Reballing

[Adept PC Repair]

Hi,

I've had a few successful reballs using a simple heat flow attached to my soldering iron, I've practiced on xbox 360's which I have bought as spares.

Unfortunately however, this cannot result in a successful repair in all cases, and at the moment I probably have around a 60% success rate on reballed repairs.

I offer a reflow service at the moment, where I clean all of the dust and reapply thermal paste for £45. I make sure my customers are aware of the fact that the fault may arise again in future, most are perfectly happy for it to be a temporary repair, especially as I give their whole money back and give them advice to buy a new machine if it does fail after a while.

It would be nice to be able to reliably repair these with a rework station. I know there's £4k plus kits out there which will do it great every time, but there are quite a few videos on youtube of people with what look like cheaper rework stations which seem very reliable.

Anybody reballing on here? If so, what kit do you use?

 

[MobileTechie]

I'm not sure if I'm reading your incorrectly but your reflow sounds like just a thermal paste job and your reball sounds a bit like a reflow but it's not clear.

Are you sure you're actually reballing? I can't see how that is possible with a soldering iron given that the balls and pads are all underneath the chip.

 

[16k_zx81]

I think you're confusing reballing with reflowing.

Reflows are an inherently dodgy repair, even with the correct equipment.

We use an IR station for them, and they are still iffy.

You might want to do some reading here on both subjects. There's significant bodies of knowledge if you take the time to look.

 

[Knightsman]

I'm in the same boat with this. The proper way is to reball it, but you need kits for that, and like you said they cost.

I couldn't find any hard information on the subject matter either.

 

[Adept PC Repair]

I can assure you my reflow is a reflow. I use the heat to melt the solder and place some flux under the chip. once reflowed I reapply thermal paste and clean up all dust, guessing I didn't elaborate.

my reballs have involved heating the gpu gradually then with a vaccuum pen lifting it up gently but vertically. The pads are almost always perfect and I then place new solder balls on using a stencil and heat them on to the chip.

I then place the chip back on the board and use the heat nozzle to heat it to research on the motherboard. this is the part which goes wrong however, and sometimes the pads are damaged on the board.

I wanted to know if there were any rework stations which allow for preheating and great temp control which can be placed directly over a 80mm chip

 

[16k_zx81]

Search podnutz for reballing

There's a guy in the UK who does it, but it's not a job for the faint hearted

There is also a number of discussions here about it

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

 

[dgiles79]

What kind of profile do you use to reflow the xbox's?

I've been testing a few different profiles on some old xbox's (I use thermocouples to measure the board temps), at first I was going up to about 220C but that seemed to kill the GPU, so I went to 190C which seems to get them working, but would think it wouldn't flow properly until around 217C.

Anyway, any advice on the temps or timings you use would be appreciated.

Hi,

I've had a few successful reballs using a simple heat flow attached to my soldering iron, I've practiced on xbox 360's which I have bought as spares.

Unfortunately however, this cannot result in a successful repair in all cases, and at the moment I probably have around a 60% success rate on reballed repairs.

I offer a reflow service at the moment, where I clean all of the dust and reapply thermal paste for £45. I make sure my customers are aware of the fact that the fault may arise again in future, most are perfectly happy for it to be a temporary repair, especially as I give their whole money back and give them advice to buy a new machine if it does fail after a while.

It would be nice to be able to reliably repair these with a rework station. I know there's £4k plus kits out there which will do it great every time, but there are quite a few videos on youtube of people with what look like cheaper rework stations which seem very reliable.

Anybody reballing on here? If so, what kit do you use?

 

[Adept PC Repair]

This is what I do for the GPU for reflowing.

Make sure you preheat the board beforehand. I do a straight 200c preheat quickly over the bottom of the board for 30 secs.

Then I put the temp down to 150c on the chip, ramp it up by 10c increments every 5 seconds up to 210c. Once it reaches 210c you should hear crackling, stay on the chip in a circular motion at this point for 10 seconds and then ramp down the temp to 100 very quickly. You're done, wait for it to cool.

 

[MobileTechie]

I've done reflows but stripping the laptop down completely, pre-heating and then eating with air, measuring the temps and all that - it's quite a long job and given that some come back I'm not overly keen on the hassle. If do it I charge £90 for it.

I can't see me ever making the money back on a £4K machine.

 

[Adept PC Repair]

I'm sure this can be done without a 4k machine, I just don't know what i'm looking for as a lot of the IR machines don't have many reviews.

