to remove chips with underfill you need to use what phone repair techs use, which is a little super thin spatula that you force under de chip (while solder is melted) to cut trough the underfill, watch any phone cpu reballing video, we do it that way and it's pretty easy

@BanksRacing11

11 ай бұрын

I agree.. I always remove the capacitors next to the PCIe slot so I can get under them..

@MrYevelnad

3 ай бұрын

I think the problem is the chip is surrounded with glue.

I like your level of explanation of why you do certain things instead of just remove this chip because it's bad and replace it.

We love your work man, please keep going further! 😢

Love how well you keep your composure as new issues arise one after the other. Lessons to be learnt for everyone here and I'm not only talking about GPU repair 👏

Another fine job sir! Nicely done 🙂

Shew I feel for ya I've had my fair share of these and in my experience it's best to pull them all right off the bat because if the solder melts just a little the glue can cause cracked solder joints and be a headache down the road.. Also it's always a good idea to put flux under the modules close to the module your pulling incase the solder melts if it does you'll have dry joints.. The same goes for the core flux for all modules then ultrasonic clean afterwards..

What a mess. Props to you for having the patience in repairing this card.

Replacing the trace was master work ❤

Great work!

Mind blowing stuff :) great video :) wish i could this...I try but have awful results :) Think ill just stick to watching your videos :)

Brotha!... you have have got a surgeon's steady hands. I was shaking just watching the capacitors get re soldered into place.

Wow man, you are one badass repair tech.

Very useful information.

No substitute for experience. And you gotzit!

Awesome video

Under fill is always a PITA. I remove them any way I can. Cleanup always sucks to try to get the chip level. Thanks for the video

wow. another fanstastic video.

It's like magic! Tony fixes another card! 🙂

Ballout, baby, I've been ballin' since the sixth grade

I'm exhausted! You? ;O) Good job.

👍 Good Job mate, as always. That does look like a real pain to do.

@CharlesM236

11 ай бұрын

In that process they let everyone pay for it 😢 do you understand ❓

This compound reminds me of the "black blobs" found in many Chinese (counterfeit) circuit boards 🤔

This one was hard work

This man is a GPU surgeon!

Try acetone, or vinegar. It can disolve some glues, not sure if that one in particular. Worth a try!

Keep up the good work. GPU price hikes are coming back with next gen. 😢

@asciicatface

11 ай бұрын

next gen isnt coming for over a year at this point, probably 2

When I was involved in flying airplanes models hobby and there was an hard landing accident we had to do quick fixes using two compounds glues the well known epoxy glues. These glues are quite strong and hard. If we wanted to remove the glue we used a solvent either in spray or in liquid form which I think it was acetone. Have you ever tried it ? It's 100% sure there is a more "gentle" way to remove it and certainly a lot easier.

@nikolaskallianiotis8622

11 ай бұрын

Actually I get back what I said. I just faced the same situation when I tried to desolder and reball a Ryzen APU. This thing is hard like plastic and can be removed only by heat. I tried every solvent I had in hand (and I have a few) and did nothing at all. This thing is a nightmare....

@FrozenHaxor

11 ай бұрын

@@nikolaskallianiotis8622 Yes, I tried alot of combinations, paint stripper touches it a bit, but it also destroys the board so it's no good. Heat and flux is the way.

I just watched this in near 30C ambient on my exercise bike for half an hour - I think you had a tougher time than I did. Great job! Is the gluey stuff to try to prevent 3rd party repair? Can see no reason for it other than to try to hinder repairs.

Is it possible that solder will flow to an adjacent good pad of a ripped pad (since it has nothing to stick into) effectively making a short on pins of vram?

@northwestrepair from where are you originally, Slovenia?

This may be a dumb question but is there a solvent that will help? I know the solder mask is fragile but the use of compound adhesive made me wonder what the manufacturer might use in this situation to remove the chip.

That underfill is necessary due to board flex on the bottom and it does its job.... wasn't designed for easy removal and servicing, unfortunately. Also, if it gets removed it will subject those components to stress flex. IMO PCIe graphics card interfacing and structure should have been redesigned long ago. That being said, I've used acetone in the past - just test and understand it can damage silkscreen text.

