The bad thing is, Onkyo didn't exactly advertise they had an extended warranty period for this range of receivers, at least not here in the Netherlands. When mine died I had to read on a forum about this issue. Luckily mine was in the last few months of the warranty period. My receiver was fixed and after I got it back I immediately sold it, as from the forum posts, and like you said, I gathered this was far from a permanent fix, where supposedly fixed receivers encountered the same no sound failure again.
This Sounds alt Like what EVGA did with their graphics cards for a while... I got Mine Back after a lenghty RMA process, Just for it to fail again after 2 months.
29:20 I worried you might run out of cold spray! Great fix and I am happy that you managed to get a successful BGA repair done! Doesn't matter if the chip fails in a few months again - then the IC is bad - nothing you could have done anyway. The important part is that you managed to take off the chip and put it back. And for now, you fixed the issue! Great job!!!
I hope it's a long term repair. My thoughts are the process of reballing the IC likely mended some thermally sensitive part of the dye that was breaking connection internally. Excellent workmanship! Not a task I would want to undertake.
Thanks - yes, a reball/reflow can be temporary but meanwhile I have found the Texas Instruments bulletin and I remembered right: only rev B and C were affected. Rev A seems to be ok and others have confirmed that a reball should fix it for good. So fingers crossed! :)
I really was happy when it actually worked! I was afraid when you cooled it down! :)) That BGA IC i tried to fix also! There is a bond wire inside the chip itself (figured after months of testing and scraping off ) - that goes. If the IC is bent than it connects - when heated up it expands - the balls keep it on so it bends and it works - cools down and disconnects. That as far as i seen in 4 defective ones - is related to clock crystal - and the pins from IC that goes to the crystal on left side of it - the nearest one. If i remember right - those 2 pins should have 100k resistence - so you can messure on this working one following the trackes from the crystall to the chip and mesure on the chip side the 2 trackes that goes to the crystal (before any capacitors and components related to crystal) - and than mesure against an non working one. Working - whould be like 100k (if i remember right) not working will be nothing. This pointed me to the chip - and of course saying my rework was bad - but after i took the chips off - (i had 4 to test) - all of them at the pads that crystal goes if you touch them lightly with the meter probes gives you nothing - if you press down hard with the probes - gives you 100k!!!! I spent insane ammount of time to scrape off the pads - thinking the pads were at fault - and tracked them on the side of the chip - etc - but the issue is actually inside - and is a machanic issue! And yes the chips i got from AliExpress - and none good - and on a B rev - i think even if it was from a working machine after heating it up to take it off and heating up to put it on - is already ded! So my Onkyo ended up as spare parts sadly - but at least i realised what was the actual issue! (not sure if you can maybe even mesure over the crystal directly - but worth trying) I hope what i wrote here helps! I enjoyed the video! And that it was saved!!
A repair shop told me that this chip has a heat issue and the later revision was more heat resistant. As I remember, my Onkyo repaired / swapped board got a heat sink on that cpu. maybe such one could extend the live span of that cpu :)
The fact that engineering designed the holes for a heatsink around the IC is telling me that SOMEONE else at some point decided to save $1 and scrap the heatsink! Who knows! I feel it's not just a heat problem but it could be that heat is accelerating the issue for sure. I've always had a heatsink on that chip on my onkyo's.
pioneer has this exact same problem with the SC-55. I would push down on that same chip, and it would work. Then i used a heat gun and some crappy flux. It would work for about a couple weeks then it would happen again. I gave up on it and got a used SC-77. However, I've always wanted to fix this receiver just so i didn't throw it away. ive since learned it's just like every BGA chip that runs hot, the low lead solder balls crack. and loose connection when cold. You have confirmed this in my head, Thank you for the Video!
it's not the BGA I'm afraid - except in some rare cases. When you heat the IC you can fix the BGA but you can also temporarily fix what's broken INSIDE the IC, which is often the case with these DSP ICs! Thanks for watching!
I love how they have holes for a 10 cent push pin heatsink but didn't install the heat sink. They must have known that chip got hot in the initial pcb design.
I've seen that before where you see provision for a fan or a heatsink on the PCB but they were not populated. To me that's Engineering saying "we need a heatsink" and Marketing responding "nah!"
@@tony359 Indeed. I had an Onkyo with the exact same problem. The internal substrate of the chip is what is flawed after many hundreds of heating/cooling cycles, it doesn't just 'wear out' as others have said. Many of these receivers ran very hot due to the class AB amplifiers operating within tightly enclosed spaces. After your fantastic job on reballing I hope the fix maintains itself for longer with a heatsink installed. I believe the reballing removes any existing stress on the chip's internal substrate for some period of time before it breaks again.
The board in mine was replaced by Onkyo, surprisingly out of warranty, but I had to go looking for it. I also think what ultimately killed the market for these receivers were the constant HDMI spec changes, forcing people to throw out otherwise perfectly good receivers whenever they change HDMI speeds. They should have made an HDMI-based lossless & backward compatible multichannel standard just for audio input and be done with it. HDMI switching should have been in the TV you were actually wanting to upgrade.
I have a TR-NX828 with a very similar problem. The way I have found to get it to work again is to pull the power plug. Merely turning it off and on doesn't do it, I have to pull the plug. That will keep it running for a few days typically.
My Onkyo still working . Runs red hot , i lay a computer fan on top , running quite slowly to drag constant air through it . That keeps it cool and happy , plus i got a knock-off remote that works great after the original packed up .
Get a stick on finned IC cooler for the top of that chip. The differential expansion between the chip and PCB with the thermal cycles, tends to fracture the balls. Reducing the temperature swing will make the balls last longer. It is important to ensure the flux is cleaned from under the chp when using lead tin solder to prevent tin whiskers from growing.
Thanks! Heatsink: 31:37 :) These ICs do fail. They're tagged as defective by TI themselves unfortunately. I doubt the issue is the balls here. Flux: I can do my best but without an ultrasonic cleaner I doubt one can clean "baked" flux with isopropyl. It's difficult to clean it by scrubbing on it!
I have a TASCAM PA-R100 that had the same fault. TASCAM is a rebranded ONCYO receiver, told to have some higher quality parts used. But the DSP board was the same. I had to send in mine and got it repaired in 2021 and it cost me about 500€. As the PA-R100 was very expensive even used, I got it repaired, and I am using it still today in a full setup. The German repair center even offered to just exchange the board for self-mounting. At that time, I had too much work, so I decided to let them do the full swap and repair with full guarantee. Btw. It has 64MB of RAM and 32MB of FLASH.
@@tony359 This DSP board was built into all upper-class ONKYO / TASCAM multi-channel receiver. And they all suffer from the fault. But at that time, I was only aware of "a chip" and "some manufacturing flaws" without further details. As I had far enough test equipment and amateur radios on my desk for repair that did not need any IR beds and hot air reflow equipment, I just sent the unit in for repair. Now that I know what to look for, I will check if the unit has the right revision of DSP. As I do sort of the same work as you do, but more focused on RF test equipment, I checked my sources but could only find half of a source. I regularly order parts that are not manufactured anymore at utsource, but they don't offer D revisions. You can ask for B revisions, but you have to request an offer. But you could ask for a revision D and check their reply. But I guess all authorized repair centers around the world have bought the last available stock from TI. As soon as I am in my second living place, I'll check the chips revision. The receiver itself is a real nice piece of equipment. Still working fine and capable of almost all modern stream codecs. Even the internet radio functionality can still be used. I have it installed in a rather small living room in 7.0 configuration with BOSE MD100 monitors. I skipped the SUB as I'd prefer living in peace with my neighbors.
@@tony359 I checked my TASCAM PA-R100 and it has the Rev D ARM/DSP and that one also carries the "NEW" sticker on it as it could be seen in the forums you referenced. So this one should work very well for the next years to come.
