talk to your councilors to see about having a swap shop to get certain unwanted technology a second life to have some sustainablity. Call your Lord Mayor and let her know what you feel.


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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Utopian Galt on Sun Feb 27 21:17:18 2022
    In Melbourne, Australia, it's against council regulation to pick up har rubbish from the street. Another one of the stupid laws we have here. People will dump garbage on the street to go into landfill, but you're not allowed to take it to give it a second life. The same people who ban this will talk about sustainability etc. Still, we pick stuff up but computers are rare now.
    Talk to your councilors to see about having a swap shop to get certain unwanted technology a second life to have some sustainablity. Call your Lord Mayor and let her know what you feel.


    We do have computer swap meets where this can happen, but COVID restrictions have severely limited the number of those swap meets. They've only just started back upon, and only in some places.

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Sun Feb 27 07:42:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to Utopian Galt <=-

    We do have computer swap meets where this can happen, but COVID restrictions have severely limited the number of those swap meets.
    They've only just started back upon, and only in some places.

    I miss those days - back in the late '80s computer swap meets were a great place to get computer parts. Lots of suspect used parts, lots of haggling.

    I upgraded an XT clone to an AT clone and bought a new motherboard,
    keyboard, memory, multi-io card and put it all together over a weekend.
    First time opening a computer, ever.


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Feb 28 16:09:00 2022
    On 02-27-22 07:42, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to boraxman <=-

    I miss those days - back in the late '80s computer swap meets were a
    great place to get computer parts. Lots of suspect used parts, lots of haggling.

    I started doing swap meets in the early 1990s. Always a lot of fun - both sourcing parts, as well as catching up with fellow geeks. :)

    I upgraded an XT clone to an AT clone and bought a new motherboard, keyboard, memory, multi-io card and put it all together over a weekend. First time opening a computer, ever.

    My first computer build started as an XT clone built from scrounged parts. That machine evolved in stages until it became a Pentium class machine (with none of the original parts left!).


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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Feb 28 23:16:21 2022
    I miss those days - back in the late '80s computer swap meets were a
    great place to get computer parts. Lots of suspect used parts, lots of haggling.

    I upgraded an XT clone to an AT clone and bought a new motherboard, keyboard, memory, multi-io card and put it all together over a weekend. First time opening a computer, ever.


    The swap meets were better in the 90s and early 2000's because you could get older stuff. People that went there back then had interesting, older items to sell. Then we had lots of people who used it just used it to sell their imported new items, copied DVD's and it turned to, well, crap. One or two sellers are good but not its mostly just want you get at those Chinese run stores because its the same people that are at the swap meets, and they scam you. I bought a "new" drive, barely cheaper than what I would have gotten from a proper store, and when I ran S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics on it, it showed that it had been running for months! If you ask a question, they'll give you whatever answer you want to hear. You can show them a SATA cable and ask "Will this work with an IDE drive" and they'll say "yes".

    I'm envious of those large warehouses you have in the US full of old stuff. I desperately want to get missing parts for my XT system. That was the Cadillac of PC's.

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Mon Feb 28 06:24:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    I'm envious of those large warehouses you have in the US full of old stuff. I desperately want to get missing parts for my XT system. That
    was the Cadillac of PC's.

    WeirdStuff Warehouse in Santa Clara closed recently, which saddened me greatly. I used to love and browse around at some of the old retro tech,
    like stacks of Sun workstations, lots of HP/Apollo and the occasional DEC hardware, cheap racks, aisles of unmarked expansion cards, and occasionally things they didn't know the identity of.


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