@northwestrepair

11 ай бұрын

no solvent will work

@Dabbler85

11 ай бұрын

I imagine that there would be a solvent infiltration problem due to the limited surface area available at the junction.

Solvent choice - Conformal coating resins generally require relatively harsh solvents to dissolve them. Aromatic solvents like toluene and xylene are commonly used. Acetone or hydrocarbons like hexane might also be used depending on the coating. copy pasted what google spat me in the face... if it even works it probably needs quite some soaking time.. like hours .. with a pad on top that get "remoistured" every now and then... be sure to check safety and hazard documentation .. toluene and xylene sounds like instant cancer

@PotatoSofi

8 ай бұрын

Toluene is in paint thinners and relatively safe if handled properly. Xylene, on the other hand... That thing is dangerous.

It's very special episode

This black glue is the same hardness to remove that regular underfill or you need much higher temperature ?

Feeler gauge stock to make a very thin spatula to get under glue maybe? I say feeler gauge stock since it is accurate and can be super thin, doubt you'll find a pre-made spatula as thin.

glue solvent that works on cyanoacrylate (instant glue / superglue) is acetone. but I don't know if it can hurt the pcb...

I know are more than 10 months, but there's a product made to remove the epossididic glue under the BGA chip, i used it for some years in the past because i used to fix an industrial PC with glue all over the BGA also on the pad under the core. Put the product, apply hot air for 1 min. at 200 degree and it come off.

@KyleSand

17 күн бұрын

What was the name? Dealing with a few lenovo that glues everything down.

@kamikazekk-df4vz

16 күн бұрын

@@KyleSand search : bga epossidic glue remove and you find an eBay link There's no name on the box ,and to be honest I don't know how much it is safe, but work.

@kamikazekk-df4vz

16 күн бұрын

@@KyleSand search in Google: BGA epossidic glue removal And you find the eBay link

Conformal coat remover 8309? Liquid version, then some thin. Needles inject under?

It would be fun to see how high the temperature is behind the chip covers you use. It looks like some kind of candy paper or soda can.

❤

So let's say the glue prevents 50% of card failures for example. The company gets a better QA reputation statistically, but the other 50% of cards are deemed unfixable by many techs due to the glue. So the company then gets more sales out of it. Really clever engineering.

Я использовал деревянную зубочистку,чтобы отковырнуть этот чуть нагретый клей. Прям остриём проводишь между чипом и платой, он отлетает кусками как смола. А потом сняв чип уже остатки дочищаешь чуть сдвигая вбок паяльником и потом собирая их уже палочкой. Вот про восстановление контактов никогда не видел и ты прочитал тоже. Оказывается есть такие контакты в продаже... Но как запаять так, чтобы чип ровно сел на эту пайку, на ней не должно быть бугорков. Очень тонкая работа.

@northwestrepair

11 ай бұрын

Бугор на много ниже чем шары. Сядет без проблем.

Hello, on an unrelated note, could you answer if dual PSU will damage a GPU or not? If GPU has an independent PSU? If PSU will burn eavhother out like myths will say?

what is the temerature you normally do on a classic memory chip ?

You try a BGA IC remover? YAXUN YX-535 works to me.

This is the ultimate nerd asmr. Riveting!

Im a hater of the glue as well, i believe its more a scam than purpose to make them non repairable. I deal with that sht on cell phones and majority of time its a non repairable due to peeling coating off board under chips (those chips are far to small to repair board under chips) or manage to complete repair and find chip destroyed from temps. This video got me going with a few choice words seeing this garbage on a graphics card. I did not know that. You are very patient to deal with that on a gfx card. Rather data recovery. Sorry rant over.

If it’s the type of glue when dots are on each corner that’s just a specially formulated version. Idea being to keep the chip from moving around during a hot/cold cycles. With that type you just cut thru it carefully with a razor blade, if the glue is under the chip then it’s something the customer did as it make’s basically impossible to perform any service unless a person comes up with a procedure that can be duplicated. Good job 👍

@gnif

11 ай бұрын

Sorry but no, the customer did not do this, I have seen these GPUs myself from factory glued down like this. My guess is the manufacturer is trying to prevent cracked balls due to card flex. Look in any modern smartphone, they do the same thing in them, usually under and around the NVMe and SOC.

