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Reflow an Acer 3820TG and Graphic Cards
A UBC student asked me if I could help to reflow the video chips on an Acer laptop and on two graphic cards. He dropped them off to my home on 12Sep2012.
Over the weekend, I started with the Acer laptop first that I could test the reflow. I disassembled the it and checked the inside. There are two fans blowing air out to the left and right sides. When I unscrewed the heatsinks, one of the screw holder soldered to the motherboard was loosen. The heatsinks covers the CPU, ATI and Intel chip. Both fans have some dust clogging the vents partially which should not cause overheating. I did the reflow the ATI chip twice. The Acer laptop still did not have video.
On the other weekend, I did another reflow. It still failed. I inserted a Diagnostic Error Test Analyzer tool POST Card to the laptop. When I switched it on, the card displayed the first code 04F3 and stopped there. Noramally, the card will flash a sequence of codes before it stopped. It seems that the Acer laptop is having some problem at the BIOS level which is out of my knowledge. I assembled the Acer laptop and did the reflows on the two graphic cards.
They are ready for returning to the owner.