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Comment by bdd | Hacker News Reader

Reflowing the controller worked for me twice for now. Once with an Intel Optane drive that worked without issues for 3 years and started overheating one day. And another one from a fanless machine that used an mSATA drive that chose to die on a Sunday, with no spare mSATA disk lying around. In both cases I went for short hunting under a microscope, looking for that one guilty shorted cap, yet finding none. It was the controllers with "tired" BGA solder balls, which could use some tender loving care of 225°C (soak) -> 400°C (peak) -> 325°C (hold) reflow.

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That's quite aggressive. I typically reflow with peak 225C.

https://microchip.my.site.com/s/article/SAM-Cortex-M3-M4-M7-...

According to that datasheet peak temp should be above 245C for at least 20s.

That sounds low, unless you are using one of the commercial brands notorious for displaying too-low temperatures (so that their iron/air/oven will be "the good one" that works when others don't).

Dunno. This works for me without damaging the parts, pads, or traces. Your link is for PCBA reflow ovens. Talks about minutes long of exposure. I'm using a Atten ST-862D hot air station with questionable temperature and airflow accuracy. For an M.2 drive I'll probably soak 225 for 15 seconds 3 times the size of the chip areas in circles. Hit my memory-1 button to go to 400 and focus on the chip for 3 seconds. Hit memory-2 to go down to 300 and one up arrow for 325 for 5 more seconds while watching nearby caps' solder pads and ensuring they don't fly away. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yes, those temps are absolutely sane for hot air. You didn't specify that.

The trick is staying below the chip's rated processing temps because many of these temps are far too high and could easily lead to semiconductor degradation, especially with the mechanical shock of thermal stresses from rapid or uneven heating and cooling. Hot air is far more uneven and uncontrolled than a BGA oven.

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