yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[HD2 General] motoi_bogdan:
oven theory testing had begun.

From what i already know, the following items will be required

- gas oven/electric oven (but not microwave one, NEVER use that - instant kill for the hd2) THE OVEN MUST BE ABLE TO PRODUCE AT LEAST 200 DEGREES CELSIUS AND SUSTAIN THIS WITHOUT USING ANY FORM OF FORCED CONVECTION (without using fans or stuff like that)

- some form of heat resistant plate, cup etc - the motherboard will sit on top of it

- some device for temperature measurements, either a multimeter with a thermal probe or other types of thermometers suitable for use in the oven

This will constitute the basic setup on witch i'll be testing. I will do 2 tests both involving an already dead hd2 motherboard. One will be with the cpu attached and one with the cpu removed. This is needed to find out the temperature settings needed for the procedure when it will be available. Preheating of the board will be required. However, i cannot compose a complete a-z procedure as i don't have access to another hd2 with this kind of problems. So, i cannot guarantee the accuracy of the method since i cannot determine if it's enough to save a device having this problem (can't.. aah, test to see if it fixed the problem).

I'll come back with results and maybe the complete procedure (if the oven proves to be reliable) during the weekend.
[HD2 General] Ev0luti0n_:
loving this thread guys! keep up the efforts, and be sure there are folks reading this thread on a daily basis with a lot of interest :)
[HD2 General] lukesan:
facdemol is a real cook instead of those rom cookers :-)
[HD2 General] Ev0luti0n_:
looool :d:d:d
[HD2 General] jvitor83:
LOOOOOOOOLLLLLL

@facdemol what about video recording of these tests? Would be great... ;)
[HD2 General] alaaassem:
really great work and interesting thread :))

i have this problem but unfortunately i cant do what u have did to my phone as i am not expert or even have any idea about these things :(

so what i can do instead??
[HD2 General] ubejd:
well my bro you could send to local mobile shop or pc service who has equipment to do this.
[HD2 General] motoi_bogdan:
did the promised tests about that "oven theory"

it came out with some mix of good vs bad news.

The following things were made:

determined that a crappy old school gas oven can sustain about 200-210 degrees maximum, after about 1hour of preheating. As far as i know a good oven should yield about 250 degrees.

drilled a hole through the hd2's motherboard with it's cpu removed (may it rest in peace :p ) just enough to insert a thermal probe with it's tip at the bga soldering level, just underneath the cpu.

the cpu was resoldered and then heated up from above. After 10 minutes of heating at 250 degrees the surface temperature of the chip itself was about 235-240 degrees and the temperature at the bga soldering level was about 210 degrees. So.. about 10-15% loss due to the fact that the cpu ceramic casing isn't a perfect heat conductor (that's normal)

the cpu was then removed and the bga balls heated again with a progressively higher temperature, climbing from 150 degrees up to 480 degrees. This is done without the oven and it's useful to determine the temperature limit at witch the bga balls still retain their form and solid state. If that limit was to be around 250-260 degrees it would have been very risky to use an oven since you could risk overmelting and destroying the bga array. The good news is that even at 350 degrees the balls seem to sustain their solid state and form. As the temperature increased, it took about 440 degrees to actually break the bga without any form of mechanical pressure applied to it. If this was happening to a working phone, this would have killed it.

as the oven will only produce about 250 degrees we're in the "safe" zone. However, this temperature MAY NOT BE ENOUGH to even partially melt those small balls. We're also keeping in mind that the around 10-15% of the input heat is lost due to the thermal coefficient of the cpu's ceramic casing. This can only be tested with a good motherboard and some trial&error.

The plastic components on the motherboard won't damage at high temperature. Ex. The display connector can withstand direct heating at 400 degrees without any damage.

Today or tomorrow i'll be writing a small guide on how to "cook" the motherboard in the oven. Please note that this is very experimental stuff, i don't know the practical results. The technical aspects are looking good so far but it's yet to be determined what will happen in reality.
[HD2 General] ubejd:
thanks for trying and for report too, i hope we succeed so everyone will fix hd2 - ( cook them ) without having to send to a professional service.

i would like to help here but unfortunately i dodnt have an motherboard to test.
[HD2 General] alik713:
Lol. Me neither, and, not that thrilled about the prospect of cooking my own phone to a non-working state.