@@tony359 I don't think so... And I have to correct myself a bit... Let me explain: I own not a R100 (5.1) but a TASCAM PA-R200, the even better model of the two. More power, 7.1, more decoding certificates and even THX. And around 2021 when mine went bad, the eBay "rating" was still far over 3000 USD "used, working, in good shape". So, I decided to go for a ~400€ repair at that time. But as you already stated, ONKYO (and TASCAM) extended the service for the unit and bought all available CPUs. But in 2021 the "out of guarantee" repair price had already gone up high. I am pretty sure the boards are now out of stock. Owners of repaired units will not give them away or ask the receivers weight in gold for it. And finally, all that market of integrated receivers has dropped tremendously as all these wires have been replaced by wireless speaker systems. But over the next few years I'll try to get the full setup together with CD, TAPE, DAT in a nice rack, connected to some BOSE or Sansui speakers. The good stuff from those times then... The only really thing that makes me worried are the CD players. You never know how many hours the laser pickup clocked and how long it will live. And there are no new ones available and only few people (including me) know how to handle and replace them without pre-damaging them.
That one is so much cleaner than mine! My TX-DS494 I did some maintenance to recently. The buttons for the front panel became resistors! Which kept confusing the MCU causing it to press multiple buttons/freak out whenever you'd press something. Since it relies on resistance to know what button was pressed. Also took apart one of the relays and cleaned its contacts, since one channel kept dropping out. The remote never worked for it, re-flowed the IR sensor on the front and now I can use the remote! Been meaning to hook it back up. It usually lives under my PC powering a sub and a couple speakers.
The fact you managed to reball successfully a BGA is already a BIG win! From my experience BGAs that run hot have the tendency to develop bad connections, I believe a good heatsink is a good thing to have. If it is the chip itself is becoming increasingly flaky, it is a no fix as you said. What I cannot understand is how reballing helps in that case.
In this case it MIGHT be that the issue was indeed the BGA. Who knows. If not, heating up the IC to 240C, would temporarily fix the broken connection inside, by mechanical "expansion". I'm basically wiggling things inside so it works again - until it stops :)
@@tony359 Yeah, this kind of issues suck. You'll never know when they show up again a there is really nothing you can do. Anyways, nice work with the BGA. It is something I never attempted to do, I'm very fascinated when I see someone doing it! Hope some day I will try as well, but first I need to gather all the tools required for the job...
13:50: The Board has 64MB RAM, but the Flash-Size is 32MB. Interestingly you should be able to get the sources to compile your own image, according to the GNU GPL laws.
Yes, you should, but Onkyo unfortunately took a very consumer hostile, almost maliciously compliant way to comply with the GPL. You had to be the original buyer and had to request the source code within a few years after purchase (5 years IIRC)
@@dolphhandcreme As far as I understand the GPL only enforces access to the source code for those who received a (compiled) copy of the software from the manufacturer, a.k.a. the original buyers of the amp, not the public in general. If there are e.g., firmware images available that contain GPL code that would include anyone who is able to download those images, a.k.a. anyone. Also as anyone who did receive the GPL software from Onkyo is allowed to redistribute the it to anyone else, anyone could legally potentially obtain the software, but not necessarily from Onkyo directly, so they wouldn't be responsible to provide access to the source. The time limit is probably a gray area at least, though.
I purchased 3 so called D variants from china. None worked and close look seemed as though they had been sanded and relabeled. I’m not 100% sure but the printing didn’t match the failed B version. eBay refunded me so not a huge loss but I hate looking at such a nice receiver just useless. I hope someone knows of a reliable seller with the real thing.
I've been thinking of getting some and use them straight away so I could ask for a refund if it didn't work but... I hope someone comes up with a good source indeed!
Aha. Used to work with a client who had a large number of different Onkyo receivers. Think a number of classrooms. Each one had an Onkyo and the important thing was that they kept dying with this exact problem. But nobody knew about the defect. It was assumed the receivers were being damaged by the users. Most of the receivers got scrapped.
The infamous Ti chip was used in many brands of receivers at the time. Sadly Onkyo were less than honest and only responded if you complained and if they agreed to change the board chances are that it would also fail. Sourcing these chips today is not cheap or easy, with no gurantee that it will remain working if it works at all.
I was aware of this problem when i bought a 807 a long time ago. It always outputed a lot of heat from the top cover. So I put a fan on top of the cover sucking the hot air out.. It never failed on me. I then sold it to a friend of mine and warned him in advance that it should be cooled. He ignored my advice and within a few months it had this exact problem. Hdmi board was replaced under warranty. When i sold the 807 I bought a 3008.. was aware of the problem and kept a fan on it. Later added a heatsink to the chip. It's still working! My father in law had a 609 with the same issue no cooling and it died.. I did the oven reflow method and it worked for a couple of months.. then died again. So keeping the IC cool from the beginning seems to be the fix.
My previous pre-amp from Onkyo was new and I installed a heatsink and a fan on day one. The heatsink itself lowers the temp by 20C. I feel that ventilation can slow down the issue - but those ICs are probably defective anyways or Onkyo would have started adding heatsinks as well :) I hope you're right though, my own 5508 has the B revision of that IC...
I got sent an Onkyo AVR (TX-NR607 or something) by a friend a few years back. I bought a new TI DSP for it, presumably the "D" version with the "fix". I removed the original chip before the new one arrived, but I couldn't be bothered to install the new on in the end. lol And yes, it sounds like a very similar issue to the Xbox and PS3, where it's actually the *internal* solder ballz that fail. Or, with the TI DSP chip, maybe some kind of issue with corrosion or something. Not quite sure.
I built my own AVR in the end, as I was never happy with the way most commercial AVRs are built. I managed to get hold of the example code for the SIL9777 HDMI chip, which can do 4K60 passthrough, and the I2S/HBR audio extraction. Then I used the same Cirrus DSP chip used in many commercial receivers, including my Onkyo TX-RZ800, and Anthem MRX-720. (the Onkyo was also bought as faulty, mainly to help reverse-engineer the SPI config for the Cirrus DSP. It was a simple repair, and now I need to sell it. lol) I finally got audio decoding working on the Cirrus DSP about five months ago, including Atmos and DTS-X. Still a lot to do on the new prototype AVR build. But even the current prototype is quite usable already. Hopefully I won't ever need to spend a small fortune on a commercial AVR / processor again. I should always be able to find ways to upgrade mine, I know exactly how each part works, and each (stereo) amp module is easily replaceable.
Really well done on the BGA reballing, btw. I've only tried it maybe three times, and only once was successful. lol (for the VSA-100 chip from a Voodoo 4) On the first attempts, I used a hot air station like you did. I tried it on the lowest possible air flow at first, but never quite got the ballz to stick properly. I will have to try adding some extra flux next time. What worked on the third attempt, was to simply put the chip into the reflow oven (modified £30 toaster oven) after. That properly reflowed all of the solder balls, and the chip then looked perfect.
My nr686 all of a sudden doesn’t have speech channel anymore via HDMI and the sound is muffled. If I send the signal via optical cable it all works. But then I don’t have volume control as for some reason it also not responds to the remote control. I have tried factory reset and that didn’t do anything.
I've known about this thermal trick since 2018, since I'm not really good with reballing I sent the board to a guy on Ebay who had an auction on repairing these boards for $60, I got the board back and it failed again after a couple months, this was around the time Onkyo took responsibility and they send me another unit free of charge and paid shipping to return my unit in the same box. I bought a second unit from Goodwill for $12.95 with the same issue and they covered that one as well! My first unit is still in my system working great, I flipped the second unit...I do have a 3rd unit in storage with the same issue I'm thinking this might be a good practice unit, just need to determine if its worth my time. I didn't know about the serial port though, awesome find.
ah, Onkyo was still replacing those in 2018? Maybe I should have looked into that! Super cool to buy second hand units and have free upgraded parts from Onkyo! :D
I would love to have a source for the revD chips as well. What went wrong with not just this chip, but also with the PS3, XBox360 and various NVidia and ATI graphics chips, is that the method used to connect the silicon to the PCB inside the BGA is flawed. Heat cycles make the connection points fail and there is no (commercially viable) method to take the silicon and connect it to a new daughter board in a reliable way. Reflowing, reballing and such may temporarily get the internal connections functioning again, but since the whole process is flawed and you aren't changing that, any repair is temporary.
understood - though the PS3 and XBOX have much severe thermal cycles than this Onkyo. I suspect then that maybe a heatsink MIGHT help in lengthening the life of the unit!
