9 ms·

I am a friend of a famous Apple products repair person and one of the things I've learned through our friendship is just how fragile repairs can be. As this ind

I am a friend of a famous Apple products repair person and one of the things I've learned through our friendship is just how fragile repairs can be. As this individual quickly learned, putting a MacBook Air logic board into an oven is a terrible idea. Do not under any circumstances do it with your computers. It is one of the worst fallacies of DIY repair out there. What you're trying to do (as he stated in the article) is that you're trying to reflow the poorly adherent solder beads in the hopes that you'll fix the faulty connection. But the way you're doing it introduces the risk of damaging the PCB and the ICs themselves through thermal stresses and gaseous expansion by any trapped ambient moisture. This will irreparably damage your board and it will lead to the phenomena he experienced here. ("popcorning") The right way to do it involves a directed hot air gun and proper equipment so that you aren't imposing excessive thermal stresses onto the board as a whole. If you don't know how to do that, then please send it to someone who does. There are several good repair outfits out there right now who specialize in this and can help you out. Do not repeat this person's mistake. This DIY method is like doing cardiac surgery with a chainsaw. It's a terrible idea for your data and wallet. Edit: Here's a guide that outlines these issues and offers ways to do it properly with the right equipment. The "popcorning" is called board delamination. https://www.latticesemi.com/-/media/LatticeSemi/Documents/ApplicationNotes/PT/SolderReflowGuideforSurfaceMountDevices.ashx?document_id=8902 https://www.latticesemi.com/-/media/LatticeSemi/Documents/Ap...

