Replacing a GPU chip on laptop motherboard?

Cucumber

New member
Hi

I want to know if it is possible to replace a graphics card chip on a laptops motherboard. Mine is currently dieing and on life support :)

I fear that the solution would be to get a new motherboard and just smack in the ram and CPU over from the old one to the new one. Ive got a Dell Vostro 3700 Btw. I dont plan on upgrading anything of this laptop anytime soon because i'd rather invest into a custom gaming pc.

Thanks in advanced
Cucumber
 
If memory serves me right, the GPU is soldered onto its motherboard, so it wouldnt be practical for a consumer to replace it.
 
If memory serves me right, the GPU is soldered onto its motherboard, so it wouldnt be practical for a consumer to replace it.

Yeah i was told of something like that. On a different forum i was told about reflowing solder to get the solder off of the chip because doing such a thing by hand would be too difficult (if possible at all). Do you know whether companies sell the chips individually?
 
Unfortunately you wouldnt be able to get the chips directly from them. You could give eBay a shot. However due to the extremely low demand for this kind of product, you are better off just not doing it in the first place.

Repairing major faults on a notebook is generally not worth it, not only are there risks, but for the price of the components, you may as well be buying a brand new one that is more recent or looking for a decent second hand one.

Is there any reason as to why you really need the notebook? As you could just build the desktop now.
 
Last edited:
Unfortunately you wouldnt be able to get the chips directly from them. You could give eBay a shot. However due to the extremely low demand for this kind of product, you are better off just not doing it in the first place.

Repairing major faults on a notebook is generally not worth it, not only are there risks, but for the price of the components, you may as well be buying a brand new one that is more recent or looking for a decent second hand one.

Is there any reason as to why you really need the notebook? As you could just build the desktop now.

Its my only computer i own that can still play games. Cant upgrade just yet. Education comes before luxury in this case :/ Might buy parts overtime. Currently just use this laptop for Youtube, homework, gaming and Skype.
 
Well, you may be best off looking for a second hand one from eBay or something then. As you can easily get a better notebook for only a tad more than you would be paying for the motherboard.
 
The chances are it's not the chip itself that's failed or failing. It will be the solder.

Laptop (and desktop) GPU cores are soldered to a PCB using BGA or ball grid array solder. Basically tiny little balls of solder are put on the PCB and then the GPU is sat on it. Then they heat it in a convection oven until the solder melts.

This never used to be an issue on older, non ROHS solder but over the past few years governments around the world have banned lead based non ROHS solder because lead is poisonous.

Now they use ROHS which is tin based. Tin is harder and far more brittle than lead, this is why after a while the flux dries up and fails and you end up with duff contacts.

So what can you do? well, you either send it away to a company for a genuine re-ball (where they remove the GPU core completely, replace all of the BGA balls and reflow it) or you can shove it in an oven for a few minutes to reflow what is left of the solder you have.

Neither are ideal because -

A re-ball will probably cost you more than the board itself is worth. IIRC it's around £250 to have it professionally reballed.

A bake in the oven will only fix the problem for so long. I've never seen a baked GPU last any more than about three months before it fails again. The more you bake it the shorter the gap between baking and in the end it simply won't work at all. This is bad enough, but on a laptop it's far more hassle to take it apart and put it back together.

My advice? throw it in the bin and buy another one. Certain laptops of a certain age were well known for this. There was a recall on some but not all.
 
Back
Top