The packaging technology is very different between this IC and the popular failing Nvidia and ATi/AMD GPUs, so it's not the same failure mode, although the result is comparable. As for the ATi/AMD ICs we are not even entirely sure of the failure mode, but it could be similar to Nvidia, which was a combination of multiple factor affecting the Flip-Chip BGA packaging (bad bump and underfill material combination, excessive power dissipation and hot spots on the die). This IC does not look like a Flip-Chip BGA, so it is probably using wire bonding internally. That said, it is possible that the wire bonding is not strong enough and excessive power dissipation with thermal cycles end up creating bad contact in the wire bonds. Even other ICs can be damaged by excessive thermal stress, and even sometimes without thermal stress, but with similar symptoms where providing a lot of heat externally would temporarily bring them back to life. (or, sometimes cooling them well below ambient temperature)
Reflowing these chips doesn't help because the connection between the chip an the interposer isn't really soldered. You only reflowing the connection between the interposer and the mainboard which might temporary "fix" the chip due to thermo cycling, but it will fail again. If these flip chips fail they cannot really be fixed, only replaced which is usually not economically viable for an old GPU/APU.
I am having the same damn problem in my TX-NR509. After seeing so many videos of unsuccessful repair attempts in UA-cam and my own reflow attempt was failed, i decided to find a way to bypass that chip and route the Digital Audio from hdmi demux straight to the DAC Chip. I studied the datasheet of the ADV7623 and PCM1690 chips to link this bypass.. Unfortunately, all that attempt was waste, it doesn't work.
Excelente análise e reparo. Isso me fez lembrar que uma linha de laptops da HP com processadores AMD tiveram problemas semelhante, no caso era com o chipset que provavelmente esquentava bastante causando solda fria e mal contato após 1 ano de uso.
@@tony359 The AMD has gone through many problems and difficulties. Today, Intel is the one suffering, just look at the 13th and 14th generation i7 and i9 giving problems and overheating.
@Tony359 Maybe it was not exactly a problem of the IC but maybe the tin type, that was used for the balling of the BGA? Tin whiskers do built up with time, especially with some combinations of tin and other metals. So, reballing may indeed be some solution, as it would at least wipe out already built up tin whiskers and may restart the building-up timer for new ones! ☺
Maybe. But there is literally a SEA of dead Onkyo with the same problem and that IC (not sure about the A version) was tagged as bad so... Fingers crossed! :)
Good video. Thanks for sharing. I think adding heatsink it a good idea anyway. I don't understand why temperatures higher than 40...50 degrees (Celsius) are considered as "normal" in modern(ish) devices. On my experience, adding a heatsink over the CPU to the consumer devices (especially while they are new) prolongs their life dramatically in comparison to those without heatsinks. Why manufacturers save on heatsinks? Is this programmed obsolescence or a parsimony?
Could you do a follow up video reference fitting a heatsink and fan on the Texas chip so you stop the chip from heating up Ive got a PR-SC5008 pre-amp with the same problem
You can get a heatsink for a RPi, they come with a sticky base. Stick it on the IC - make sure it's not too big and doesn't touch anything. I turned it on and let it warm up, then I turned it off and pushed on the heatsink again for best adhesion. Then it's good to go! Get the tallest that you can :)
I've always had a fan on top of my onkyo - it runs when the AVR turns on. There are devices you can buy which sits on top of the receiver and pull air towards the front.
Thanks. That was fun. How about a heatsink to keep the chip from going to waste? If there's proper cooling, maybe it won't stop working. Maybe the whole board heats up during operation and without sufficient mounting points, the board warps and the chips stop working... That's strange, if it's a bad revision, the chip shouldn't work after re-soldering... the contacts break inside the chip.
Thanks for watching! Heatsink: 31:37 :) I've seen this before: heat will "move" contacts inside, sometimes breaking them permanently, sometimes fixing them temporarily. Who knows... it still works. The last one I reballed worked 3 months :)
So my Onkyo NR-TX1010 was repaired under warranty in 2017. The sound stopped working again so I stopped using it. I fired it up again earlier this yer, it worked for 3 weeks then stopped. I stumbled across this video today and took off the cover and indeed there is a "NEW" label on the chip and it is in fact the "D" chip. So WHY has my D chip now failed? :( Could it be something else?
The DSP was the main cause of failure but other things might happen. What happens when it loses sound? If it’s a DSP issue you’ll see the ‘speakers’ pictograms not showing up when you power up. If that DSP was attached in a repair centre maybe it wasn’t properly attached? BGA is not simple 🙂
Tried fixing one of these few years back. It was my first bga project. I lost so much money in those AliExpress fake chips - all dead from factory and I blamed myself/ my skill(of course!). Its such a shame seeing those great devices go to landfill because of company greed.
Yamaha had same dsp in many generations also in them amps its a small pcb you can remove to replace but no chance of replacing the rest of amp is fine, fell on a big thread on it and allot just used the amps for parts, sad really
I suspect your heat sink hunch is correct. I have a newer Onkyo receiver (HT-R997) and when it gets too hot or after running for a long time it will have no sound when it turns on, but instead of no speaker diagram showing up it shows an incorrect one. My fix is putting a small USB powered fan on the vents to force some air through, a couple of minutes of that and it’ll work again. I can’t tell what version of the TI chip it uses though because the factory wrote something on it using a marker, and I don’t want to unplug it and open the case. It definitely has a TI chip in a similar location though. I’ll look at adding a heatsink at some point.
I do have a fan on top of mine - and a heatsink. I did measurements ages ago and just the heatsink reduces the temps by 60C. I can only cross my fingers and hope! :)
I think the main issue has always been the proprietary tech inside that chip. Had it been a generic DSP, it would have probably been replaced by something else much more easily.
That's odd, I can only see your reply when I'm not logged in to youtube. Anyway, it's telling me that n9776677 is an invalid user. I had a look at Omega flexible thermocouples (couldn't find the type in your video) but I probably wouldn't be able to use these as I'll need multiple and these seem very expensive. I'm trying to monitor plumbing pipe temperatures so something that can wrap around/hug a pipe would be great but I think I'll just use the ball type thermocouples with kapton tape to hold it to the pipe. Thanks for your time.
I had a 2008 875 and they run hot like 60c and they had big issues with Hdmi boards if you didn't have it in a good airflow area it will cook its self.. as many did as they put them in cabinets, replaced it with a Yamaha RX-A3010 and years later as i had it 12 years there was a sound issue and im sure that's the same DSP chip your showing and it was in many models for years in the yams i found it as a joke that that DSP has had issues for years yet still fit
@ well from what I’ve read I had mine 12 years before getting the issue so I’ve done good, all theses amps failed on the same part is allot of waste, I’ve striped mine to see if I can salvage and have a look but it would help if I new what I was looking for as it all looks good lol I’ve tested some caps and they come up fine, On my 3010 the dsp is on a separate pcb so you can replace the small board so not even a big job but you just can’t get any, I did see if you could bypass it but found nothing
Amazing repair. Hope it lasts forever. Hope you celebrated wit a good wine during dinner 😉 Hope you could find a trusted vendor, although as you said, those OEM are impossible to find.
Water, how boring. Not even fruit juice or a real italian limonata? You did a better job reballing/resoldering that BGA than the factory did. It looks perfect. There are holes in the PCB around the chip intended for mounting a heatsink. You should definitely mount one.