justinator 8y ago
Hmm: So if I'm reading you right, you're saying: instead of baking, freezing? off to put laptop into dry ice freezer
vanadium 8y ago
And this is why I spent $100 on a hot air gun for my video game console repairs & restorations instead of trying to do DIY reballing without proper equipment (which is $$$). Consistent and controlled heat are absolutely vital when working with tiny SMD components.
markstos 8y ago
But it worked for four people on the internet.
- fouc 8y ago
  You can find more reports than that on HN alone (in the comments)
abakker 8y ago
FWIW, I did this with a 2011 MacBook pro 17" 7 times, and it worked every time. Each time it worked for about 3 months, and then the video card would glitch out again. Finally, apple did a warrantee extension on that logic board and replaced it. Just my 2¢ to say that it does work sometimes.
- dpark 8y ago
  If you had to do it 7 times, that doesn’t really sound like it “worked”.
  - abakker 8y ago
    Well, it took a non-working laptop - video glitched and unusable, to one that was working for 3 months. Was it a permanent fix? No. But, it sure beat buying a new laptop on short notice.
    - jorvi 8y ago
      Sounds like my home theater amplifier (Pioneer VSX-921). The audio DSP chip gets too hot during normal use and desolders itself ever so slightly, which gives the error UE22. Someone figured out that taking a hot air gun to the chip fixes it, but I had to re-apply the fix about every three months. What angered me even more was that Pioneer USA acknowledged the problem and would either repair or give you a replacement model, but Pioneer EU pretends everything is fine and dandy, even when you point them to Pioneer USA its stance.
      - lostlogin 8y ago
        Would a fan help?
        jorvi 8y ago
        No idea, I gave it away for free to a solder-handy guy who was unemployed and needed something to drive a 5.1 set he was gifted from someone else. I did try a heatsink, but that didn't help noticeably.
jwr 8y ago
The above is correct. Do not do it. In addition, even with hot air soldering equipment, "reflowing" the chips on the board is not a reliable method of fixing the problem. Even if you temporarily improve things, symptoms will likely re-appear. If the problem is indeed in the connections below BGA chips, the proper solution is reballing, which involves desoldering and lifting the entire chip off the board, cleaning the entire area, then reballing, placing and soldering it in again. This is a non-trivial operation that requires specialized equipment.
- tcmb 8y ago
  > the proper solution is reballing, which involves [...] reballing Sounds like that will take forever.
  - areoform 8y ago
    For an ordinary individual, perhaps, but not for a domain expert. There are people out there who do this for a living and are quite good at this. Just like we advise others to leverage our expertise in software. We should leverage theirs. Specialization, ftw! edit: oops didn't see the recursion joke :(
    - kgermino 8y ago
      (It's a recursion joke)
- russdill 8y ago
  At the very least get some no clean flux under there.
fouc 8y ago
Worked just fine for me on an early 2007 Mac Book Pro that had a known Nvidia GPU issue. I did it in late 2012, when it was only worth about $200-250 on craigslist. After the bake, it worked fine for the next 2 years, but I was paranoid it would crap out again, stopped using it as my primary after a year. I followed the instructions from : http://russell.heistuman.com/2010/04/27/cooking-the-books-or-baking-my-macbook-pro-logic-board/ http://russell.heistuman.com/2010/04/27/cooking-the-books-or...
peterwwillis 8y ago
You probably should use a hot air gun or a reflow oven, but the toaster method should provide similar results if used properly. A non-nitrogen, non-convection, infrared radiant heating reflow oven is basically just a precise toaster oven. You can achieve radiant heating of particular sections of a board by cutting aluminum foil to expose or cover particular board sections. You can insulate the board to prevent excess heat soak, you can take apart the oven to force it to ramp heat more slowly, and cooling is trivial. You can also remove moisture ahead of time by enclosing the board in a plastic bag with silica gel or calcium chloride, or a very long, slow heat ramp. (Or just leave the board in a sunny window in a dry environment)
zelon88 8y ago
When doing this I typically use a very small and controllable butane torch with tin foil as a heat shield over nearby components. Even then I always communicate to the person that the repair is intended to facilitate RECOVERY ONLY and that all bets are off on the machine being long-term usable again. Usually this is only useful for large BGA chips. Unfortunately Apple laptops made the past 10 years use BGA chips almost exclusively through logic board design.
- pathartl 8y ago
  Save yourself some headaches and get a dedicated reflow station that you can control by temperature. Butane is way too hot for anything other than soldering in plumbing. Even a knock off 858D is going to perform leagues better than a torch.
benj111 8y ago
A toaster oven is a somewhat standard way for soldering SMT components in hobbyist circles. I don't think I would like my first attempt to be on something expensive but its possible. https://www.freetronics.com.au/pages/surface-mount-soldering-with-a-toaster-oven https://www.freetronics.com.au/pages/surface-mount-soldering... http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/smtoast.html http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/smtoast.html https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/technical-articles/introduction-to-manually-controlled-toaster-oven-reflow/ https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/technical-articles/introduc...
- joezydeco 8y ago
  You mean a toaster oven with precise temperature control. Appliances like this can swing +/- 20 degrees at minimum. Doing reflow in this is suicide without reworking the temp controls.
  - Taniwha 8y ago
    Exactly, you need a toaster oven (pref an IR one) with an accurate temp control that will run a temperature profile that matches the solder used on the board ... in particular it needs to bring the temp of the board to just below the solder melting point and soak the board so it's all at that temp, then quickly spike the temp over the melting point so it all melts at once, otherwise you put silly stress on everything as some stuff melts and some doesn't and you risk tombstoning and other evils So don't just stick stuff in your oven
busterarm 8y ago
Tell Louis that a lot of folks appreciate his content and it would be nice if he would stop getting hit while on his bicycle. Brains are fragile.
- StudentStuff 8y ago
  eBikes can be quite fun compared to other modes of transit, its Louis's choice whether he wants to risk biking (or doing anything for that matter). Our streets should be safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, cars get free reign and little in the way of fines or charges when a pedestrian or cyclist are hit and injured.
  - busterarm 8y ago
    I'm a cyclist. I live in New York City. I gave it up because after getting hit 3 times and the driver drove off, including an MTA Bus that ran me over from behind and an NYPD officer that refused to take a police report for it, I decided that it's not worth it.
    - StudentStuff 8y ago
      Wow, that is awful! SPD is a pile, but they've never refused to take petty theft reports and have chased down hit and runs for me in the past. Have the bike lanes gotten any better in NYC? I'm lucky enough to be near a separated two way bike lane that crosses a few other separated bike lanes here in Seattle, which has alleviated most of my fear of getting run over. Matted leaves covering the lane are a bigger threat than cars :P
      - busterarm 8y ago
        They didn't take a police report from me because the hit and run was by a city employee. No, they have not gotten better.
        StudentStuff 8y ago
adamvalve 8y ago
"cardiac surgery with a chainsaw" encapsulates this perfectly
- usrusr 8y ago
  The analogy breaks down completely once you introduce the concept of "not worth the cost of professional repair". We don't apply that to humans, but it's more often the norm than the exception with electronics.
  - inscionent 8y ago
    That is exactly what a 'Lifetime Limit'[1] is for health care benefits, or when patents are refused because the may become a 'bad outcome'[2]. [1]https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/life-time-limit/ https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/life-time-limit/ [2]https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/magazine/when-doctor-s-slam-the-door.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/magazine/when-doctor-s-sl...
    - jcagalawan 8y ago
      What's with the apostrophe in that New York Times headline: "When Doctor's Slam The Door"?
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    That limit definitely exists in America.
kensai 8y ago
"This DIY method is like doing cardiac surgery with a chainsaw." Wasn't there a funny game on Steam for that? Surgeon something.
- dwighttk 8y ago
  surgeon simulator
  - astrodust 8y ago
    Needed: PC surgeon simulator.
nathanvanfleet 8y ago
Not sure why you are so strongly saying people shouldn't do it. I've done it before and know people who have, and it's always been for a broken/out-of-warranty machine anyway. So its either trash or will be fixed so it's not really a risk.
devwastaken 8y ago
A hot air rework station, not a hot air gun. Hot air guns are too generalized an area and end up melting/moving the wrong components.
busterarm 8y ago
Also, is your name a Doctor Who/Ice Warriors reference?
dddddaviddddd 8y ago
In some cases there's nothing to lose. Got an old HP LaserJet free that had a similar issue and wouldn't boot. Used the oven to 'reflow', now have a working printer.
morganvachon 8y ago
> The right way to do it involves a directed hot air gun and proper equipment so that you aren't imposing excessive thermal stresses onto the board as a whole. If you don't know how to do that, then please send it to someone who does. There are several good repair outfits out there right now who specialize in this and can help you out. Even this method is fraught with danger, at least if one is doing it at home. I have decades of experience with soldering and repairing boards with SMT components and I am hesitant to use a heat gun on a board unless it's a last resort. A couple of years ago I had a Mac mini 2011 logic board with the infamous AMD Radeon BGA warping issue, and I attempted a heat gun repair following best practices. I got another six months out of the board before it started having video issues again, and another attempt to revive it failed. I didn't have anything but time invested in it (it was given to me as scrap when it failed the previous owner), but I'd never use a repaired board like that as a production machine because it will fail again and soon.
MisterTea 8y ago
Reflowing ovens and home ovens are totally different animals. Reflow ovens use closed loop temperature controllers. A ramping profile gently heats the board to a preheat temp just below reflow (drives out moisture and other outgassing), holds it for a bit, then ramp to the final reflow temp and holds that for less than a minute (possibly seconds) before quickly backing down to preheat followed by a cooling cycle. Many manufacturers specify these times and temperatures in their datasheets for components as well. You can turn an electric toaster oven into a reflow oven with a cheap programmable closed loop temperature controller. Though I don't know how even the heating would be or how effective depending on the model.

