Randem Systems Support Board

Well, I have to admit that I thought this claim was bogus at best but it indeed does work. It certainly defies logic, well normal logic anyway...

If you have a Laptop that suffers from not booting when you turn it on, meaning your laptops lights come on but little else happens or you get a screen with many screens displayed at the same time like a bad screen saver or just something that looks like a TV test pattern or your wireless has disappeared. This fix just might help you.

A customer brought in a HP DV2700 (really a DV2980nr) that would boot but the display had 9 smaller copies of the regular screen at the same time in a tile layout. Since this was basically the same issue the the DV2000 / DV3000 / DV9000 were recalled for I decided to contact HP to discuss this issue . I have gotten a few of those computers repaired free of charge for customers. HP would not honor this computer because the model number was different than the ones on the list that they would honor. Even though this computer has exactly the same issue but presents it a little differently. HP would not budge on this so I searched the internet for a solution and found several that would repair the problem. The problem stemmed from a broken solder connections that attach the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) to itself.

These broken solder connections seem to have been caused by the computer overheating enough to melt the solder on the GPU (basically the GPU overheating) causing a loss of connection. Now the solution posted a few places was to overheat the GPU to get the connections back. I thought to myself; well if overheating caused the problem how could purposely overheating it restore the connection. You see my dilemma with the logic??? The postings also stated that the cure was a temporary one because if the laptop overheated again you could wind up with the same problem again. Ok, I was curious enough to try the solution and I be damned that it worked!!!

This is what to do:

1 - Remove the HD and battery from the laptop
2 - Get a blanket or towel and fold it to fit under the laptop, giving some overlap room.
3 - Open the Laptop and sit it on the blanket or towel.
4 - Plug the laptop in and turn it on. Leave it for an hour or more to force overheating. We want the blanket or towel to cover all the exits for airflow.
5 - After about 1 hour or when the computer turns itself off because of overheating. Turn the laptop off and unplug.
6 - Leave laptop on the blanket/towel for another 10 minutes to cool down.
7 - Replace the HD and battery, turn the laptop on and the problem should go away. The laptop should boot as normal as if there was no problem at all.

Silly isn't it? But it works. The permanent solution is to take the laptop apart, find the GPU heat it with a blow dryer or heating unit then press down on it for a minute with a towel to reconnect the GPU to the motherboard. After that you will need some thermal grease to place on top of the GPU to attach a penny to it so that it comes in contact with the heat sink coil (if it goes over the GPU). This will help disperse heat from the GPU to the heat sink coil to help keep the GPU cool. It may also apply a little pressure to keep the GPU from disconnecting from itself again.

Check out YouTube for some videos on repairing GPU's for more info. This solution works for any computer that has the nVidia G84 or G86 units on the system board.
ALL OF THEM ARE BAD!!!

More info:
 
http://www.nvidiadefect.com