I really like to add heatsinks to these kind of chips nowdays after suffering from the same issues as you did on that receiver, even if my devices aren't broke at all haha I have an acer nitro 5 wich will only work and turn on consistenly if i have those workstation-grade 5000rpm high air flow AVC 12v fans blowing air full speed into it, but that's how far i can get, i don't have the skill nor the tools to reball the chip or replace it :/
Regarding longevity of the fix, surely adding a decent heatsink could fix the issue? I assume that the solder deteriorates over time with hot/cold cycles, so by adding a heatsink the chip never gets as hot to begin with so it can’t deteriorate as much (or at all?) Also, if this is a similar issue with some NVIDIA chips which seemed to face similar issues, it was due to the quality of solder used. So assuming you’ve used better quality solder when re-balling, that should also have a positive impact on the longevity.
eheh - thanks for the tip anyways! It seems that these ICs fail internally. Lead free solder never helps - and hopefully it was my case - but I am not holding my breath. Hopefully a heatsink will help delaying the inevitable death of that IC? Fingers crossed :)
I don't get it. IC's, components, all that, should not run at 70 degrees when operating. At least a fan, a heatsink or something that helps cooling the unit would extend lifespan greatly.
Unfortunately, this does not seem to prevent the fault. There was a process fault when manufacturing the IC at the bonding or the capping / sealing station. The fault will appear with the older revisions of the chip, regardless of what you try to prevent it. I remember some notes about sealing that gives up and allows bonding to oxidize and corrode off or something like that. Cooling may only extend the period until the fault happens but not too much.
I don’t think you will ever find a reliable source for those ic’s… i had like 3-4 units from onkyo with dead ic’s. I bougt 2 times from china and both batches were some rebranded ic’s and i stopped buying. Then i found on ebay some new boards from different models and harvested the ic’s… i still have one unit in my shop which works flawlessly for over 2 years. Also i added cooling to dsp ic in order to prolong it’s life. Good luck!
I've been looking for HDMI boards for a LONG time on Ebay, they never show up at least on my searches. That's why I went with the reballing options, knowing it wasn't a long term fix. It was either that or the rubbish bin :)
@@tony359 reballing fix the issue if the ic is not internally damaged… boards found on ebay were like 50€ / piece… so it’s not cheap to revive an old audio “anvil” :) Thinking back at the ic’s I’ve thrown away back then (faulty ones) i regret i did not check the pads connections underneath with a microscope… since then i encountered many other ic’s with broken traces between their pads and tracks. Some of them were restored and worked again.
This also plagued Pioneer, I bought a new old stock SC-LX85, the ti DSP failed, lucky the new old stock amp had warranty, the service was really good, the service centre said they could replace the board, but it would fail again so they replaced it with the new at the time SC-LX89. I did miss the THX but gained Atmos.
This really looks as the System is Searching for its Initial Startup config. But the Storage is corrupted and it cant read Parts of it. That and maybe CHEAP Solder.. As you heat the DSP the Solder turn liquid for a Time, connects a few paths. Then gets WARM again and the Solder disconnects. Would answer the Intermittent changes.
I warmed up the IC to something like 50C, I didn't reflow it. It would take MUCH more heat to reflow it. It's a known issue with those ICs - though I'm told Rev A are better than Rev B and re-flowing and a heat-sink fix them for quite some time for a long time. Fingers crossed!
Hi Tony, what's the point of re-balling if as you say the problem is inside the chip, it sounds like bit rot to me, the logic level of the internal memory bits are right on the edge of changing hence heat and cold has an effect? would probably fix it if we could re flash the mem.Bob
Hi - I mentioned that at some point. It could go to the bin or I could have some BGA fun and maybe squeeze some time out of it. It's still working after some days... :)
@@tony359 Absolutely, and I thought you did very well, you are working with electronics at levels way above what a person would normally be doing with the time you have been doing it, you are certainly a fast learner, I know there is nothing like doing it for yourself as an incentive 😄. Bob
oh and most importantly I wanted to get rid of it, it is taking too much space! So I was like "If I can "revive" it good, otherwise I have an excuse to push it out of the door"! :D
Thats actually quite cool that these run Linux under the hood, makes me wonder if the receivers we have now still run Linux or switched to some more efficient Real Time Operating System but atleast the network and stream ready amps do run it. Yeah with some bga chips its common for them to fail and while a rebal/reflow often fixes the issue, it just extends it and makes it work for some time and after it will fail again. Reminds me of the playstation 3 and xbox 360 issues that was cause of a bad chip design using underfill that is too soft causing the solder bridges to fail between the dice and substrate
@tony359 cheers, likely will either parts it, or look out for a compatible chip. Its annoying that such devices are effectively scrap due to a single chip / package.
ha yep. that is the reason i have switched from denon / onkyo. its was a big issue. I know of onkyos that got sent back for issues with dsp doing all sorts of dumb stuff. Had my personal denon do the same. I know the issue can be fixed and its not an issue now but i swapped to yamaha and haven't had an issue now. each brand had their failures........ Good work on the BGA!
I suspect that the problem is not in the processor, but in the vias under the balls; when the chip overheats, the solder balls flow through the vias and contact with the chip is lost. To prevent this from happening again, you need to install a cooling radiator on this chip.
flow through the VIAs! That would require 230C as a minimum! What MIGHT happen is that the solder balls develop some micro cracks and thermal expansion just widens them just enough. But that IC is known for failing. They ALL fail. So the BGA theory is cute but unlikely!
I have to say that i am "afraid" of those highly complex multi channel receivers/amps Too many things can and will go wrong. I reverted back to simpler stereo devices
@@tony359 As var as the logging is stating the NAND ( Flash ) is 32 MB and the DRAM is 64 MB. If I look on the board, it has external DRAM, but I suspect internal NAND ( flash ). Otherwise it would be a possibility that the chip reflow could work. I didn't see the complete schema, but I think that the flash chip is also onboard, so probably a lose pin??
I love onkyo and I couldn't care less about DTS crap. HDMI 8 channel PCM is good enough. Missed chance is to have a zita net to jack realtime network receiver running on that arm. Although the arm is a bit underpowered, but it is fast enough to do realtime network jack audio. But I know companies like onky and denon wouldn't want that, because that would mean you can directly interface a steam machine or a steam deck straight to the speaker without paying a lot extra for some kind of app like with denon where you have to pay for that weird audio player.
will take it..... have a 906 that have broke my hand punching half a dozen times, but....when it does work I cherish every second of it because..... there is simply nothing like it not even close..... I have even ripped it out of the cabinent hoisted it over my head____ barely...and slammed it on the concrete floor and let it sit tacoed for two months..... pulled the cover reinserted fuses hooked it back up,..... and it worked like new....these 906s are a special entities with there own soul and living protons and neutrons and electrons allot of them....anyway I will take the one u got there....hit me up
Unfortunately - I also went that path with my Onkyo 609. I just made a video where I finally fix it by... swapping the HDMI board with a "D" revision. So sad there is no proper source for those.
@@tony359Unfortunate indeed! The I'll fate these also suffer from is people falsely assuming it's the firmware that gets corrupted. By going through the motion of trying to update the firmware it actually goes off and successfully wipes the ROM off off the EEPROM attached to the DSP but then fails to write the firmware back and thus fails the fw update causing the unit to become a complete brick, while it would somewhat work prior. The DSP actually does go through the init routine well after the power being switched on with Yamahas as you could leave the unit running for some 10-20 min and the sound would just appear out of the blue at random time intervals, once the DSP had warmed up enough.
If it's a DSP quality, it's not important if it's running Linux or not. It's more about the SoC crystal defects in production rather than the software you are trying to blame
I just said "it's running Linux", I'm not sure why you assumed that I was blaming Linux! Anyways, if you keep watching the movie, I think that's very clear :)
Life just isn't fair. To think that all of my favorite movies were made decades before this 'computer', which I wouldn't even attempt to fix. No wonder FranLab prefers Kodak and Eastman film stock. What a monstrosity this ONKYO is.
