Reflow vs reball on a 2011 MacBook GPU, which side are you on?

Got a 2011 MBP with the classic Radeon failure last Tuesday. Screen went all artifacts and then black. I reflowed it with my $30 heat gun and it worked for like 2 days, then died again at the shop. Customer asked if I could just reball it, but that's a 3 hour job for me on that chip. I charged them $180 for the reflow and told them it might not last. They're coming back tomorrow and I gotta decide if I reflow again for free or push em toward a board replacement for $350. Is reballing actually worth it on these old boards or is it the same solder joint failure under the chip? I've seen 3 reballed boards come back in 6 months. What's your failure rate looking like?

1 comments

1 Comment

holly_brown25d ago

Have you checked if the board itself is flexing when it heats up, because I've seen these 2011s crack the solder balls on the RAM side from board flex and reballing never fixes that? I'd bet the real failure is the board warping, not the joint quality, so you're just burning time either way.