justinator 8y ago

Hmm: So if I'm reading you right, you're saying: instead of baking, freezing? off to put laptop into dry ice freezer

vanadium 8y ago

And this is why I spent $100 on a hot air gun for my video game console repairs & restorations instead of trying to do DIY reballing without proper equipment (which is $$$). Consistent and controlled heat are absolutely vital when working with tiny SMD components.

markstos 8y ago

But it worked for four people on the internet.

fouc 8y ago
You can find more reports than that on HN alone (in the comments)

abakker 8y ago

FWIW, I did this with a 2011 MacBook pro 17" 7 times, and it worked every time. Each time it worked for about 3 months, and then the video card would glitch out again. Finally, apple did a warrantee extension on that logic board and replaced it. Just my 2¢ to say that it does work sometimes.

dpark 8y ago
If you had to do it 7 times, that doesn’t really sound like it “worked”.
- abakker 8y ago
  Well, it took a non-working laptop - video glitched and unusable, to one that was working for 3 months. Was it a permanent fix? No. But, it sure beat buying a new laptop on short notice.
  - jorvi 8y ago
    Sounds like my home theater amplifier (Pioneer VSX-921). The audio DSP chip gets too hot during normal use and desolders itself ever so slightly, which gives the error UE22. Someone figured out that taking a hot air gun to the chip fixes it, but I had to re-apply the fix about every three months. What angered me even more was that Pioneer USA acknowledged the problem and would either repair or give you a replacement model, but Pioneer EU pretends everything is fine and dandy, even when you point them to Pioneer USA its stance.
    - lostlogin 8y ago
      Would a fan help?
      - jorvi 8y ago
        No idea, I gave it away for free to a solder-handy guy who was unemployed and needed something to drive a 5.1 set he was gifted from someone else. I did try a heatsink, but that didn't help noticeably.

