OddballGreg - Baking Circuitboards (Culinary Electronics)

Newest magical ability of TCSA: Shrinking people down to the size of motherboards. Please don't turn that fan on.

Computers break. A lot... Often... In a variety of ways. Anyone who's ever owned a computer can attest to that. So of course, it makes sense that some rather strange methods of repair have also sprung up over the years, such as sticking your R10000 board or card into a baking oven. (That sounds perfectly safe.)

Motherboards, Graphics cards, etc. These things all stop working eventually. (Frequently with me. *facedesk* Word of advice, warranty's are your friend.) Lucky for us, YouTube is a source of endless information, (and entertainment if you're bored.), and a great variety of people have come upon the idea of actually baking you card in an oven.

Baking your card? I must be joking you're probably thinking. Strangely enough, no. I will point out that this is a  temporary solution, and also a last ditch one. There's probably as much chance of breaking your card as there is of fixing it, so I suggest only doing this if whatever manner of electronics it is simply does not work no matter what else you've tried.

Warning out of the way, here's how it works: If you know anything about electronics, then you'll understand that circuitboards are nothing more than tracks of conductive material on a non conductive board, which links various electronic components together so that they can perform their various functions. Of course, to attach the various parts to the board, you need a metal that is highly conductive, but can melt at high enough temperature that you can attach things to the board, without melting when the computer is running. Usually substances like solder are used, though I'm not sure what they use most frequently these days. (And you thought cooking meth like Bryan Cranston was hardcore. I BAKE METAL! *Headbang*)

So why does sticking your motherboard or graphics card or whatever into the oven work? Quite simply, you're redoing all of those joins on the board, in the hopes that it fixes any micro-cracks in these joins and gives you a few extra months of use on your otherwise messed up board. 

Now I know what you're thinking. This can't possibly work, I mean, tutorials such as the one above sound well meaning and honest enough. But you're sticking a metal and plastic board into the OVEN. That's crazy. Well, yes, again, this is a last ditch effort to get your card to work again. But it's a good idea to remove anything that can melt like plastic ports or cables, and some tutorials detail covering various components in metal foil to protect them. However, I've actually done this with an old graphics card I got from my uncle, and managed to get it to function for another good 6 months after a rather brutal drop onto the ground. (I did have to replace a capacitor that was broken off and lost.)

Crazy as that is, some people have done similar, and then simply baked the card again when it stopped working and got further use from theirs. Though I would point out that your warranty is pretty much void from the moment you touch the card with a screwdriver, so I suggest cashing in the warranty above doing ANYTHING else. (If they replace it, typically the warranty gets renewed, so this is a fairly better thing to do.)

In any case, if you have any faulty electronics lying around that are helping nobody, and decide to give this trick a try, do keep in mind, that it doesn't always work, but maybe you can get your busted up old Xbox to work again thanks to it. It beats not trying anything though. If you're interested in giving it a try, go check out a few video's on YouTube like the one I linked earlier in this article to get the full details on how to do it.

If it helps you, or at least was worth the try, then do be sure to let us know how it went in the comments section below or via Facebook/Twitter. We here at TCSA love to hear your feedback. And don't forget to share this post with any computer minded friends of yours. I'm sure they'll appreciate the potentially handy information. Of course, if you would like to read more articles about handy tricks like this, then be sure to like the official TCSA Facebook page and/or follow us on Twitter, using the associated buttons on the bar to the left, so that you can read the latest posts, as they go up. Regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time to read this post; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again soon.

Happy baking my friends.