@South_0f_Heaven_

11 ай бұрын

@@gnif you may have seen one that was warrantied by the company who made it that the tech may have had problems and decided bonding the chip was a permanent solution. In my travels with many many laptops with discrete video chips that failed I’ve never seen any bonded components like this only what I described above about the corners having epoxy on them. No manufacturer would put a bonding agent under a BGA chip knowing that if it needed to be repaired so much more time and risk of further damage if the GPU needed to be repaired by them. Or more then likely a outside vendor/refurbisher that does GPU repair did this as part of their repair process.

@gnif

11 ай бұрын

​@@South_0f_Heaven_ Sorry mate, I disagree completely here. I did not say I saw "one", I said I have seen "these" as in multiple, from various vendors over the last 15+ years, both GPUs and non-GPU hardware where parts were glued down as shown here. Manufacturers do indeed go this far and further, for example, potting devices to prevent reverse engineering efforts and/or repair. If the vendor is gluing parts down it stands to reason that either a) they do not repair but rather replace failed boards as the cost to diagnose and repair is higher then the cost to replace, or b) have used a glue that has a solvent they have access to and can use to repair the board without this high risk operation. The fact that @northwestrepair here has two of the identical cards, by the looks of it from different sources, both (assumedly) being glued kind of indicates that this manufacturer is indeed gluing the chips from factory. Granted the same repair agent may have already attacked both these cards and performed this, but it seems doubtful. I am also fully aware of the method you describe, often it's a red or semi-transparent glue used around the perimeter of the chip in spots, somewhat like a stiff plastic rather then a hard epoxy.

I have a radeon rx 6900 xt saphire nitro+ se oc that got touched by a leak from the watercoolig loop, there was a drop in the pcie4 16 lane that shorted it, do you think its possible to repair? @northwestrepair

Anyone ever did try various industrial-strength or home/hobby Paint-Removers to see if any of those is (chemically) appropriate for removing that glue while not damadging the board much? Even if a paint remover cannot "slide" under the chip to melt what it is under, melting the peripheral glue should help...

@Captain-Mieste

11 ай бұрын

Now, regarding the underfill, old-fashion razor blades (the interchangeable part of the razor) is the thinnest, strongest (best inox steel) and sharpest tool to cut through that glue under the chip. Maybe worth a try too... Dont get me wrong, i m not into electronics, i m a physicist and i think like a mechanic LOL

Are these the only glued memory chips? Like are there any 3000 or 4000 series that are glued?

prying tool prying tool prying tool aliexpress there are thin blades you go underneath the ic BUT first use the iron at 280 to clean a bit the borders and preheat 100 C from underneath this is how i take out soc emmc ufi etc in smartphones ps the heat gun from the top no more than 320 (at 10cm distance) you must have 80-100 C preheat from the bottom , preheating is the only safe way to take out ic`s anything else will damage them internally and the ic life span will be much much shorter than normal

@lattehour

11 ай бұрын

also because the prying tool will soak the heat from the ic you need to preheat as such when you preheat it will soak from the pcb allowing you to use a much lower temp from the top

@lattehour

11 ай бұрын

ali has cheap preheaters 50-100$

JBC make special tips to cut plastic. Have you tried those?

@northwestrepair

Ай бұрын

No. Never heard of it. All I was able to find is what's used with the chip removed already which is not helping. Removal of the chip is the problem, not cleaning.

is this glue a measure taken against right to repair?

Holy shit...

Dumb question: ever try adding MORE memory chips to a lower-spec gpu to see what it does (if it has the pad spaces for it)?

probably did but you ever try fingernail polish remover or goo gone under it first to help I wonder or would that mess with the board when heated still an amazing video regardless.

@northwestrepair

11 ай бұрын

nothing will dissolve this

@Babbages

11 ай бұрын

@@northwestrepair o dang thats crazy wonder if they even refurbish them at the factory if you send it back then or if they got a special station that adds mass heat then suction cups them off with air or something thats weired.

