Tried reflowing a GPU with a heat gun instead of a rework station

I had this old Radeon RX 580 that was showing artifacts on screen, figured it was toast anyway so why not. Grabbed my $20 heat gun from Harbor Freight and gave it a shot, wrapping the board in foil to protect the other parts. Hit it at 350 degrees for about 4 minutes, let it cool down slow. Thing actually booted up perfectly and ran stable for 2 whole months before the artifacts came back. Learned that a reflow can buy you time but it's never a permanent fix, especially without proper flux and preheating. Has anyone else had luck with a ghetto reflow job lasting longer than that?

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1 Comment

laura_white991mo ago

Actually I think you're being way too hard on yourself with that result. Two months of stable operation from a $20 heat gun and some tinfoil? That's honestly pretty solid for something that was already dead. The fact that it worked at all tells me that sometimes these "ghetto" fixes get more hate than they deserve. I've had a buddy who used a literal toaster oven (don't ask, he was desperate) to reflow a GPU and it ran for like 8 months before crapping out again. Meanwhile I've seen people with proper rework stations screw up brand new cards because they didn't let them preheat slow enough. So maybe the whole idea that you NEED a fancy setup is just gatekeeping, you know? The real problem isn't the heat source, it's the underlying solder joint fatigue that's gonna fail again no matter how clean your reflow looks.