Mine is somewhat of a different issue. (Thanks for a very informative thread, btw).

Just replaced the phone with T-Mobile (warranty), as my last HD2 was overheating and locking up.

Said overheating would happen when the phone was plugged in in the car, Navigation running, Pandora running (Internet radio), and, screen brightness turned up to 75%.

Seems that phone being plugged in with the screen brightness turned up are the two main causes of phone temp rising to 45ºC. In the sun (on the car's dashboard), the phone temp would rise to 50ºC.

While in itself is not catastrophic (all it does is make the phone rather hard to handle, as, it becomes hot to the touch), I do not wish my phone to die because of this overheating.

Thus, the question. Can HD2 safely sustain this prolong overheating?

(Temp is measured via "Temp+CPU V2" widget)

Thanks!

-Al
[HD2 General] motoi_bogdan:
from what i could experiment so far, heat itself is not the problem with the hd2. In fact, i can bet my monthly beer money that the hd2 motherboard can withstand continuous exposure to temperatures of about 70-100degrees celsius without any physical damage.

The trouble is with temperature variations. These alone will mechanically stress the soldering between the cpu and motherboard and lead to failure over time. The more extreme and rapidly changing, the more quickly will be the death of that particular motherboard.

If you have a good phone or... something of a "almost good phone" never think to attempt any of these possible fixes for this problem. Don't bake the phone, don't do custom made cooling circuits, don't heat the phone with whatever you find in the kitchen. These procedures are still risky, phones have been killed in this way, i did killed one european HD2 during a similar process.

Make no mistakes fellow users, this is only to be seen as a last resort option.

If it were easy, if it were for a registry hack i'm sure we would have find it. Alas it is not.

Anyway, my bad fortune was in the beginning, i bought a second hand hd2 with this problem and didn't know of it. It came with a stock rom, was never reflashed. So, like i've said, i've flashed some energy WM6.5 rom on it and after the first restart, the thing gave me that 7 vibrate pattern. I really thought it was a feature of those energy roms :)) Oh well, it only lasted for about 5 minutes, after witch i've realized the phone is stuck and won't turn off. Since then i've been searching for answers or possible fixes.

One thing i'm sure, there will NEVER be an easy clean fix for this thing. I've been though some trouble with these hd2's, but still searching for a better way.

At this time.... i'll just pop a beer, lite up a cigar and roll down those freshly baked hd2 motherboards.
[HD2 General] DJ_MiX:
Are the BGA balls lead free? also what is the melting (liquid state) point? 220F ?
[HD2 General] ch_chs:
Can you make a video of it.

I have a HD2 with the same problem, it would be very helpful if you or someone else can just make a video of over heating.
[HD2 General] Capt.PP:
@Facdemol,

Can you upload your images on first page to different picture host site like at http://tinypic.com/ because I can only view from Mac not Window 7.
[HD2 General] ubejd:
Im glad for you my bro and i hope it keeps working and never stops :D.

Well a big thanks go to you too for being part of this community and sharing your experience with us.

To bad you didnt recorded ( i hope you did it will help ) or took some pic during process.
[HD2 General] DTNT:
Great job pal! But can I dont use these bolts and washers, and just put motherboard on a ceramic cup/plate, heat the oven and cook my lovely HD2. And in my opinion all T-Mobile HD2s is guaranteed to be fixed after a "cooking", due to your and Facdemol's experiments!

To Facdemol!

And now everybody needs simple explanation (or pix) of all these abovementioned steps.

Like:

1. Screw out bolts on HD2...

2. Deattach motherboard...

3. Just! put on ceramic cup/plate

4. Heat the oven up to ### C degrees

5. Wait for ## minutes to cook

6. Wait for Motherboard cools itself in a room temp...

7. Reassemble HD2

8. Turn on and enjoy HD2

9. Important!!! After a week of non-problem usage - Donate to Facdemol!!! (I will do it Inshallah!) :)

So please, everybody waiting for such update Facdemol!!!
[HD2 General] booze_pistol:
Just a quick update my phone is still working. Basically three and a half days at this point. I did not perform the heat sink mod as of yet. I have pushed this phone pretty hard since the repair, and it has not frozen, or restarted a single time. I put HSPL, MAGLDR 1.11, Android 2.2 NAND without any issues. It is functioning 100% so far.