DTS chip has poor solder joints/balls. I have two onkyo receivers now because I was able to use the serial number off the defective one to get a really good deal on a new one. But they didn't ask me to return the defective one. I got to keep it. So I reworked the DTS chip and fixed that receiver (It did take a couple of attempts). This has been almost 3 years ago. No problems. And I now have two onkyo receivers
it's not just that unfortunately. I did reball one before, it lasted 3 months. You were lucky, heat "fixed" the internal fault. It can happen. But that IC was officially tagged as "defective" by Texas Instruments. Won't hurt to try of course :) Thanks for watching!
@tony359 I have not checked in on this issue for some time now since my original Onkyo receiver never failed again. But I only ever knew about the solder issue. I didn't realize that there were actual faults with the chip in question. I have no idea what revision that DTS chip is in my particular receiver. My older Onkyo is a TX-NR818 that I got a hold of around 2012. It worked for about 2 years before it exhibited that all too familiar fault. Then it sat in a storage unit for a couple of years. I didn't have the heart to throw it out. When I finally did pull it out and start researching the issue online, I found out that Onkyo offered a discount program for these defective receivers. All you had to do is put in your serial number, and they allowed you to purchase a new receiver (new at that time) at a really reduced discount. So I jumped at the chance. They didn't even make me return the older defective one. So the defective one set in a closet in the original box for two more years before I finally pulled it out and repaired it. I reworked the chip the first time, and it lasted a couple of months. So I did it again, and it has worked flawlessly since then, knock on wood. I did add heat sinks to that chip as well as most of the others on that HDMI board. I also wired in a couple of 120 mm case fans over top of that board to give that board some active cooling.
I bought an ONKYO a decade ago based on reputation, ...until it had issues. I am an electronics engineer so I opened it up, and was shocked at how UTTER CHEAP GRABAGE it was inside!!!!!! ONKYO may or may not have been great once upon a time, but today they are UTTER GARBAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I bought a DENON to replace and have not looked back sine.
The bad thing is, Onkyo didn't exactly advertise they had an extended warranty period for this range of receivers, at least not here in the Netherlands. When mine died I had to read on a forum about this issue. Luckily mine was in the last few months of the warranty period. My receiver was fixed and after I got it back I immediately sold it, as from the forum posts, and like you said, I gathered this was far from a permanent fix, where supposedly fixed receivers encountered the same no sound failure again.
I read that whole thing, and only after realized it was you.
Long time no see. lol
I guess it was too expensive to recall them. Greed, I'd say. Or maybe it would have meant the collapse of Onkyo. Or TI. Who knows.
@@electronash 😅
This Sounds alt Like what EVGA did with their graphics cards for a while... I got Mine Back after a lenghty RMA process, Just for it to fail again after 2 months.
29:20 I worried you might run out of cold spray! Great fix and I am happy that you managed to get a successful BGA repair done! Doesn't matter if the chip fails in a few months again - then the IC is bad - nothing you could have done anyway. The important part is that you managed to take off the chip and put it back. And for now, you fixed the issue! Great job!!!
ahah yes, that can is almost empty! It was good fun as you said, doesn't matter if it fails again! Thank you!
I hope it's a long term repair.
My thoughts are the process of reballing the IC likely mended some thermally sensitive part of the dye that was breaking connection internally.
Excellent workmanship! Not a task I would want to undertake.
Thanks - yes, a reball/reflow can be temporary but meanwhile I have found the Texas Instruments bulletin and I remembered right: only rev B and C were affected. Rev A seems to be ok and others have confirmed that a reball should fix it for good. So fingers crossed! :)
I really was happy when it actually worked! I was afraid when you cooled it down! :)) That BGA IC i tried to fix also! There is a bond wire inside the chip itself (figured after months of testing and scraping off ) - that goes. If the IC is bent than it connects - when heated up it expands - the balls keep it on so it bends and it works - cools down and disconnects. That as far as i seen in 4 defective ones - is related to clock crystal - and the pins from IC that goes to the crystal on left side of it - the nearest one. If i remember right - those 2 pins should have 100k resistence - so you can messure on this working one following the trackes from the crystall to the chip and mesure on the chip side the 2 trackes that goes to the crystal (before any capacitors and components related to crystal) - and than mesure against an non working one. Working - whould be like 100k (if i remember right) not working will be nothing. This pointed me to the chip - and of course saying my rework was bad - but after i took the chips off - (i had 4 to test) - all of them at the pads that crystal goes if you touch them lightly with the meter probes gives you nothing - if you press down hard with the probes - gives you 100k!!!! I spent insane ammount of time to scrape off the pads - thinking the pads were at fault - and tracked them on the side of the chip - etc - but the issue is actually inside - and is a machanic issue! And yes the chips i got from AliExpress - and none good - and on a B rev - i think even if it was from a working machine after heating it up to take it off and heating up to put it on - is already ded! So my Onkyo ended up as spare parts sadly - but at least i realised what was the actual issue! (not sure if you can maybe even mesure over the crystal directly - but worth trying) I hope what i wrote here helps! I enjoyed the video! And that it was saved!!
So sad, so much heavy tech that cannot be saved...
I'm happy too - it's still working BTW :)
Thanks for sharing your knowledge
You’re welcome!
A repair shop told me that this chip has a heat issue and the later revision was more heat resistant. As I remember, my Onkyo repaired / swapped board got a heat sink on that cpu. maybe such one could extend the live span of that cpu :)
The fact that engineering designed the holes for a heatsink around the IC is telling me that SOMEONE else at some point decided to save $1 and scrap the heatsink! Who knows! I feel it's not just a heat problem but it could be that heat is accelerating the issue for sure.
I've always had a heatsink on that chip on my onkyo's.
pioneer has this exact same problem with the SC-55. I would push down on that same chip, and it would work. Then i used a heat gun and some crappy flux. It would work for about a couple weeks then it would happen again. I gave up on it and got a used SC-77. However, I've always wanted to fix this receiver just so i didn't throw it away. ive since learned it's just like every BGA chip that runs hot, the low lead solder balls crack. and loose connection when cold. You have confirmed this in my head, Thank you for the Video!
it's not the BGA I'm afraid - except in some rare cases. When you heat the IC you can fix the BGA but you can also temporarily fix what's broken INSIDE the IC, which is often the case with these DSP ICs! Thanks for watching!
I love how they have holes for a 10 cent push pin heatsink but didn't install the heat sink. They must have known that chip got hot in the initial pcb design.
I've seen that before where you see provision for a fan or a heatsink on the PCB but they were not populated.
To me that's Engineering saying "we need a heatsink" and Marketing responding "nah!"
@@tony359 Indeed. I had an Onkyo with the exact same problem. The internal substrate of the chip is what is flawed after many hundreds of heating/cooling cycles, it doesn't just 'wear out' as others have said. Many of these receivers ran very hot due to the class AB amplifiers operating within tightly enclosed spaces. After your fantastic job on reballing I hope the fix maintains itself for longer with a heatsink installed. I believe the reballing removes any existing stress on the chip's internal substrate for some period of time before it breaks again.
The board in mine was replaced by Onkyo, surprisingly out of warranty, but I had to go looking for it. I also think what ultimately killed the market for these receivers were the constant HDMI spec changes, forcing people to throw out otherwise perfectly good receivers whenever they change HDMI speeds. They should have made an HDMI-based lossless & backward compatible multichannel standard just for audio input and be done with it. HDMI switching should have been in the TV you were actually wanting to upgrade.
super video, Tony, very nice and entertaining, especially with your favorite testing method. happy days! :)
Thank you!
love the way you work, nice job! 👏👏👏
Thank you!