@Look_What_You_Did

11 ай бұрын

Goo gone is marketing BS.

@POLARTTYRTM

11 ай бұрын

@@Babbages considering the costs and work necessary, they would just toss them away. They are not known to refurbish, only AIBs would do that, remember the mined-to-death cards refurbished into new cards with newly applied paint on memory chips?

@Babbages

11 ай бұрын

@@Look_What_You_Did yeah but it does work on some stuff but have learned that finger nail polish remover or even 90% rubbing alcohol works almost as good or better on most stuff tho.

Omg what a pain the butox job that is.

How much does a repair like this cost?

Hoping someone sends you a PS1, or PS2 or some old game system to fix one day. Would you try it?

🙏👏👏👏🙏

When you're doing something you need to learn all the quirks and twists of your job and that's exactly what you did.

Wow, when I keep the heath on boards like that, they bubble.

Why not use heat resistant Polyimide tape instead of cig cartons pieces?

@northwestrepair

11 ай бұрын

Coke can. Cheap.

What's the purpose of the compound? Looks like nothing but a tarry mess... And it clearly didn't help with longevity. :) Great work and love the free instruction / training.

@btwbrand

11 ай бұрын

These cards are heavy. When installed in most computer cases they hang in the air and are supported poorly. Through gravity and use the boards warp and flex and the soldered connections under the memory and GPU break. The black "glue" used on these chips is a manufacturers attempt to keep the memory chips from moving and breaking their soldered connections if the board flexes or warps. It must suck or be great to watch a video and not know what the video is about.

@era7928

11 ай бұрын

@@btwbrand Back plate is supposed to support the card weight. If the problem is board flexing, then the problem would not only happened on memory chip. And if the problems are flexing caused by close proximity to load bearing area which is pcie slot, then nvidia could design that area to be component free. Memory chip dying in that area is a sign that the glue are not working properly, leading into bad contact with heat spreader. And yes, i am believer of "planned obsolescence". This design is intentional.

There are quite a lots of chinese phone repair shorts on youtube. They all use eaither a really thin spatula or a thin ??carbon- fiber glass?? fishing line to cut the glue while heating the chip at normal temps.

@northwestrepair

11 ай бұрын

i wish i had something like that. It would have to be no more than 2mm wide and made of carbon steel or something that would survive the heat . Where would i get something like that ?

@gnif

11 ай бұрын

@@northwestrepair it's called "Molybdenum Cutting Wire", commonly used to remove the glass face from phones where it's bonded to the screen itself. You can get it down to 0.06mm in thickness, it's extremely strong, you will cut your hands before you break the wire.

Do you think the adhesive is used to prevent repair?

@northwestrepair

11 ай бұрын

No but make it harder for sure

Got a question who would glue mem… On make more sense to do it the right way

Yeah it’s times to redesign graphic cards…. PCBs are no good anymore for big boards and big heat sinks

@btwbrand

11 ай бұрын

The cards are fine. Install them in a case that has the PCI-e case slots located at the top instead of out the back and the case can fully support the card without warping it.

@peterlarkin762

11 ай бұрын

Yep the horizontal pci-e slot just won't cut it anymore with modern cards. There are support brackets etc. But over the last year everyone is recommending vertical mounting for new builds.

two friends and i tried to replace ram chips on an evga 1060 6gb and guess what... hot air station at 600 degrees celsius and 100% airflow didnt get them loose... wtf? they didnt seem to be obviously glued from the outside like these ones but dude in the end we were frustrated and how tf wont any solder become liquid at 600 degrees... we didnt get them of AT ALL, like, EVERY SMD COMPONENT AROUND IT WAS FLYING AWAY AT THAT POINT AND EVEN WITH BRUTE FORCE THEY DIDNT COME OF... im still confused what evga is doing with their chips

during the old nokia phone era they did that to new models its really hard to remove pian in the ass.

Whoopsie daisy Switzer did it again

2080 ti with bad memory chips makes me glad i skipped this gen in mid 2020 and wound up waiting a few more years got my rx 6800 for 500 brand new.