If this continues to be the case, I will try the same procedure with my other HD2 and take pictures this time of the process. Maybe even a video using my working HD2? I need a different probe first so I can get some temp measurements at the cpu. Truthfully I am shocked that this worked, there are flaws all over what I did, and I am afraid it will not repeat with success. It is a wonder that i did not scorch the chip itself, being that close to the hot plate surface. Since I could not get the probe to the cpu to check temps its a total guess as to what the temp was there, much less at the solder / board level. My max temp was 494 F / 256 C. That was at the surface of the hotplate though. Surface of the chip was probably 20-30 degrees lower. Temp at the solder / board level would be even less. Probably around 400 F / 200 C. Those are total estimates of course.

Those temps are a little low for a true lead free solder reflow. In this instance though were not actually trying to accomplish an actual reflow. So who knows? It worked, and that is great, but it has left me with more questions than actual answers. I would discourage anyone from trying this or any other fix till it can be proven to be safe, and somewhat reliable. Until then your best bet is a true reflow, or reball from a professional with the right equipment. I hate to say that, but sometimes homebrew fix it's are just not meant to be. But we try! :D
[HD2 General] ryu-lamp:
Very cool thread...reminds me of days of palm pda when people were more technically

Inclined.:p
[HD2 General] booze_pistol:
Well i decided to try facdemol's oven method on my second HD2, it was a massive fail! The board is completely dead. As soon as I put the battery back in it the phone began to heat up noticeably, indicating a dead short. It would not of course come on at all.

The phone taken apart:

Set up on A Ceramic Mug:

In The Oven:

After The Oven (Notice the discoloration int he copper):

I went 10 minutes at 200 F / 100 C. Then moved up to 500 F / 260 C for an additional 10 minutes. Turned off let it cool completely. Reassembled phone.

So what does all this mean? Nothing really. It was and always will be a hit or miss situation. This is completely experimental territory. I can however make some comparisons between this method, and the method I successfully fixed my other HD2

In my Hot plate experiment, max temp at the board / solder level could not have been more than 200 - 220 degrees C. In the oven method temp was at least 260 C. I could assume that it means 260 C is too high. Not necessarily the case though. Since we are trying to revive a dead / cold solder joint, and not an actual reflow, it is possible that 260 C is too high? You also have to factor in that in my case using an electric oven, the burners come on to raise the temp, during this on time the heat concentrated on the board could be above the 260 C mark, trying to achieve the temp throughout the oven.

If I had to do this again, which I am out of phones now :) I would preheat the oven to 100 C, put the board in for 10 minutes. Remove the board but sit it on top off the oven. Then heat the oven up to no more than 220 C, put the board back in and let it go 10 minutes.

Better to go too low than too high. The old measure twice cut once philosophy. At any rate I successfully revived 1 of 2 phones. So no complaints. I hope my success on the one, and failure on the other will provide others with some insight into this. Do either method, or any method at your own risk.
[HD2 General] consolation:
Celsius: 0 degrees is temperature water freezes, 100 degrees is temperature water boils (@1 atm ~sea level)

If we all use different units this thread it will turn to custard, plenty of unit converters in Android market.

BTW, used a similar oven method to fix circuit boards at an old job of mine, there was trunk radio unit we serviced that was notorious for this problem and the fix worked 90% of the time. Admittedly, the bga array wasn't nearly as dense.

One thing we always did was to use a bubble level to make sure the chips are dead level. 300 degree C, was the temp we used, not that it's relevant much as that was in the late 90s and the manufacturing process was likely totally different.

Oh another point, get thermal bricks to put between the circuit board and the elements. As pointed out above, spot heat in electric oven can get quite high. We used two big thermal bricks out of an old fireplace to sit our holder on. They shield the unit from direct heat and smooth out temperature changes by acting as a buffer. The cool down period was a lot longer becouse of that. Normal bricks will work, but, you need to pre treat them as moisture trapped will crack them otherwise, takes many hours on low heat.
[HD2 General] consolation:
WTF?

