In this post I explain how you can fix a laptop motherboard with failed NVIDIA graphics chip. This repair might apply to some HP/Compaq laptops and probably some other laptop brands. If this repair works for your laptop, please mention the brand and model number in comments after the post. This will help other readers with similar laptops.
This method should work for the following models: HP Pavilion dv2000, Pavilion dv6000, Pavilion dv9000, Compaq Presario v3000, Presario v6000, HP Pavilion tx1000, Pavilion tx2000.
By the way, I just fixed my son’s Xbox 360 with red ring of death (error 74) using exactly same technique.
MOST COMMON PROBLEM SYMPTOMS
1. Laptop turns on with garbled video on the internal laptop screen and external monitor.
2. Laptop turns on as normal but there is no video on the internal laptop screen or external monitor.
MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROBLEM
The NVIDIA graphics chip soldered to the motherboard. When the laptop gets very hot, the NVIDIA chip separates from the motherboard and laptop video fails.
HOW TO FIX FAILED NVIDIA CHIP
I have previous posts explaining how I fixed same problem by baking the motherboard in an oven or bubble-wrapping the laptop. But today I’m going to fix the motherboard using a heat gun. Basically, I’m going to heat up the NVIDIA chip with a heat gun to solder it back to the motherboard (reflow). I think this method is more reliable and the repair should last for a while.
WARNING!
There is no guaranty this method works all the time. While doing this repair you may damage the motherboard and make it unrepairable. Also, you may damage the laptop while taking it apart.
Proceed at your own risk and don’t blame me if you turned your laptop into a very expensive door stop. 
If you don’t feel comfortable doing this repair, take your laptop to the repair shop.
HOW I FIXED THE MOTHERBOARD
First of all, you’ll have to disassemble the laptop and remove the motherboard. You can find laptop disassembly procedure in the service manual. If you having trouble finding the manual, leave a comment and maybe I can point you to the right direction.
In my example I’m using a motherboard removed from HP Pavilion tx2000 laptop.
In most laptops the graphics chip located under the CPU heatsink (and it has NVIDIA logo on it), so there shouldn’t be a problem locating the chip. The chip has a glossy top surface.
For this repair I’m going to use an Ecoheat heat gun EC-100.
In order to figure out how to position the heat gun and for how long, I tested it on a penny with a small piece of solder on the top.
The Ecoheat heat gun has a switch on the handle. There are two positions for the switch. Position 1 – slow. Position 2 – fast.
I used position 1 – slow.
I positioned the heat gun about 1 inch away from the penny and turned it on.
After about 40-45 second the solder started melting. After 50 seconds the solder melted completely.
To protect the motherboard from the heat I used a regular cooking aluminum foil. I cut off a piece of aluminum foil and folded it a few times to make my protection shield thicker. After that I cut off a square opening right in the middle, same size as the NVIDIA chip.
After I removed the heat sink, I had some old thermal grease stuck on the NVIDIA graphics chip. You can remove old thermal grease using alcohol swabs. It’s not necessary to make it perfectly clean. Just make sure there are no large chunks of thermal grease on the chip.
UPDATE: Some people mentioned that I should have applied some liquid flux underneath the NVIDIA chip for better results. I didn’t do it this time. I’ll definitely do it next time if the motherboard fails again. I found this video explaining how to apply liquid flux under the GPU chip. This video was made for Xbox 360 motherboard but should apply to any laptop motherboard too.
Liquid flux for GPU reflow available on eBay.
Finally, I positioned the heat gun above the NVIDIA chip about 1 inch away and turned the heat gun into the position 1.
After 50 seconds I turned it off and let the motherboard cool down for about 20 minutes.
Don’t forget to apply new thermal grease on the NVIDIA chip when you install the heat sink.
Some laptops use thermal pads instead of grease. If that’s the case with your laptop, make sure the thermal pad positioned correctly.
After I assembled the laptop back together, the video started properly!
The NVIDIA graphics chip problem fixed!
Will it last for a long time? I don’t know. Still testing.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
June 12th, 2012 at 6:02 pm
thank you it worked on my HP SLIMLINE
June 6th, 2012 at 8:54 am
Fixed my Fujitsu CELSIUS H250 NVidia problem (blank screen) with the heat gun. Thank you!
May 29th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
I am using a Samsung R70 laptop fixed using this method. Hope the fix last a long time! I used some liquid stuff for improving soldering results, put as much as I could under the nvidia chip. Then heated for 40seconds with my heat gun at position 2. Let it settle for a few minutes, tried it out before reassembling the laptop, it worked. I then cleaned the old grease and put new grease, and reassembled the laptop. The entire process took me about two hours. I am happy I don’t have to buy a new laptop, at least not yet.
May 24th, 2012 at 5:13 am
Excellent!!! I repaired an HP dv9000 !!!
Thank you vm!!!
May 4th, 2012 at 1:27 am
I am having issue with my HP Pavilion DV6700 laptop.
Sr. Nodv6812nr
Problem: Continuously blinking LED lights (No beep) and no display on screen.
I have done all basic troubleshooting but no joy
After pushing to power button, it gives the continuous LED blinking lights on the keyboard and nothing on the screen.
I have tried removing and reseating the hard drive and the memory modules with no change.
Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.
Also let me how how to connect laptop hard drive to my desktop(I have SATA Port on my Desktop)
Please do the needful.
Many Thanks
Sumedh
Pune (India)
May 3rd, 2012 at 4:09 pm
@ Connery Johnson,
1. Remove old thermal grease from the chip.
2. Apply liquid flux under the chip.
3. Heat the chip.
4. Apply new thermal grease and install heatsink.
May 3rd, 2012 at 1:33 pm
I’m a little confused… Do I apply the liquid flux underneath the chipset, and then remove and put new thermal grease on top of the chipset prior to using the heat gun?
April 24th, 2012 at 3:06 am
I have a tx2500z and it shows a bunch of green dots moving to many places at times. It it likely that this method will fix it? Windows always shows “Nvidia driver fails” no matter which driver I installed.
Thank you.
March 29th, 2012 at 10:30 am
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad Product ID:28472MU with display problem. It can’t display both internally and externally. How do i fix it? Thanks.
March 17th, 2012 at 6:20 am
I am sorry if I post this at wrong section but I just want to ask about my problem with graphic card and I hope you can help me. I have compaq presario v3000 and it use Mobile Intel® 945GM Express Chipset Family, the problem is I cant play game that I usually played, it says not enough graphics memory. I don’t know since when it become like this but I guess maybe after I upgraded it BIOS. I already taking my laptop to local repair shop and they dont know how to fix it(maybe they dont know the problem at all). After I check it online, I knew the problem is because of my maximum memory size of my graphic card is set to 32Mb. The default size should be 224Mb(i check it at intel support). I read about how to set it and it mention about a setting in system BIOS but i know nothing about BIOS, can you help me change it back to 224Mb size?