Northwestrepair i did a mods test on my gpu and in the report i had every bank about 100 write errors should i be worried? 1080ti armor oc? please respond🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

@northwestrepair

11 ай бұрын

must be wrong version test

@Look_What_You_Did

11 ай бұрын

Responded.

How does the card work without 1 chip?

@northwestrepair

11 ай бұрын

its designed to work like that

I never seen anybody doing this. the stuff is not getting off the board normaly.

There are glue solvents and tools available. I see like Mechanic has a number of glue solvents and tools. Is this what they are for? Does anyone actually know?

is there a risk of the solder pads getting ripped off while removing the pieces of the memory chip edit: nvm, you answered my question in 9:35

after watching your videos it made me think what these so called tech youtubers channel been doing lol

Use Kapton tape!

30:55 can you explain your process for removing first chip which caused other chips to go bad? did you use heat guards?

I almost want my GPU to broke so you can fix her =)

@northwestrepair

11 ай бұрын

almost. dont rush, i have plenty to do

Acetone is no good? Or it is too harsh on board ?

@btwbrand

11 ай бұрын

The board masking is thinner and weaker than it has ever been. Acetone would eat all the insulation off the surface of the board and make a big mess that needs to be fixed or the exposed copper will rot away in days.

@emptylog933

11 ай бұрын

Wtf are you smoking, acetone won't dissolve the solder mask. It wasn't shown because it was ineffective.

Nope, i tapped-out. Watching this made my skin jump off and run away. 👻

Is anyone else watching this and noticing a lot of jumpiness with the actions in the video? Like it's missing frames or something?

I tend to avoid this word, but for this... God! I HATE that someone would glue smd-s to a pcb like that ! Sure, hot-snot or silastic for vibration damping, but i HATE underfill... Genuine question: Is the ANY reason to underfill memory chips on a GFX card? And i mean ANY reason at all, be it good or bad. Because this Feels (yes, feels/ gut-instinct) to me like a "fix" / bodge for some pour engineering in another place of the card design. Edit: i just now got to 20:30 when you've said you don't know :( So... Chat? Do you know YTF ?

@DimkaTsv

11 ай бұрын

Technically it provides more resistance to damage that can be caused by PCB bending at PCI-E slot locale.

Just yesterday I watched video from another youtuber that was desoldering glued memory chips on the laptop motherboard and it was hell. Why the hell manufactorers are doing this maybe just that is harder to fix? I do not see any positive thing about glued chip...

Those caps around the chip won't mind the thermal abuse?

@gnif

11 ай бұрын

They are ceramic, dry caps, likely MLCC's. If they do you would see it physically as a crack in the ceramic, so generally no, you do not need to worry about these.

@florianhofmann7553

11 ай бұрын

@@gnif Thanks mate always wondered why people grab them with hot tweezers and such, yet they fail quite often

And what's the reason the chip is glued on?

@northwestrepair

11 ай бұрын

keep it from flying off LOL Prevent cracked solder joints

Chemist here. Without knowing what the compound is, I can't really assist much. If It is an epoxy, then heat is a decent way to break it down, but it seems like a high temperature epoxy.

@Dabbler85

11 ай бұрын

I wonder how they even apply that stuff...

@ttpechon2535

11 ай бұрын

@@Dabbler85 You don't need to make a reply to add something, you can edit your original comment be hitting the 3 dots that appear when you hover over your comment.

@Dabbler85

11 ай бұрын

Ehh less work.

@btwbrand

11 ай бұрын

@@Dabbler85 it comes out of a application tube as a liquid then oxidizes into a solid.

@btwbrand

11 ай бұрын

You aren't a chemist.. not realizing an epoxy is applied as a liquid. You probably mix what you are told to.

gotta love those anti-repair tactics.

@JETWTF

11 ай бұрын

The glue is to prevent solder joint damage from board flex due to heat cycles, without it more boards would need repairs which is more costly for RMA's and company reputation than making it easy to repair. It has nothing to do with anti-repair and all to do with preventing the need for repair so the company making the video card does not need to spend money repairing it by re-balling the memory chips. Is it required for the card? Maybe or maybe not, I am not the engineer who designed the card but that doesn't negate the purpose of gluing the chip down ontop of the solder. As for removal there is a better way, first remove the SMD's from around the memory chip or atleast on one side, heat it up and slowly push a razor edge thin spatula like tool between the board and the chip. All pads should be perfectly fine, just needs cleaning up to remove any leftover glue and then putting the caps back along with replacing the memory chip. It is more tedious to do ofcourse.