I have a TR-NX828 with a very similar problem. The way I have found to get it to work again is to pull the power plug. Merely turning it off and on doesn't do it, I have to pull the plug. That will keep it running for a few days typically.
they are complex devices indeed, many things can happen there :)
My Onkyo still working .
Runs red hot , i lay a computer fan on top , running quite slowly to drag constant air through it .
That keeps it cool and happy , plus i got a knock-off remote that works great after the original packed up .
A fan on top is a must for an Onkyo :)
like my old 875 60c at least and that open not in a cabinet lol
Congrats on the successful reball. The "Advanced Cooling Solution" is a good idea as well 😜
Yes! Thank you!
Un altro fantastico video... mitico Tony!👏👏👏🏆🏅🏆🥇
Grazie Egregio! :)
Well done!
Thanks!
Good work friend
thanks for sharing either way
Short fix is better then no fix as long as you are aware of the problem. Nice job...
Yep - plus BGA practice :) Thanks!
Get a stick on finned IC cooler for the top of that chip. The differential expansion between the chip and PCB with the thermal cycles, tends to fracture the balls. Reducing the temperature swing will make the balls last longer. It is important to ensure the flux is cleaned from under the chp when using lead tin solder to prevent tin whiskers from growing.
Thanks! Heatsink: 31:37 :)
These ICs do fail. They're tagged as defective by TI themselves unfortunately. I doubt the issue is the balls here.
Flux: I can do my best but without an ultrasonic cleaner I doubt one can clean "baked" flux with isopropyl. It's difficult to clean it by scrubbing on it!
I have a TASCAM PA-R100 that had the same fault. TASCAM is a rebranded ONCYO receiver, told to have some higher quality parts used. But the DSP board was the same. I had to send in mine and got it repaired in 2021 and it cost me about 500€. As the PA-R100 was very expensive even used, I got it repaired, and I am using it still today in a full setup. The German repair center even offered to just exchange the board for self-mounting. At that time, I had too much work, so I decided to let them do the full swap and repair with full guarantee.
Btw. It has 64MB of RAM and 32MB of FLASH.
I wasn;t aware that TASCAM was rebranding Onkyo stuff. Did you get a rev D IC?
@@tony359 This DSP board was built into all upper-class ONKYO / TASCAM multi-channel receiver. And they all suffer from the fault. But at that time, I was only aware of "a chip" and "some manufacturing flaws" without further details. As I had far enough test equipment and amateur radios on my desk for repair that did not need any IR beds and hot air reflow equipment, I just sent the unit in for repair. Now that I know what to look for, I will check if the unit has the right revision of DSP. As I do sort of the same work as you do, but more focused on RF test equipment, I checked my sources but could only find half of a source. I regularly order parts that are not manufactured anymore at utsource, but they don't offer D revisions. You can ask for B revisions, but you have to request an offer. But you could ask for a revision D and check their reply. But I guess all authorized repair centers around the world have bought the last available stock from TI. As soon as I am in my second living place, I'll check the chips revision. The receiver itself is a real nice piece of equipment. Still working fine and capable of almost all modern stream codecs. Even the internet radio functionality can still be used. I have it installed in a rather small living room in 7.0 configuration with BOSE MD100 monitors. I skipped the SUB as I'd prefer living in peace with my neighbors.
@@tony359 I checked my TASCAM PA-R100 and it has the Rev D ARM/DSP and that one also carries the "NEW" sticker on it as it could be seen in the forums you referenced. So this one should work very well for the next years to come.
you're a lucky person! :)
@@tony359 I don't think so... And I have to correct myself a bit... Let me explain:
I own not a R100 (5.1) but a TASCAM PA-R200, the even better model of the two. More power, 7.1, more decoding certificates and even THX. And around 2021 when mine went bad, the eBay "rating" was still far over 3000 USD "used, working, in good shape". So, I decided to go for a ~400€ repair at that time. But as you already stated, ONKYO (and TASCAM) extended the service for the unit and bought all available CPUs. But in 2021 the "out of guarantee" repair price had already gone up high. I am pretty sure the boards are now out of stock. Owners of repaired units will not give them away or ask the receivers weight in gold for it. And finally, all that market of integrated receivers has dropped tremendously as all these wires have been replaced by wireless speaker systems.
But over the next few years I'll try to get the full setup together with CD, TAPE, DAT in a nice rack, connected to some BOSE or Sansui speakers. The good stuff from those times then...
The only really thing that makes me worried are the CD players. You never know how many hours the laser pickup clocked and how long it will live. And there are no new ones available and only few people (including me) know how to handle and replace them without pre-damaging them.
That one is so much cleaner than mine! My TX-DS494 I did some maintenance to recently. The buttons for the front panel became resistors! Which kept confusing the MCU causing it to press multiple buttons/freak out whenever you'd press something. Since it relies on resistance to know what button was pressed. Also took apart one of the relays and cleaned its contacts, since one channel kept dropping out. The remote never worked for it, re-flowed the IR sensor on the front and now I can use the remote! Been meaning to hook it back up. It usually lives under my PC powering a sub and a couple speakers.
resistors! What kind of environment was it used in?
The fact you managed to reball successfully a BGA is already a BIG win! From my experience BGAs that run hot have the tendency to develop bad connections, I believe a good heatsink is a good thing to have. If it is the chip itself is becoming increasingly flaky, it is a no fix as you said. What I cannot understand is how reballing helps in that case.
In this case it MIGHT be that the issue was indeed the BGA. Who knows.
If not, heating up the IC to 240C, would temporarily fix the broken connection inside, by mechanical "expansion". I'm basically wiggling things inside so it works again - until it stops :)
@@tony359 Yeah, this kind of issues suck. You'll never know when they show up again a there is really nothing you can do. Anyways, nice work with the BGA. It is something I never attempted to do, I'm very fascinated when I see someone doing it! Hope some day I will try as well, but first I need to gather all the tools required for the job...
it's a tricky job, I have been experimenting (more OFF than ON!) for many years!
13:50: The Board has 64MB RAM, but the Flash-Size is 32MB.
Interestingly you should be able to get the sources to compile your own image, according to the GNU GPL laws.
Thanks!
Yes, you should, but Onkyo unfortunately took a very consumer hostile, almost maliciously compliant way to comply with the GPL. You had to be the original buyer and had to request the source code within a few years after purchase (5 years IIRC)
@@ResonantBytes which should be illegal according to gpl.
@@dolphhandcreme As far as I understand the GPL only enforces access to the source code for those who received a (compiled) copy of the software from the manufacturer, a.k.a. the original buyers of the amp, not the public in general.
If there are e.g., firmware images available that contain GPL code that would include anyone who is able to download those images, a.k.a. anyone.
Also as anyone who did receive the GPL software from Onkyo is allowed to redistribute the it to anyone else, anyone could legally potentially obtain the software, but not necessarily from Onkyo directly, so they wouldn't be responsible to provide access to the source.
The time limit is probably a gray area at least, though.
I purchased 3 so called D variants from china. None worked and close look seemed as though they had been sanded and relabeled. I’m not 100% sure but the printing didn’t match the failed B version. eBay refunded me so not a huge loss but I hate looking at such a nice receiver just useless. I hope someone knows of a reliable seller with the real thing.
I've been thinking of getting some and use them straight away so I could ask for a refund if it didn't work but... I hope someone comes up with a good source indeed!
G'day Tony.!
Good recovery.👍😎
Thanks 👍
Aha. Used to work with a client who had a large number of different Onkyo receivers. Think a number of classrooms. Each one had an Onkyo and the important thing was that they kept dying with this exact problem. But nobody knew about the defect. It was assumed the receivers were being damaged by the users. Most of the receivers got scrapped.
I'd imagine nobody at Onkyo or TI wanted to take responsibility for that!
The infamous Ti chip was used in many brands of receivers at the time.
Sadly Onkyo were less than honest and only responded if you complained
and if they agreed to change the board chances are that it would also fail.
