Heat Gun Vs Hair Dryer, the hair dryer worked for me Options

[IP l0 IN lG]

just wondering why i never see people throwing around the idea of using a hair dryer instead of a heat gun. i used a hair dryer because the minimum temp on the heat gun i borrowed was 850, so i figured if the hair dryer on the high setting doesnt work then i can always try the heat gun later. so i made a cone for the hair dryer out of aluminum foil so it wasnt such a wide blast of air and used it on my ANA and GPU on both sides for about 60 sec. on both sides of both chips so about 4 minutes total after covering the rest of the mobo with aluminum foil of course. i put everything back together and the e74 error was gone. ive still yet to stress test it so if it crashes again then i will have answered my own question, but im sure most people dont own a heat gun but most people have a hair dryer (especially if u live with ur mom )

any thoughts?

[Mholt215]

Dude lead free solder has a melting point of around 220 degrees celcius.. thats equivalent to about 400 degrees farenheit.

Theres not a hairdryer in the world that gets that hot.. cause think about it. Whats it meant for?? TO DRY YOUR HAIR! If it was 400 degrees your hair would get all kinds of screwed up...


Point is, a hairdryer does not get hot enough to even get NEAR a reflow. An oven is also a bad idea, but its better than a hairdryer!!!

[IP l0 IN lG]

ya maybe, but the motherboard was so damn hot by the time i took the hairdryer off of it that i was unable to touch it with my bare hand for minute or so and im pretty sure the heat traps under those chips so i can only imagine how hot they got with direct heat for 2 minutes each. another thought is that the air from hair dryer is blowing a lot faster then a heat gun, i think it would be interesting to use a thermometer to see how hot a hair dryer can actually heat up solder but i dont think i have a thermometer to test this. i see where ur coming from though if my 360 e74s again then ill post it so u can say i told u so, but if it doesnt get hot enough then no harm no foul right. im sketched out by the whole oven thing cuz i dont see how u can get reflow on the chips connections while keeping the rest of the board isolated from the heat if its sitting in an oven, if u know the answer to this please explain

o ya i forgot to point out that hair does not conduct heat anything like solder does so to compare the 2 is kinda ridiculous. i just thought of something ill see if my temp gauge for my gas rc car can read temps that hot and if it does then ill see how hot i can get the sensor with a blow dryer and get back to u

[Mholt215]

ya maybe, but the motherboard was so damn hot by the time i took the hairdryer off of it that i was unable to touch it with my bare hand for minute or so and im pretty sure the heat traps under those chips so i can only imagine how hot they got with direct heat for 2 minutes each. another thought is that the air from hair dryer is blowing a lot faster then a heat gun, i think it would be interesting to use a thermometer to see how hot a hair dryer can actually heat up solder but i dont think i have a thermometer to test this. i see where ur coming from though if my 360 e74s again then ill post it so u can say i told u so, but if it doesnt get hot enough then no harm no foul right. im sketched out by the whole oven thing cuz i dont see how u can get reflow on the chips connections while keeping the rest of the board isolated from the heat if its sitting in an oven, if u know the answer to this please explain

o ya i forgot to point out that hair does not conduct heat anything like solder does so to compare the 2 is kinda ridiculous. i just thought of something ill see if my temp gauge for my gas rc car can read temps that hot and if it does then ill see how hot i can get the sensor with a blow dryer and get back to u

What type of gas rc car you got? I got a CEN Ct5.. its wayyyy too fast lol

But still, heat will trap yes but only to what temperature the hair dryer puts out. I bet everyone here will agree with me... and heatguns put out just as much air as a hair dryer if not more. I personally use a heatgun, which is still the wrong device as you would need a BGA reflow station to get it done correctly.

[IP l0 IN lG]

ya ur probably right but least a hair dryer got my 360 going again thats all that really matters to me. is a BGA reflow station something that can be bought or is it a multi $1000 machine that companies own to fix broken sent back electronics (MS)?
i have 2 gas rc trucks, a traxxas revo 4x4 and a raced out traxxas rustler stadium truck. the revo has about $700 worth of upgrades but still havent replaced the motor from stock just the gears. i havent really been into it for the last couple of years but if i do get into drivin RCs again then i might just sell the rustler and put together a nice street racer cuz the revo is way more fun to drive offroad then the rustler, especially if i got a big block for it

[Eddie_the_Hated]

Your hair-dryer didn't actually do anything to the solder. It re-warped the motherboard just enough to reconnect your BGA joins on the underside of the chip. It's just as succeptible to failure as baking it out using the towel trick, or the original RROD fix.

Go invest the ten bucks in a cheap heat-gun. Remember that the temperature reading coming from the heat gun is not necessarily what is applied to the motherboard. Plenty of heat is lost in between the gun and the board, and it's easily modified by controlling the distance and frequency of passes with the gun.

[IP l0 IN lG]

Go invest the ten bucks in a cheap heat-gun. Remember that the temperature reading coming from the heat gun is not necessarily what is applied to the motherboard. Plenty of heat is lost in between the gun and the board, and it's easily modified by controlling the distance and frequency of passes with the gun.

i have a heatgun that i borrowed, i was just doing a little experimenting. i mean if a motherboard can handle a heat gun then i dont think it hurts it when u use a hair dryer, maybe a little more warpage to the mobo . i just wanted to see if its possible to fix it with a hair dryer rather then a heat gun or oven. if i gets another e74 error then i can always heat gun the mobo when that happens. the towel trick (20min. overheat) fixed it for 60+ hours, the hair dryer has fixed it for about 8 hours so far. after doing the towel and hair dryer tricks i go straight to stress testing it, so ill post when the hair dryer treatment wears off. next thing im gonna try is using a huge magnifying lens on the ANA and GPU for about 5 minutes a piece lol. actually now that i think about it, that could totally work, think of how concentrated the heat would be, minimum mobo warp and energy efficient lol to bad its been so gloomy outside

[IP l0 IN lG]

its been 30+ hours of stress tests and its still going with no problems.

[IP l0 IN lG]

so the hair dryer fix worked for about 40 hours then e74'd again, i was accually very happy because ive had nothin to do(no job) and i am more entertained by fixing xboxs then actually playing them, im sure that wears off. but anyways i took out the overpowered heatgun(850f) and cooked the motherboard after some careful aluminum foil prep and it fixed my e74, i also did this to a friends broken 360 which had been tortured by the towel trick probably close to 100 times. it was so bad that there when there was green lights the video was all black with small pink squares everywhere. but ya it fixed his too. i also switched to the hybrid xclamp fix and the motherboard seems to be sitting perfectly flat now. happy gaming