I can guarantee you that's not the case. Even following manufacturers instruction we had to reflow 10-20% of units, and I killed quite a few in the process.

I know, I know, different circuit board, different time, blah blah. But guaranteeing fixed units will just make someone cry :-b

LOL, this thread brought back memories... undergrad part time jobs etc...
[HD2 General] Capt.PP:
@facdemol,

Can you please post the pictures on the first page in different web host site because, I can't see those from window os.
[HD2 General] DTNT:
Is your oven is a gas one? As per your 3rd pic, is it electrical oven? If so, I think induction from heated element (tungsten or etc) could harm board's electrical schemes. Furthermore, your hotplate has an open construction and oven cooking cam is closed scheme and exactly walls have hot-saving elements (alufoil and etc) which can reflect that inductions waves. Maybe I'm wrong but accept this as a variant of failure cooking.

But anyways we should wait for another experiments. Maybe only hotplates will be able to cook HD2s! Let's see!
[HD2 General] DTNT:
Everybody. please follow this link to see how to assemble/reassemble HD2 in pix. I think will be useful. Please note it is in russian, but I think everything is pretty understandable.
[HD2 General] AFP2003D:
Question about jtag and overheating

hello my friends. I appreciate the effort that @facdemol do to overcome this problem.

thank you all for testing and sharing thoughts.

I have a problem.

I have hd2 Tmobile with 1GB ROM and i have update it with a wrong update virsion which contains number 51 . This bricked my hd2 and now no bootloader, no screen . No charging. Nothing in the screen. It is dead.

the phone has never been opened at all.

my question is:

will jtag process lead my phone to have overheating issue? ( Note: I dont have any heating or other problems with my phone before i bricked it )

or heating problem have another cause not jtag??

please make it clear for me so I can send it to to the nearest country for fixing. (we dont have jtag in Oman )

thank you all in advance...
[HD2 General] DTNT:
Your issue is an topic of another discussion. please try to search in neighbour themes!
[HD2 General] AFP2003D:
I didnt demand a lot

It is just a question. Will i have heating problems after jtag or not?

If Yes then thank u

If No then thank u

Thats it
[HD2 General] motoi_bogdan:
@ booze_pistol - really sorry to hear that. That's the exact way one of my hd2's died, although i did exactly as with the first one and the method was tested and found to be successful. It seems that although the problem looks the same, not all hd2's have the same bga pins broken in the same way for we to believe that an universal fix will be available.

I dissected that hd2 motherboard that died. It had the same problem as yours. On power up it begins to heat up. No led's, nothing on the display. After the cpu removal i found out that 2 of those small balls were in contact to each other, somewhere around the center of the chip. The board was dead because of only 2 small contacts touching each other. Should i know that back then i would have tried more reheating sessions in various positions hoping that i could somehow break that short circuit.

I really don't know what to say at this time. Although i've found out in my experiments that in the end, applying heat is the only way to solve this problem, my further progress lead to users killing some phones while success still being limited. As far as i know, I fixed 2 hd2's, you fixed one (using an alternate heating method) and ubejd fixed another (using a pretty expensive infrared SMD rework station). Except for that.. I also killed a hd2, you killed another and there are still couple more examples only in this thread.

I wish i could have did all of the experimenting on my side and give you guys a clear and 100% sure thing solution. Alas i cannot, i don't have neither the tools or spare hd2 broken motherboards.

@AFP2003D JTAG doesn't involve heating up the cpu. There are several check points on the board, and from there the JTAG pins are connected in order to flash the phone. It has nothing to do with the problem described here, nor it will produce it. It is true that the JTAG protocol itself needs the CPU (jtag is a function of the CPU) but it cannot produce thermal problems by its own.
[HD2 General] HillsRider:
I have managed to revive my HTC Incredible that was suffering from the same problems. It was at the point of shutting down while not in use if the ambient temp was anywhere above 26 C. I removed the motherboard and heated the processor to 200 C for 10 minutes and reassembled. I am only 2 days into testing the phone but have only had one reset so far and it immediately recovered after the reboot.

Thanks to facdemol for pointing me in the right direction!
[HD2 General] motoi_bogdan:
well, i'm glad it helped. As you can see here, we have pretty mixed up results, so i guess you were lucky.

