Laptop GPU died, could I reflow it back to life?

[crazycombine]

I have an Acer Aspire 5755g with Windows 7, an i5-2450m processor and a separate Nvidia GT 630m GPU.

I was playing Skyrim on a plane, for some reason it seemed to be much hotter than usual (Usually runs at 70 C under load, but in the plane it was closer to 90 C) eventually it froze and blue-screened on me, I thought it just overheated.
except when I rebooted it, I found that my temperature monitoring gadget read "GPU not found" and it no longer showed up in Device Manager. I tried uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling both the latest drivers from Nvidia
and the original drivers from Acer but both installers gave a "could not find compatible hardware" error.

So I'm assuming the chip died, the computer itself works, the graphics now run off the CPU but games don't run nearly as well as on the GT 630m.

The chip is soldered unto the motherboard, and replacing the motherboard costs almost as much as the laptop itself, so I think I should try reflowing it by baking it or with a hairdryer

Would that be fine for the rest of the motherboard though? I'm worried that I might damage something else putting the entire motherboard in the oven

[SpeedyHeart]

[QUOTE=crazycombine;46894347]I have an Acer Aspire 5755g with Windows 7, an i5-2450m processor and a separate Nvidia GT 630m GPU.

I was playing Skyrim on a plane, for some reason it seemed to be much hotter than usual (Usually runs at 70 C under load, but in the plane it was closer to 90 C) eventually it froze and blue-screened on me, I thought it just overheated.
except when I rebooted it, I found that my temperature monitoring gadget read "GPU not found" and it no longer showed up in Device Manager. I tried uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling both the latest drivers from Nvidia
and the original drivers from Acer but both installers gave a "could not find compatible hardware" error.

So I'm assuming the chip died, the computer itself works, the graphics now run off the CPU but games don't run nearly as well as on the GT 630m.

The chip is soldered unto the motherboard, and replacing the motherboard costs almost as much as the laptop itself, so I think I should try reflowing it by baking it or with a hairdryer

Would that be fine for the rest of the motherboard though? I'm worried that I might damage something else putting the entire motherboard in the oven[/QUOTE]

dont put it in the oven. Use a heatgun and make sure that the sensitive parts of the motherboard are shielded

[crazycombine]

[QUOTE=ashrobhoy;46897163]dont put it in the oven. Use a heatgun and make sure that the sensitive parts of the motherboard are shielded[/QUOTE]

Would a hairdryer work? Or do I actually need a heat gun?

[Levelog]

You'd need a heatgun. You can usually find them pretty cheap.

[R E D L I N E]

[QUOTE=crazycombine;46898457]Would a hairdryer work? Or do I actually need a heat gun?[/QUOTE]

Unless your hairdryer is capable of melting your face and hair off, no, you'll need a heat gun

[crazycombine]

Looks like I'll get myself a heat gun then, thanks