Here's a chip I pulled off earlier using my hot air flow and solder station:

Apologies for the quality, taken with my phone.

 

[usacvlr]

This is just a waste of time. I point people to the staples down the street and tell them to get a new toshiba and never buy another piece of hp junk. Reballing and reflowing is just an okified duct tape and bubble gum fix that probably won't work and if it does it won't last long.

 

[seedubya]

This is just a waste of time. I point people to the staples down the street and tell them to get a new toshiba and never buy another piece of hp junk. Reballing and reflowing is just an okified duct tape and bubble gum fix that probably won't work and if it does it won't last long.

I'm inclined to agree. I find the whole thing with reflowing/reballing questionable at best - especially reflowing. I don't doubt that most people who engage in these "repairs" mean well but I wonder about their professional judgement.

 

[dgiles79]

Some customers want this service, and as long as you are up front with them, I don't see an issue with it. I have had customers who don't want to spend $200-300 to get a new motherboard installed, but are happy to pay $70-80 on a reflow that they know may only last 6-12 months.

I'm inclined to agree. I find the whole thing with reflowing/reballing questionable at best - especially reflowing. I don't doubt that most people who engage in these "repairs" mean well but I wonder about their professional judgement.

 

[MobileTechie]

I'm sure this can be done without a 4k machine, I just don't know what i'm looking for as a lot of the IR machines don't have many reviews.

I suspect you're right. But trying to find one that is good without even getting the chance to see them is tricky.

 

[Kitten Kong]

This is just a waste of time. I point people to the staples down the street and tell them to get a new toshiba and never buy another piece of hp junk. Reballing and reflowing is just an okified duct tape and bubble gum fix that probably won't work and if it does it won't last long.

I'm with you on this one. But it isn't just the HP lines. I had a Sony Vaio in last week, with the nvidia chipset. Usual graphics issues, I sent it off to my repairers who reballed it. Total cost was £104.00 inc shipping. I resold this one to my client at £150. She was happy enough, even though I warned her it is only a quick fix, and it WILL go again soon. The best I could offer is a 3 month warranty (which my repairers offer me). She simply would not take my advice and put the money towards a new laptop (without the nvidia chipset issues).

She did however say that if it went again, she would get a new laptop off me, and would I transfer all her docs over to the new one. I also sold her a online backup.

 

[MobileTechie]

Who did you use Nige? RMA Updates?

I've only had partial success with those guys on laptop repairs and had a big run in about a refund on a bad job they did. I argued heatedly several times for ages before they came good on a promise one of their staff had made me.

So if you have another firm doing a better job then I'm all ears.

Having said that, the GPU reball jobs they've done have never come back.

 

[Kitten Kong]

Who did you use Nige? RMA Updates?

I've only had partial success with those guys on laptop repairs and had a big run in about a refund on a bad job they did. I argued heatedly several times for ages before they came good on a promise one of their staff had made me.

So if you have another firm doing a better job then I'm all ears.

Having said that, the GPU reball jobs they've done have never come back.

Yes mate. I always use RMA for jobs like this. Touch wood I have never had a issue with them. I have used them literally 50+ times over the past 3 years, and they have always come through for me.

 

[Knightsman]

I honestly purchase a new board for $95, add a small touch to allow for more heat transfer and deliver to the customer. So far its worked great for me. I explain to the customer that the same problem might happen and give them a 3 month warranty.

 

[seedubya]

I honestly purchase a new board for $95, add a small touch to allow for more heat transfer and deliver to the customer. So far its worked great for me. I explain to the customer that the same problem might happen and give them a 3 month warranty.

New board for $95? Are you sure they're new?

 

[MobileTechie]

HP laptops are not junk. Nor are the Vaios that were affected. The Nvidia chip was junk and those firms got the blame. Plenty of other non-Nvidia HPs and Sony's are perfectly good. Last year I saw lots of Toshibas all with disk problems with the crappy Toshiba drives they have in them. Some of their models also had terrible overheating problems.

Also I disagree that reballing is somehow dodgy. It isn't. The repairs can last for the remainder of the laptop's useful life. Reflows are quite temporary but a professional reball job is a good fix.

Replacement mobos are not necessarily a good solution, especially if you buy them from ebay or any other site where you cannot guarantee their provenance. Plenty of mobos sold as "new", "refurbished" (meaningless term) or "just pulled from a working machine" are actually ones which have had the GPU problem reflowed or reballed. I bought one from ebay and received it and could see the heat marks on the chip. Needless to say that went straight back.