One more thing, what did you use to heat up the board/cpu?
[HD2 General] HillsRider:
Well, I'm sure it isn't something that would be recommended to anyone, but I used a soldering iron. It is a decent iron with temp control so I removed the tip and made a copper plate the same size as the processor to replace it. I started with the soldering iron cold, positioned it on the processor and started heating till it hit 200, which took 4-5 minutes. I left it for another 5 minutes once it was up to temp then let it cool back to room temp.

I would say I got really lucky. :rolleyes:
[HD2 General] booze_pistol:
I am certain that pins on the CPU have melded together, maybe only 1 pair, maybe more. It is definitely a dead short. The almost immediate heating up as soon as power is applied is a direct indication of this. I have considered and may try to repeat the process, using different angles and positions of the board to see if I can break them loose. There is nothing to lose at this point huh? :D

I knew the risks involved in doing this. I don't regret trying it at all. It should be noted even Infrared SMD rework stations are not 100% successful. Ask anyone who repairs xbox 360's. They are without a doubt the preferred method, but nothing is certain. This problem with HD2's is different with every phone, even though many phones share the same general problem, each and every phone is going to be different. A universal fix is likely impossible, especially using household appliances.

I still appreciate all your work, and without this thread and this board I would still have two non working HD2's instead of one.
[HD2 General] Capt.PP:
I want to follow your guild to make a heatsink. But I can't view the pictures on how to make it and where to place it. Can you please, post the pictures in different picture hosting site because imagewoof.com server is down?
[HD2 General] DTNT:
I downloaded those pictures to the MS Word file. Please see them. File is attached in a RAR format.
[HD2 General] andrew-o:
Hi all!

I had the same problem with my hd2. First time it was hanging and rebooting. I made a good cooper "radiator" :) on the motherboard as in the first post. Everything was ok, but in a few weeks it hangs and do not starts, just whit screen.

I resoldered motherboard as described in service with soldering machine.

And now hardware buttons on a phone are not working, when i connect charger and press reset, the phone starts, but screen is black, just little backlight i can see.

Also i have installed MyMobiler soft on my phone, and when it is connected to pc and syncronized, i can see screen of phone on PC and manage it. So motherboard is alive, i can do anything through PC, touchscreen of phone is working, but screen is black.

Can you give me an advice?

Somewhere i read that it can be such issue with controller of power to screen, that is situated in the opposite side of processor. But i can't find this info now.

I think, i have to resolder motherboard again to fix this.

Maybe you had such situations.

Thanks.
[HD2 General] Capt.PP:
Thanks man, my HD2 is getting worst now. I only have about 10 mins of call time and 10 mins of gaming before it froze...I need to buy the right screwdriver before starting the operation.
[HD2 General] DTNT:
You are welcome Capt.PP! The only way that can fix your problem can be gas oven method. I think only gas ovens (not electrical) can help in this issue. Or a hotplate described earlier. Screwdrivers you can find in any mini or supermarket in your neighbourhood.

ps. My HD2 do the same headaches as yours, to prolongue its life try to use ice, put it in plastic bag and place HD2 to that bag (or any tailormade ice holding cradle:) So in a days I will try to cook HD2 in gas oven cam and post pix and results respectively.
[HD2 General] consolation:
While gas ovens can get hotter than some electrics, good electrical ones won't have a problem. Plus, they will give you a much more even heat and won't have the moisture issues of gas powered ovens. Rememnet gas produces co2 plus h2o as waste, not a problem when hot, but you can get condensation when cooling. I think electricity is the prepared source.
[HD2 General] andrew-o:
Well, so nobody had such problem with power to lcd? Or anything else could be damaged while resoldering?
[HD2 General] DTNT:
Try to find in the beginning of the topic where Facdemol explained several after cooking effects and syndroms of HD2. I think if PC sees your device it can be fixed. Wait for experts answers also!
[HD2 General] KrewsialNL:
Wow, the exact same solution was provided for some DELL laptops with overheating GPU chips as well.

Nevertheless, awesome topic. Good that some people are still sharing their findings and doing it brilliantly.

Multumesc foarte mult domnule! (Thank you sir!)