Sourcing these chips today is not cheap or easy, with no gurantee that it will
remain working if it works at all.
I was aware of this problem when i bought a 807 a long time ago. It always outputed a lot of heat from the top cover. So I put a fan on top of the cover sucking the hot air out.. It never failed on me. I then sold it to a friend of mine and warned him in advance that it should be cooled. He ignored my advice and within a few months it had this exact problem. Hdmi board was replaced under warranty. When i sold the 807 I bought a 3008.. was aware of the problem and kept a fan on it. Later added a heatsink to the chip. It's still working!
My father in law had a 609 with the same issue no cooling and it died.. I did the oven reflow method and it worked for a couple of months.. then died again. So keeping the IC cool from the beginning seems to be the fix.
My previous pre-amp from Onkyo was new and I installed a heatsink and a fan on day one. The heatsink itself lowers the temp by 20C.
I feel that ventilation can slow down the issue - but those ICs are probably defective anyways or Onkyo would have started adding heatsinks as well :)
I hope you're right though, my own 5508 has the B revision of that IC...
I got sent an Onkyo AVR (TX-NR607 or something) by a friend a few years back.
I bought a new TI DSP for it, presumably the "D" version with the "fix".
I removed the original chip before the new one arrived, but I couldn't be bothered to install the new on in the end. lol
And yes, it sounds like a very similar issue to the Xbox and PS3, where it's actually the *internal* solder ballz that fail.
Or, with the TI DSP chip, maybe some kind of issue with corrosion or something. Not quite sure.
Agree, the internal solder might be the actual issue.
Atleast TI is a more honest company then Nvidia.
I built my own AVR in the end, as I was never happy with the way most commercial AVRs are built.
I managed to get hold of the example code for the SIL9777 HDMI chip, which can do 4K60 passthrough, and the I2S/HBR audio extraction.
Then I used the same Cirrus DSP chip used in many commercial receivers, including my Onkyo TX-RZ800, and Anthem MRX-720.
(the Onkyo was also bought as faulty, mainly to help reverse-engineer the SPI config for the Cirrus DSP. It was a simple repair, and now I need to sell it. lol)
I finally got audio decoding working on the Cirrus DSP about five months ago, including Atmos and DTS-X.
Still a lot to do on the new prototype AVR build.
But even the current prototype is quite usable already.
Hopefully I won't ever need to spend a small fortune on a commercial AVR / processor again.
I should always be able to find ways to upgrade mine, I know exactly how each part works, and each (stereo) amp module is easily replaceable.
13:37 - the 32 MiB is probably just the size of the NAND Flash, or at least the partition used.
Really well done on the BGA reballing, btw.
I've only tried it maybe three times, and only once was successful. lol
(for the VSA-100 chip from a Voodoo 4)
On the first attempts, I used a hot air station like you did.
I tried it on the lowest possible air flow at first, but never quite got the ballz to stick properly.
I will have to try adding some extra flux next time.
What worked on the third attempt, was to simply put the chip into the reflow oven (modified £30 toaster oven) after.
That properly reflowed all of the solder balls, and the chip then looked perfect.
I know the feeling about leaving projects behind :)
My nr686 all of a sudden doesn’t have speech channel anymore via HDMI and the sound is muffled. If I send the signal via optical cable it all works. But then I don’t have volume control as for some reason it also not responds to the remote control. I have tried factory reset and that didn’t do anything.
Fixed it with a new 8k hdmi cable. Who knew a hdmi cable can just half fail for no reason…
My ONKYO TX-SA608 had just lost its Audio yesterday 😥... i really Love my ONKYO AV Receivers...
sorry to hear that - I hope it's fixable!
I've known about this thermal trick since 2018, since I'm not really good with reballing I sent the board to a guy on Ebay who had an auction on repairing these boards for $60, I got the board back and it failed again after a couple months, this was around the time Onkyo took responsibility and they send me another unit free of charge and paid shipping to return my unit in the same box. I bought a second unit from Goodwill for $12.95 with the same issue and they covered that one as well! My first unit is still in my system working great, I flipped the second unit...I do have a 3rd unit in storage with the same issue I'm thinking this might be a good practice unit, just need to determine if its worth my time. I didn't know about the serial port though, awesome find.
ah, Onkyo was still replacing those in 2018? Maybe I should have looked into that! Super cool to buy second hand units and have free upgraded parts from Onkyo! :D
@ if memory serves the return service was a few years and ended December 2018
Great job!
Thanks!
I would love to have a source for the revD chips as well. What went wrong with not just this chip, but also with the PS3, XBox360 and various NVidia and ATI graphics chips, is that the method used to connect the silicon to the PCB inside the BGA is flawed. Heat cycles make the connection points fail and there is no (commercially viable) method to take the silicon and connect it to a new daughter board in a reliable way. Reflowing, reballing and such may temporarily get the internal connections functioning again, but since the whole process is flawed and you aren't changing that, any repair is temporary.
By the way, this is exactly the reason why RevA is also bad, same process.
understood - though the PS3 and XBOX have much severe thermal cycles than this Onkyo. I suspect then that maybe a heatsink MIGHT help in lengthening the life of the unit!
@@tony359Or just keep it powered on indefinitely. 😀
The packaging technology is very different between this IC and the popular failing Nvidia and ATi/AMD GPUs, so it's not the same failure mode, although the result is comparable. As for the ATi/AMD ICs we are not even entirely sure of the failure mode, but it could be similar to Nvidia, which was a combination of multiple factor affecting the Flip-Chip BGA packaging (bad bump and underfill material combination, excessive power dissipation and hot spots on the die).
This IC does not look like a Flip-Chip BGA, so it is probably using wire bonding internally. That said, it is possible that the wire bonding is not strong enough and excessive power dissipation with thermal cycles end up creating bad contact in the wire bonds.
Even other ICs can be damaged by excessive thermal stress, and even sometimes without thermal stress, but with similar symptoms where providing a lot of heat externally would temporarily bring them back to life. (or, sometimes cooling them well below ambient temperature)
Reflowing these chips doesn't help because the connection between the chip an the interposer isn't really soldered.
You only reflowing the connection between the interposer and the mainboard which might temporary "fix" the chip due to thermo cycling, but it will fail again.
If these flip chips fail they cannot really be fixed, only replaced which is usually not economically viable for an old GPU/APU.
I am having the same damn problem in my TX-NR509. After seeing so many videos of unsuccessful repair attempts in UA-cam and my own reflow attempt was failed, i decided to find a way to bypass that chip and route the Digital Audio from hdmi demux straight to the DAC Chip. I studied the datasheet of the ADV7623 and PCM1690 chips to link this bypass.. Unfortunately, all that attempt was waste, it doesn't work.
Too bad, it would be nice to find out!
Excelente análise e reparo. Isso me fez lembrar que uma linha de laptops da HP com processadores AMD tiveram problemas semelhante, no caso era com o chipset que provavelmente esquentava bastante causando solda fria e mal contato após 1 ano de uso.
Obrigado! Why there is often AMD involved with those early failures? :D
@@tony359 The AMD has gone through many problems and difficulties. Today, Intel is the one suffering, just look at the 13th and 14th generation i7 and i9 giving problems and overheating.
I was being a bit sarcastic - I am on AMD so nothing against them! :)
@Tony359 Maybe it was not exactly a problem of the IC but maybe the tin type, that was used for the balling of the BGA? Tin whiskers do built up with time, especially with some combinations of tin and other metals. So, reballing may indeed be some solution, as it would at least wipe out already built up tin whiskers and may restart the building-up timer for new ones! ☺
Maybe. But there is literally a SEA of dead Onkyo with the same problem and that IC (not sure about the A version) was tagged as bad so... Fingers crossed! :)
10 thumbs up, sir!
Great job!
Good video. Thanks for sharing.
