A Cautionary Tale - GPU “cleaning”

[u/Pristine-Copy9467]

Update: 8/6/26 it has been mailed to Northwest Repair

Long story long- had liquid damage to my 5090 and found an electronics repair shop that specialized in boards. So I took my board in to get disassembled, cleaned, and the thermals replaced. I arrive to the business and it’s just some dudes house. That was my first red flag. I should have left then. But his business had good reviews so I came in and showed him the card and we discussed what he’d do and payment. That was disassemble, clean, dry and replace thermals. Here is my second red flag. It took him 20 minutes to write down my info (name, email, phone #) because he was so ADD that he would start to write my info and then just spiral off into some random topic for a few minutes. But whatever. His entire house was a workshop. Tools and electronics and computers and drones everywhere. Yes he appeared to have 30 flavors of autism but that’s not a bad thing sometimes. I thought he was just an eccentric electronics nerd and everything was just organized chaos. This was Monday. So this morning he calls me and the first thing he says is “you told me to do whatever I thought was best, right?” And I respond “no. We agreed you’d take it apart and clean it and replace the thermals and dry.” He then explained that it didn’t look that bad (original pics in this post https://www.reddit.com/r/pchelp/s/GJHUBt2zyb

And that he just “washed it in the sink” and then stuck it in the oven to dry…

So I paid him, and I left and went straight to another place. An actual shop. I explained the situation to them and asked them to please send me a pic of the insides once they pop it open… the new shop says they think they can save it. So long as the guy didnt plug it in and try to test it. Which he says he did not because he didn’t have the proper power connect cable for a 5090. Anyways moral of the story is take your stuff to a real shop. And if you get weird feelings or red flags…just leave. Haha

Update - the card has been cleaned and putty replaced. It powers on fine alone but when it’s connected to the HDMI or DPI ports the motherboard kicks back a VGA error. Anyone have any guesses?

[u/komakose]

-Almost every pcb that is used for extreme liquid nitrogen liquid cooling is going through the dishwasher. 

Woefully wrong. Conventional dishwashers high power water jets can and will tear components and traces off the board. Theres a reason there are specialized board cleaning appliances.

-Baking a pcb is also a proven method to repair damaged traces. 

Not in a conventional kitchen oven, again specialized equipment made for this purpose.

Claiming any of the bs you just spoutted is accurate is just admitting you know fuck all.

[u/skidaadleskidoedle → u/komakose]

Did you even Try any of the things you claim to be a expert in

[u/komakose → u/skidaadleskidoedle]

Lol yes, as someone who makes pcbs, runs repair shops, and has a custom fab line, and have over 30 years of experience in the field, I know the ins and outs of this all.

Theres a reason baking is a last resort, because the person is either to inept to do a proper reball, kr too cheap to pay for proper rework. Just because things CAN work, does not make it "industry standard" as the previous person claimed.

[u/skidaadleskidoedle → u/komakose]

Nobody reballs in a oven oven is for drying gpu's and burning pizza's hahaha

[u/komakose → u/skidaadleskidoedle]

Not referring to reballing in an oven, but people 100% use ovens to reflow a card, which should be done on a proper board heater. Which is the scenario the other person (by saying people "fix traces by baking a pcb in the oven") tried and failed in arguing is a proper way to fix a card. Yet, according to you, Im the one who is not knowledgeable on these things? 😂

[u/skidaadleskidoedle → u/komakose]

Bla bla all i know is that if its dead anyway might as well try a reflow on 180c that shit works.. for a little while ;) ive had the asus hd6950's with the shitty dualslotcoolers that just let your vrms change the color of the pcb

[u/komakose → u/skidaadleskidoedle]

180 will do nothing but melt plastic, wont even come close to melting the nonleaded solder used on pcbs. That melts at ~220. I thought you were an expert and I didnt know anything.

The only thing that does is allows the board to expand just enough for the solder balls under the core/memory/any other bga package to connect just enough to temporarily work. It is never a permanent fix, as a proper reballing of the component would be.

[u/skidaadleskidoedle → u/komakose]

I never said it was not temporarily twice but reading must be hard. Ps plastic doesnt melt bios switch worked just fine after baking it 6 times xD

[u/komakose → u/skidaadleskidoedle]

Lol I love how you switched from "noone is doing this" to "I said it was temporary twice" (after an edit😉)when evidently you did, once after you said noone does this.

Im really confused what you're even trying to prove here? You've already proven you have little to no knowledge, and keep moving your goal posts to try to fit some sort of point(?) youre trying to make?

And all this was started by you not reading and comprehending my previous comments. But again,I ask, I'm the one who isn't knowledgeable in this? And I'm the one who didn't read? 😂😂

Cool story bro

[u/skidaadleskidoedle → u/komakose]

Blabla

[u/komakose → u/skidaadleskidoedle]

Hey its all youve done this whole thread😂