jwr 8y ago

The above is correct. Do not do it. In addition, even with hot air soldering equipment, "reflowing" the chips on the board is not a reliable method of fixing the problem. Even if you temporarily improve things, symptoms will likely re-appear. If the problem is indeed in the connections below BGA chips, the proper solution is reballing, which involves desoldering and lifting the entire chip off the board, cleaning the entire area, then reballing, placing and soldering it in again. This is a non-trivial operation that requires specialized equipment.

tcmb 8y ago
> the proper solution is reballing, which involves [...] reballing Sounds like that will take forever.
- areoform 8y ago
  For an ordinary individual, perhaps, but not for a domain expert. There are people out there who do this for a living and are quite good at this. Just like we advise others to leverage our expertise in software. We should leverage theirs. Specialization, ftw! edit: oops didn't see the recursion joke :(
  - kgermino 8y ago
    (It's a recursion joke)
russdill 8y ago
At the very least get some no clean flux under there.

fouc 8y ago

Worked just fine for me on an early 2007 Mac Book Pro that had a known Nvidia GPU issue. I did it in late 2012, when it was only worth about $200-250 on craigslist. After the bake, it worked fine for the next 2 years, but I was paranoid it would crap out again, stopped using it as my primary after a year. I followed the instructions from : http://russell.heistuman.com/2010/04/27/cooking-the-books-or-baking-my-macbook-pro-logic-board/ http://russell.heistuman.com/2010/04/27/cooking-the-books-or...

peterwwillis 8y ago

You probably should use a hot air gun or a reflow oven, but the toaster method should provide similar results if used properly. A non-nitrogen, non-convection, infrared radiant heating reflow oven is basically just a precise toaster oven. You can achieve radiant heating of particular sections of a board by cutting aluminum foil to expose or cover particular board sections. You can insulate the board to prevent excess heat soak, you can take apart the oven to force it to ramp heat more slowly, and cooling is trivial. You can also remove moisture ahead of time by enclosing the board in a plastic bag with silica gel or calcium chloride, or a very long, slow heat ramp. (Or just leave the board in a sunny window in a dry environment)

zelon88 8y ago

When doing this I typically use a very small and controllable butane torch with tin foil as a heat shield over nearby components. Even then I always communicate to the person that the repair is intended to facilitate RECOVERY ONLY and that all bets are off on the machine being long-term usable again. Usually this is only useful for large BGA chips. Unfortunately Apple laptops made the past 10 years use BGA chips almost exclusively through logic board design.

pathartl 8y ago
Save yourself some headaches and get a dedicated reflow station that you can control by temperature. Butane is way too hot for anything other than soldering in plumbing. Even a knock off 858D is going to perform leagues better than a torch.

benj111 8y ago

A toaster oven is a somewhat standard way for soldering SMT components in hobbyist circles. I don't think I would like my first attempt to be on something expensive but its possible. https://www.freetronics.com.au/pages/surface-mount-soldering-with-a-toaster-oven https://www.freetronics.com.au/pages/surface-mount-soldering... http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/smtoast.html http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/smtoast.html https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/technical-articles/introduction-to-manually-controlled-toaster-oven-reflow/ https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/technical-articles/introduc...

joezydeco 8y ago
You mean a toaster oven with precise temperature control. Appliances like this can swing +/- 20 degrees at minimum. Doing reflow in this is suicide without reworking the temp controls.
- Taniwha 8y ago
  Exactly, you need a toaster oven (pref an IR one) with an accurate temp control that will run a temperature profile that matches the solder used on the board ... in particular it needs to bring the temp of the board to just below the solder melting point and soak the board so it's all at that temp, then quickly spike the temp over the melting point so it all melts at once, otherwise you put silly stress on everything as some stuff melts and some doesn't and you risk tombstoning and other evils So don't just stick stuff in your oven

busterarm 8y ago

Tell Louis that a lot of folks appreciate his content and it would be nice if he would stop getting hit while on his bicycle. Brains are fragile.

