Emergency Video Card Surgery – The Oven Method
Have you had a graphics card go south on you recently? Were you shocked to find your warranty just ran out? Do you feel uninspired to go out and drop $200 on a new component for your desktop computer? Well so did Icrontic blogger, Bobby Miller. In a story that you have to read to believe, Miller took the advice of a fellow Icrontic tech writer and did the unthinkable: he took his expensive piece of computer equipment and shoved it in your every day oven at a preheated temperature of 385 degrees fahrenheit.
Dat'sa spicy meat'a-boll!
Now before you check out the result of his little experiment, allow me to stress the obvious. While he explains in great detail why something like this can, actually, save a video card from the brink of death, it is by no means a guarantee. You’re just as likely to burn out the card completely as you are to cause the soldering to “magically repair” itself. So I would strongly recommend trying any other options open to you before cooking your graphics card like a Thanksgiving turkey.
With that in mind, read on to find out what happened.
I’ve thrown some circuitry in the oven before. I got a tip on how to fix the connection between the ribbon cable and the screens on my Virtual Boy by putting it in the oven. It worked for a time, then it started to short out again, so I just threw it right back in the oven. It fixed it each time though.