Hardware stub

Ask GN 40: Reflowing Laptops, OEM vs. Non-OEM Parts

Posted on January 16, 2017

This is our first episode of Ask GN since returning from CES, responsible for producing about two weeks’ worth of content that we’ve only just finished publishing. For this episode, we’re addressing questions pertaining primarily to reflowing / reballing dead components (laptops & GPUs), OEM vs. non-OEM CPUs, and a couple of airflow topics related to liquid cooling. Other questions include clarification on Kaby Lake & Skylake compatibilities, and keyboard USB passthrough impact on latency.

For our regulars, the usual accompaniment to Ask GN articles is a preview on what’s to come for the week. This week, we’ve got several CPU content items planned, a PC build, and lots of behind-the-scenes testing that will be published next week.

Episode & timestamps below:

Timestamps

0:53 tamtikras: "Question for Steve: many keyboards have different connections like for your mouse, USB stick or other device, audio ports etc. Does the quality of signals suffers when devices are connected firectly into your keyboard: does mouse latency increases, USB drive transfer speed decreases, audio quality worsens? Is it better to connect your devices via motherboard instead?"

3:44 applemaggot: "Question: I have a Toshiba laptop (L675D) that has failed and needs a re-flow/re-ball of the vid chip. What is your experience with this? Xbox 360 had the RRoD that was solved w/ re-flow and 3rd party cooling and has since turned into a cottage industry due to laptops having inferior cooling solutions. There seem to be 4 solutions; oven re-flow, heat gun re-flow (leaning towards this, nothing to lose and laptop not critical, just loaning it out), professional re-ball w/ new graphics chip for $120+ on a 17" laptop. It might be cool to do the oven re-flow on a failed lappy and revisit it after a few months to see if it still functions :)"

6:38 Exiled Storm: "My question is what is the difference between an "OEM" CPU (i.g 6700k vs OEM 6700k) and why do they usually cost more money than a standard version. Thanks and Happy new years eve! (In Australia anyway :P)"

7:56 Rodney Rogers: "how easy would you say it is to revive a "not working" graphics card? how can you tell its the die and not something you can repair with soldering?"

10:08 Super Goody: "I'm planning to build my first PC soon and I'm planning to use the i3 6100. I'm concerned about my options Q: Kaby Lake has the 1151 socket like the Skylake, so could use a Kaby Lake processor on a motherboard designed for Skylake? I've seen that there needs to be a BOIS update if one were to do that, so how would I go about that? I plan to buy the MSI B150I Gaming Pro AC, so would MSI release an update for this?"

12:29 semi çagatay koca: "Hi, I like to know if after market blower gpus (e.g. msi aero or asus turbo) are any better than references (founders edition) in terms of cooling and sound. I am quite limited with blower styles because of my case (lian li pc-05), thus i like to know if it is better to go with after market blowers or reference blowers.

Also they are cheaper than references (founders E. again) and multi fan open air ones, so they are worthy?

Thanks in advance and if you ever decide to answer this in your videos let me do you a favor; you can spell the name like chagatai."

15:33 Chocolate Daddy: "Anyway my question is this - Motherboard airflow - is it a myth? For some water cooling builds having the radiators in some locations, without case fans is clearly going to give you great temperatures on the CPU / GPU, but no real airflow over the VRMs etc on the motherboard which would usually have case fans blowing air over them. (Not all water cooling builds, just some like a custom case I am planning to do myself.)"

Host: Steve “Lelldorianx” Burke
Video: Andrew “ColossalCake” Coleman