StudentStuff 8y ago
eBikes can be quite fun compared to other modes of transit, its Louis's choice whether he wants to risk biking (or doing anything for that matter). Our streets should be safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, cars get free reign and little in the way of fines or charges when a pedestrian or cyclist are hit and injured.
- busterarm 8y ago
  I'm a cyclist. I live in New York City. I gave it up because after getting hit 3 times and the driver drove off, including an MTA Bus that ran me over from behind and an NYPD officer that refused to take a police report for it, I decided that it's not worth it.
  - StudentStuff 8y ago
    Wow, that is awful! SPD is a pile, but they've never refused to take petty theft reports and have chased down hit and runs for me in the past. Have the bike lanes gotten any better in NYC? I'm lucky enough to be near a separated two way bike lane that crosses a few other separated bike lanes here in Seattle, which has alleviated most of my fear of getting run over. Matted leaves covering the lane are a bigger threat than cars :P
    - busterarm 8y ago
      They didn't take a police report from me because the hit and run was by a city employee. No, they have not gotten better.
      - StudentStuff 8y ago

adamvalve 8y ago

"cardiac surgery with a chainsaw" encapsulates this perfectly

usrusr 8y ago
The analogy breaks down completely once you introduce the concept of "not worth the cost of professional repair". We don't apply that to humans, but it's more often the norm than the exception with electronics.
- inscionent 8y ago
  That is exactly what a 'Lifetime Limit'[1] is for health care benefits, or when patents are refused because the may become a 'bad outcome'[2]. [1]https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/life-time-limit/ https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/life-time-limit/ [2]https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/magazine/when-doctor-s-slam-the-door.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/magazine/when-doctor-s-sl...
  - jcagalawan 8y ago
    What's with the apostrophe in that New York Times headline: "When Doctor's Slam The Door"?
- arcticbull 8y ago
  That limit definitely exists in America.

kensai 8y ago

"This DIY method is like doing cardiac surgery with a chainsaw." Wasn't there a funny game on Steam for that? Surgeon something.

dwighttk 8y ago
surgeon simulator
- astrodust 8y ago
  Needed: PC surgeon simulator.

nathanvanfleet 8y ago

Not sure why you are so strongly saying people shouldn't do it. I've done it before and know people who have, and it's always been for a broken/out-of-warranty machine anyway. So its either trash or will be fixed so it's not really a risk.

devwastaken 8y ago

A hot air rework station, not a hot air gun. Hot air guns are too generalized an area and end up melting/moving the wrong components.

busterarm 8y ago

Also, is your name a Doctor Who/Ice Warriors reference?

dddddaviddddd 8y ago

In some cases there's nothing to lose. Got an old HP LaserJet free that had a similar issue and wouldn't boot. Used the oven to 'reflow', now have a working printer.

morganvachon 8y ago

> The right way to do it involves a directed hot air gun and proper equipment so that you aren't imposing excessive thermal stresses onto the board as a whole. If you don't know how to do that, then please send it to someone who does. There are several good repair outfits out there right now who specialize in this and can help you out. Even this method is fraught with danger, at least if one is doing it at home. I have decades of experience with soldering and repairing boards with SMT components and I am hesitant to use a heat gun on a board unless it's a last resort. A couple of years ago I had a Mac mini 2011 logic board with the infamous AMD Radeon BGA warping issue, and I attempted a heat gun repair following best practices. I got another six months out of the board before it started having video issues again, and another attempt to revive it failed. I didn't have anything but time invested in it (it was given to me as scrap when it failed the previous owner), but I'd never use a repaired board like that as a production machine because it will fail again and soon.

MisterTea 8y ago

Reflowing ovens and home ovens are totally different animals. Reflow ovens use closed loop temperature controllers. A ramping profile gently heats the board to a preheat temp just below reflow (drives out moisture and other outgassing), holds it for a bit, then ramp to the final reflow temp and holds that for less than a minute (possibly seconds) before quickly backing down to preheat followed by a cooling cycle. Many manufacturers specify these times and temperatures in their datasheets for components as well. You can turn an electric toaster oven into a reflow oven with a cheap programmable closed loop temperature controller. Though I don't know how even the heating would be or how effective depending on the model.