@kenabi

11 ай бұрын

@@JETWTF bullllshit. nvidia founders editions are the only ones with the adhesive. if it was that great of an idea to prevent problems, everyone would do it. apple does it specifically to make it harder to repair their devices. get out of here with the bs 'oh its really helpful~' nonsense.

Under-bonding is evil stuff..

It sucks that some solutions used by manufacturers make repairs so difficult, annoying and time-consuming, glued chips sounds like all-out planned obsolescence as soon as something goes wrong, as in, don't repair, buy a whole new card. This is a chronic problem with electronics.

@pottingsoil723

11 ай бұрын

It's just underfill, not planned obsolescence. Makes repairs difficult yes, but it serves a purpose. "Underfill is an epoxy material that fills gaps between a chip and its carrier or a finished package and the PCB substrate. Underfill protects electronic products from shock, drop, and vibration and reduces the strain on fragile solder connections caused by the difference in thermal expansion between the silicon chip and carrier (two unlike materials)." Probably EVGA or whoever made this card noticed that bottom left chip had a tendency to crack it's solder joints in their testing, so they decided to use underfill to prevent unnecessary RMA costs.

@JETWTF

11 ай бұрын

Ontop of above reply explaining the underfill, it's a GPU not a phone made by one of two companies with their own phone OS. AMD and Nvidia do not make GPU's, they design them and pay TSMC to make the GPU package and another company(partner) to makes that into a full GPU including their own branded ones with small profit margins. They have many partners making the boards and cooling solutions, these partners do not have the luxury of telling customers to buy a new one if the old one breaks and making them as impossible to fix as they can. They have to deal with RMA's because if they didn't then the customer would buy from their competitor (even though it is still a 4090 or Radeon or RX 7369502050x or whatever numbers AMD is using for todays cards naming.) and they would go bankrupt. Asus screws you with the repair, you buy the next card from Gigabyte, MSI or Powercolor just not EVGA because they left the market and never touched AMD and their confusing naming.

@POLARTTYRTM

11 ай бұрын

​@@pottingsoil723 He said it was a Founders Edition card, so it was nvidia itself.

@pottingsoil723

11 ай бұрын

@@POLARTTYRTM Not surprising, Nvidia loves saving money in the short term, even if it means long term cost reductions are not beneficial to the customer.

@POLARTTYRTM

11 ай бұрын

​@@pottingsoil723 it's almost good that original nvidia/amd FE cards are not sold in my country, only AIBs.

Tell us They Temps

cumpound crud crud crud

I've had very little success with epoxied chips. Whenever I see them I say: Nope. I am not doing it.

Imagine if this glue were on an AMD card...

Your location? Sand my cards to repair

Why glue on chip?

@northwestrepair

11 ай бұрын

to keep it attached to the board when it flexes due to weight. Instead they could use leaded solder but then, ice caps will melt and polar bears will suffocate to death. Global warming and all......

@taiiat0

11 ай бұрын

​@@northwestrepair hmm, since Leaded Solder would be softer, you're saying? surely not that soft, though? dumb gamers letting their Cards droop like it has Erectile Dysfunction is kind've a lot of flex, wouldn't the Solder still break anyways? i feel like Adhesive has to be the solution, but perhaps the Industry can communicate this around and look for another option that's much easier to deal with in Repairs, something that dissolves really easily with a Solvent, but is still quite strong to help protect the dumb gamers. i was going to ask your opinion overall on the use of Adhesive, but this makes it clear you don't like it at all 😆- but i get the feeling that its use is unavoidable, and all we can do is guide towards a 'more preferable' Adhesive instead. or maybe Memory Chips could have some beefy rails on the long sides so that there could be big Solder Joints down them to help that way instead - though i'm not sure i'd like to ask the Memory Chip to become a structural thing.