[cl3misch]

I have also tried the Laptop baking many years ago with an ancient Dell Laptop which was known for its buggy internal Nvidia GPU.

However, I have learned in the meantime that lead-free solder requires temperatures much higher than achieved by baking PCBs in a literal kitchen oven.

Is there an explanation why this method is nevertheless so popular (maybe even successfull)?

[KronisLV]

I remember getting my 9800 GT GPU to work a bit longer this way.

I was playing Mount & Blade back then, but noticed that the polygons would glitch out (e.g. vertices in random locations instead of where they should have been, like stretched out 3D models), shortly after which there would be screen artifacts (random colored pixels) and it would all freeze. After that, the PC would fail to boot.

I took the GPU out, propped it up on some tin foil balls, put it into the oven on over 210 C for a while and after that it would start working again. Seems like something was wrong with the card though, because eventually the temperatures would get to 90-100 C and it would crash, but until that point I put it in the oven like 3-4 times and it seemed to work for a little bit every single time.

After that I replaced it with a GTX 650, which still runs to this day in a now friend's computer.

[get-logname]

I can confirm that this method resurected my GTX 970, but only worked for a couple of months more.

[perakojotgenije]

I was luckier, this method also resurrected my GTX 970 and it worked for two more years. It was still working when I sold it.

[speedgoose]

And this is why I don’t like to buy used hardware.

[lstodd]

So that you get to bake it yourself?

[alx_the_new_guy]

https://youtu.be/I0UMG3iVYZI?si=JztMr1sIkBzppkmn

The PS3 issue described in the video was more specific to it, but similar in it's nature.

TLDR from my very imperfect memory: The whole board-solder-chip sandwich expands at different rates due to heat, so internal stress and cracks develop in solder joints, which makes them fail. Baking PCB in an oven does something like making the crack close a bit, so that the solder joint works again.

Problem is, neither the crack, nor the internal stress that has been built up is gone, so the solution actually doesn't last.