My 2011 Macbook Pro 17″ failed again. A few years back, the GPU went bad so I sent it to a guy in the UK that replaced the GPU, and then it worked for maybe two years. It failed again a couple of months back, but I don’t think it’s worth having it repaired now. I did, however, just do a reflow on it for kicks. It didn’t fix the computer, though, but that won’t stop me from describing what I did. So this is an example of what doesn’t work.
I first removed everything removable from the main board and set it up in a preheater. I stuck the Fluke thermocouple into a mounting hole close to the GPU so I could monitor the temperature of the board.This is the GPU the guy in the UK put in a couple of years ago. The thermocouple is the orange lead top right.I set the hot air gun to 450 degrees Celcius and the air flow real low, so I wouldn’t blow away any components as the solder melted.Once the board temperature reached 100 degrees, I started heating the GPU with the air gun. It took about two minutes until the GPU made minor movements and then I kept heating for another 15 seconds or so. I then let the board slowly cool down until I got a reading under 50 degrees. Reassembled the computer and found it was still dead. Oh well, it was fun doing anyway.The temperature curve from the Fluke.
2 thoughts on “Reflowing a Macbook Pro GPU to no avail”
@Martin, I was wondering if you could possibly help me out? I have contacted apple (apple care) a few different times and have gotten nowhere! After reading this article/post, I feel that you would be a lot more help than apple. Is there a good way I can contact you or even give you a phone call? This is all concerning the poor performance of my 2017 iMac Pro that I NEED running “snappy” for work.
Please let me know if you find some time and could possibly take a look under the hood.
Thank you!
-Kirk
I’m not sure I can help since I’m probably half a globe away from you, assuming you’re in the US. (I’m in Sweden.) But maybe somebody else is seeing your comment and can help?
(BTW, I took out your email and weblink, since I wasn’t sure you wanted those public.)
@Martin, I was wondering if you could possibly help me out? I have contacted apple (apple care) a few different times and have gotten nowhere! After reading this article/post, I feel that you would be a lot more help than apple. Is there a good way I can contact you or even give you a phone call? This is all concerning the poor performance of my 2017 iMac Pro that I NEED running “snappy” for work.
Please let me know if you find some time and could possibly take a look under the hood.
Thank you!
-Kirk
Kirk,
I’m not sure I can help since I’m probably half a globe away from you, assuming you’re in the US. (I’m in Sweden.) But maybe somebody else is seeing your comment and can help?
(BTW, I took out your email and weblink, since I wasn’t sure you wanted those public.)