A while back I switched my custom built desktop from an all-in-one water cooler to a cooler master hyper 212 evo due to some cooling problems I was experiencing. I had extra tall ram sticks and to make a long story short I ended up damaging two of the four ram slots. At the time I was runni a 16GB quad channel ram, so now it only runs 8GB (2x4GB) and that isn’t really enough for some of the machine learning and data science stuff I do at work and want to do at home.
I’ve thought of buying a new motherboard, but I have an older processor (i7 4790k) and LGA 1150 motherboards have proven to remain expensive. Before pulling the trigger on a new motherboard and ram modules (32GB of DDR3 is ~$100USD), I’m considering baking the motherboard as a last ditch effort to repair things.
Any tips or advice on whether this is a good idea or even worth trying?
I don’t know if there are single 16 gb sticks of ram available. I saw one one amazon, but it was ECC server ram and I have the feeling that won’t work on a consumer board.
I agree, don’t bake it. Alternatively, I’d suggest upgrading to an AMD 1600AF or 3300X (they tend to go for about the same price, at least my supplier does) on an X570 board with stock 16GB 2400 RAM sticks. More expensive then a new Intel board for that proc, but better future-proof (upgrade path!) and much more powerful as is!
Baking the board at any temperature hot enough to reflow the solder would cause the surface mount components on the back of the board to release and fall away. This would render the board useless.
Given what you use your machine for you could benefit from an upgrade. If that’s not feasible then I would recommend looking at the used market. Perhaps eBay.
You’d need much hotter heat than a hair dryer. They make hot air stations for this purpose but if you don’t know what you’re doing then you’re just going to make it worse.
it’s likely not really worth all the hassle to try to fix the board to begin with.
Especially not if you aint that handy with a solder iron.
And yeah idk what the exact damage is you talk about?
It would probably make more sense to just upgrade at this point in time
I have not read the entire thread so far an all the answers, so I will just say what I think…
If you are buying a new board anyways - why not…
Best case scenario - successful and it works and you have a fully functional board you can sell.
Worst case scenario - unsuccessful and it melts, it’s completely destroyed and you already have the new board so it doesn’t matter.
Anything in between is pointless…
If you want to play with it - go ahead. If not - well don’t…
Personally I wouldn’t but then again I’m a boring person that doesn’t even overclock.
board plartly melts, spreading a noxious fumes to the oven, contaminating the future food, making you sick, sending you to hospital, to catch the Siruv Anoroc and death…
Not only should you not bake your motherboard, but if I were in your shoes, I would choose the obvious solution and forgo the RAM upgrade entirely and start working on a more modern system. I understand that you might not want to do that right now, but hear me out.
That system you are rocking is from 2015 or 2016, correct? Five years is a really long time for a PC. I would take that PC of yours, and upgrade the CPU, RAM and Motherboard. Here is one of the cheapest example budget builds I can give you that still use decent brands:
In total, you increase your core count (4c8t -> 6c12t) and it only sets you back around $400 for the whole package. Now if you have the $50 extra to spare, it would be better to swap the B450 motherboard for the Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE ATX AM4 Motherboard. You could also consider going with a different CPU:
CPU
Cost
Comment
Ryzen 3 3300X
$135
If you can find it, 4 cores and 8 threads make this more of a sidegrade to your current CPU, but you still receive all the other benefits of the AM4 platform
Ryzen 5 2600
$140
6 cores, 12 threads, slightly worse than the 3600 but still great for the price. This CPU is not compatible with the B550 chipset.
Ryzen 5 3400G
$150
4 cores, 8 threads, also has an internal GPU. Great value package for GPU + CPU combo, but still a sidegrade. This CPU is not compatible with the B550 chipset.
At the end of the day, you decide if it is worth it, but there is a decent upgrade path. You’re welcome!
Thank you @wertigon for the comprehensive reply. I like the idea of upgrading to a B550 motherboard, as it will support future AMD CPUs. Going to check with my better half around budget, which will ultimately decide where I go.
One question I have more generally, is it worth getting a motherboard with NVLink/SLI support? I currently have an older GPU (GTX 970) and plan on adding a newer one once my deep learning workloads start to feel slow (I am in the basic stages of learning, so it isn’t a bottleneck atm). I know it can be cheaper to buy two midrange GPUs rather than a single top of the line GPU, so I have been looking for SLI support. If I can still use multiple GPUs w/o SLI in tensorflow/pytorch, then it is a mute point. Do you or does anyone else know about buying GPUs for deep learning and any motherboard requirements for that?
Never bake anything (in a normal oven). Just get a gas soldering iron (I’ve got a small Bernzomatic) and use the heat attachment - way more precision, you can reflow whatever you think is broken instead of risking damage to the whole board.
You may be better off just selling this 970 and getting a new better GPU… 970 really isn’t all that powerful anymore. It’s pretty much RX570/1650 something like performance wise, meaning low end 100$ GPUs… You may be better off just getting a newer GPU as well.
