Alistair Wooldrige’s MacBook Air died after a drop. So he popped it in the oven.
With confidence high and the bake nearly finished, for the final 60 seconds I thought I’d go off-piste and crank up the temperature to 180 °C – I wanted to make sure things were cooked through. Curiously peering through the oven window, all hell broke loose within 30 seconds: The room filled with sounds of popcorn being made as resistors and components desoldered themselves from the logic board and dropped onto the oven floor. The previously clear air was replaced with an acrid haze. Then the bake reached it’s finale as the logic board bowed up in the middle, accompanied by the screeching sound of the CPU being wrenched off its socket. I lunged for the power switch and yanked open the oven door, hoping to limit damage.
Chances are that your oven cannot nail or sustain the exact temperature to “safely” remelt solder without damaging the board, and it’s a bad idea anyway: figure out the break, then use a heat gun and a temperature probe. Say experts.