Before doing anything further, inspect the entire surface of the card front and back as closely as you can for any damaged or missing components.

I will say, that center capacitor on the right edge is a bit wonky looking. Those babies like to snap off of these cards... it could have gotten messed up a while ago and is only now showing its effects.

Just an idea.

I have seen the kind of artifacts in your pics when other cards have needed a reflow. I had a Ti 4600 that was doing that and a quick bake in the oven fixed it right up. :p

If it doesn't seem to be caused by damage to other components on the board, I would recommend a less drastic measure of finding some way to heat up the heatsink (rather than putting it in the oven), maybe with a hair drier, or pop off the heatsink and give the chip some heat directly. Just don't run it right after you've heated it up. Wait until it cools down and try it again. If it didn't make a difference, you'll either have to do something more drastic (bake it or use a heat gun) or it could be another failing component.

I've already inspected the surface. There are no missing or damaged components as well as no scratches.

The capacitors on the edge have looked this way since I first got the card 1 1/2 years ago. Not saying they couldn't be the problem but until yesterday it worked fine.

I will try blowing a hairdryer against the heatsink tomorrow.

If I were to bake it, how would I go about doing that?

In case it's really the balls (you might be able to confirm by strongly pushing chip/heatsink and PCB together with the hand and powering on) your options are:
- 'bake' the card (above the melting temperature and hope the problem fixes itself)
- reball + resolder
- ghetto solution: something c-clamp alike

The latter requires tools at least in the 150 euros range and learning of the procedure. Mine are:
- a set from China (stencils, balls, tools, flux, heat-resistant tape, some tools to lift/place) for about 40 euros - but its absolutely not sure the set contains the stencil for your chip
- a plate heater for heat from below (mine was from trash 0 euros 😉 )
- a temperature controlled hot-air gun

Hellistor wrote:

If I were to bake it, how would I go about doing that?

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair+VGA+card+ … +the+board/2240

Well, I'm looking for a somewhat permanent solution so ghetto rigging it with a c-clamp isn't really enough.
Reballing would probably not be much better. I can't afford to do this right now. Also for that kind of money I could get another one from ebay.

So baking it is probably the "best" solution I have if that hairdryer method doesn't work out.

I'm gonna put it in a PC and try pushing the heatsink together. I will report back in a few minutes.

Just my opinion, but it seems baking would be safer than a blow dryer, as it is gradual and uniform. I don't see how blowdrying the heatsink (?) would do any good? I thought the purpose of the heat was to reflow the solder, and blowdrying the heatsink doesn't seem like it would reflow any solder, just overheat the GPU core.

blow dryer will never reach that temperature

So, I put it into the 550MHz Pentium III and gave it a test. Putting slightly different pressure on the heatsink caused the artifacts to move. I gave it a good squeeze, took off my fingers and the artifacts disappeared, for now at least.

The card seems to be working fine even after a reboot, but I don't really trust it enough to run it like this.

I'm aware that blowdrying it probably won't do much but I figure there's less of a chance to completely kill it than baking it. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I just don't want to make it any worse.

EDIT: I was right not trusting it, even walking next to the pc causes the artifacts to move.

The point of using a blow dryer isn't that it reflows the solder, it just causes things to expand and change a bit differently than when the chip heats itself up... except that it isn't doing so with power running through it. I've used this method to diagnose problems before. If using a hair dryer then letting it cool down has the same effect as squeezing the card for a little while, then chances are good that baking it will fix the problem.

Also, all of these chips (not necessarily the heatsink or stickers) are exposed to solder melting temperatures at some point. By baking it or using a heat gun you aren't doing anything that hasn't been done already. The way chips get heat damage is by running power through them while they are too hot.

Another possible band-aid fix would be to see if you can tighten the heatsink down in such a way that it applies the pressure needed to fix the problem, or wrap it with a zip tie. :p

Aaah, using the blowdryer that way makes more sense, it wasn't quite clear.

I looked around if anybody does BGA repair near me. Nope, only one's are 300kms away in Vienna and those cost more than getting another Voodoo 3 3000 or even a 3500 off of ebay.

I'm still hesitant to baking it. Although there really isn't much else I can do.

I'm not fond of the idea because I once tried it once before with a dead GTX 460 and the plastic in the VGA/DVI connectors melted. 😐

I guess I'll try baking it sometime next week. After giving the oven a good scrub first.

Thanks for all the advice!

I highly doubt you will be able to do any damage or good with a usual blowdryer.

The problem with baking is you have to leave it in there for a rather long time (for the temperature) to have an effect. Some parts that can't withstand the temperature may melt/crack in the meantime. You will be needing like 200°C to melt the balls.

I prefer the plate heater to preheat and using the hot air gun at about 280°C (for non-RoHS). Covering sensitive parts in aluminium foil. The tools are not in the usual household though.

> Also, all of these chips (not necessarily the heatsink or stickers) are exposed to solder melting temperatures at some point. By baking it or using a heat gun you aren't doing anything that hasn't been done already.

In the factory the ciritical temperatures are applied for a tightly controlled range of seconds - while with baking at home it needs much longer - long enough to do serious damage.

Thanks, makes sense now. 😀

I don't know what to do with it.

I know using a plate heater and hot air gun would most likely work better, but I don't have access to those.

Trying to bake it is pretty much the only thing I can do besides using it as a pretty paperweight.

Just don't bake it where you cook your food. PCBs baked in this way will produce toxic fumes that can linger in your oven (lead, carcinogens, etc).

Ah, well that's not good. I only got the one oven. Guess I'll postpone the procedure indefinitely then. I put the card in an antistatic bag in a drawer for the time being, so it should at least not get any worse than it is. Thanks for the information!

UPDATE: I was talking to a friend who works at a computer repair shop yesterday. Turns out they repair graphics cards as well. It's not a professional BGA repair but better than chucking it in my greasy oven. It's gonna take a few days and there's no guarantee it's going to work, but hey, better than nothing. Also it's not gonna be very expensive so that's good as well. I'll post again when it's finished.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just get another Voodoo 3 off eBay? It's not like they're especially rare.

Well they are pretty expensive here in Europe. About 80 euros if the guy knows what he's selling. That repair is gonna cost a few euros for a coffee or something, so even if it fails it's not going to be a big loss.