I think adding heatsink it a good idea anyway. I don't understand why temperatures higher than 40...50 degrees (Celsius) are considered as "normal" in modern(ish) devices. On my experience, adding a heatsink over the CPU to the consumer devices (especially while they are new) prolongs their life dramatically in comparison to those without heatsinks. Why manufacturers save on heatsinks? Is this programmed obsolescence or a parsimony?
These receivers are space heaters. I think it's a mixture of what you say :)
Could you do a follow up video reference fitting a heatsink and fan on the Texas chip so you stop the chip from heating up Ive got a PR-SC5008 pre-amp with the same problem
You can get a heatsink for a RPi, they come with a sticky base. Stick it on the IC - make sure it's not too big and doesn't touch anything. I turned it on and let it warm up, then I turned it off and pushed on the heatsink again for best adhesion. Then it's good to go! Get the tallest that you can :)
@ Tony would you recommend putting a small temperature controlled fan on the heatsink you never may make the chip last a lot longer 👍👍
I've always had a fan on top of my onkyo - it runs when the AVR turns on. There are devices you can buy which sits on top of the receiver and pull air towards the front.
Thanks. That was fun. How about a heatsink to keep the chip from going to waste? If there's proper cooling, maybe it won't stop working. Maybe the whole board heats up during operation and without sufficient mounting points, the board warps and the chips stop working... That's strange, if it's a bad revision, the chip shouldn't work after re-soldering... the contacts break inside the chip.
Thanks for watching! Heatsink: 31:37 :)
I've seen this before: heat will "move" contacts inside, sometimes breaking them permanently, sometimes fixing them temporarily. Who knows... it still works. The last one I reballed worked 3 months :)
@@tony359 Ops. That's what it means not to watch till the end :)
Ahah no worries, nobody does that, that’s why Usagi electronics shows his rabbits at the end 🙂
So my Onkyo NR-TX1010 was repaired under warranty in 2017. The sound stopped working again so I stopped using it. I fired it up again earlier this yer, it worked for 3 weeks then stopped. I stumbled across this video today and took off the cover and indeed there is a "NEW" label on the chip and it is in fact the "D" chip. So WHY has my D chip now failed? :( Could it be something else?
The DSP was the main cause of failure but other things might happen. What happens when it loses sound? If it’s a DSP issue you’ll see the ‘speakers’ pictograms not showing up when you power up.
If that DSP was attached in a repair centre maybe it wasn’t properly attached? BGA is not simple 🙂
Tried fixing one of these few years back. It was my first bga project. I lost so much money in those AliExpress fake chips - all dead from factory and I blamed myself/ my skill(of course!). Its such a shame seeing those great devices go to landfill because of company greed.
Yes, if those ICs were available, it would be a "simple" fix. I suspect those IP inside the IC prevented that from happening...
Yamaha had same dsp in many generations also in them amps its a small pcb you can remove to replace but no chance of replacing the rest of amp is fine, fell on a big thread on it and allot just used the amps for parts, sad really
I suspect your heat sink hunch is correct. I have a newer Onkyo receiver (HT-R997) and when it gets too hot or after running for a long time it will have no sound when it turns on, but instead of no speaker diagram showing up it shows an incorrect one.
My fix is putting a small USB powered fan on the vents to force some air through, a couple of minutes of that and it’ll work again.
I can’t tell what version of the TI chip it uses though because the factory wrote something on it using a marker, and I don’t want to unplug it and open the case. It definitely has a TI chip in a similar location though. I’ll look at adding a heatsink at some point.
I do have a fan on top of mine - and a heatsink. I did measurements ages ago and just the heatsink reduces the temps by 60C. I can only cross my fingers and hope! :)
would be cool if someone managed to dump the os and stuff from the working chips and emulate the processor with like a newer component in its place
I think the main issue has always been the proprietary tech inside that chip. Had it been a generic DSP, it would have probably been replaced by something else much more easily.
Great video!
Thanks!
Where did you get the semi-rigid thermocouple from @21:52 please? Do you have the make/model number? Thanks!
Ebay. Search for user n9776677. Or I’m told the brand omega make very good ones.
That's odd, I can only see your reply when I'm not logged in to youtube. Anyway, it's telling me that n9776677 is an invalid user. I had a look at Omega flexible thermocouples (couldn't find the type in your video) but I probably wouldn't be able to use these as I'll need multiple and these seem very expensive. I'm trying to monitor plumbing pipe temperatures so something that can wrap around/hug a pipe would be great but I think I'll just use the ball type thermocouples with kapton tape to hold it to the pipe. Thanks for your time.
I checked and it's n9776677 - also mentioned as n977_6 for whatever reason. I don't know... Omega are expensive indeed, that's why I went for Ebay :)
@@tony359 Found it! Described as "bendable". Worth a try for less than a tenner. Thanks
Let me know how it goes!
I had a 2008 875 and they run hot like 60c and they had big issues with Hdmi boards if you didn't have it in a good airflow area it will cook its self.. as many did as they put them in cabinets, replaced it with a Yamaha RX-A3010 and years later as i had it 12 years there was a sound issue and im sure that's the same DSP chip your showing and it was in many models for years in the yams i found it as a joke that that DSP has had issues for years yet still fit
yes, it was never replaced proactively. Brands extended the warranty and waited... if your AVR was luckier and lasted a bit more...
@ well from what I’ve read I had mine 12 years before getting the issue so I’ve done good, all theses amps failed on the same part is allot of waste, I’ve striped mine to see if I can salvage and have a look but it would help if I new what I was looking for as it all looks good lol I’ve tested some caps and they come up fine,
On my 3010 the dsp is on a separate pcb so you can replace the small board so not even a big job but you just can’t get any, I did see if you could bypass it but found nothing
Amazing repair. Hope it lasts forever. Hope you celebrated wit a good wine during dinner 😉 Hope you could find a trusted vendor, although as you said, those OEM are impossible to find.
ahah thanks! I don't drink so I celebrated with a fresh glass of water :)
Water, how boring. Not even fruit juice or a real italian limonata? You did a better job reballing/resoldering that BGA than the factory did. It looks perfect. There are holes in the PCB around the chip intended for mounting a heatsink. You should definitely mount one.
I think I will - I did notice the holes, that tells me someone at engineering said "we need a heatsink" and someone from marketing said "nah" :)
I really like to add heatsinks to these kind of chips nowdays after suffering from the same issues as you did on that receiver, even if my devices aren't broke at all haha
I have an acer nitro 5 wich will only work and turn on consistenly if i have those workstation-grade 5000rpm high air flow AVC 12v fans blowing air full speed into it, but that's how far i can get, i don't have the skill nor the tools to reball the chip or replace it :/
Regarding longevity of the fix, surely adding a decent heatsink could fix the issue? I assume that the solder deteriorates over time with hot/cold cycles, so by adding a heatsink the chip never gets as hot to begin with so it can’t deteriorate as much (or at all?)
Also, if this is a similar issue with some NVIDIA chips which seemed to face similar issues, it was due to the quality of solder used. So assuming you’ve used better quality solder when re-balling, that should also have a positive impact on the longevity.
And I just finished the last minute of the video LOL. Exactly what you said.
eheh - thanks for the tip anyways!
It seems that these ICs fail internally. Lead free solder never helps - and hopefully it was my case - but I am not holding my breath. Hopefully a heatsink will help delaying the inevitable death of that IC? Fingers crossed :)
I don't get it. IC's, components, all that, should not run at 70 degrees when operating. At least a fan, a heatsink or something that helps cooling the unit would extend lifespan greatly.
There are fixing points for a heatsink for that IC but someone decided not to use them 🙂
Unfortunately, this does not seem to prevent the fault. There was a process fault when manufacturing the IC at the bonding or the capping / sealing station. The fault will appear with the older revisions of the chip, regardless of what you try to prevent it. I remember some notes about sealing that gives up and allows bonding to oxidize and corrode off or something like that. Cooling may only extend the period until the fault happens but not too much.
I don’t think you will ever find a reliable source for those ic’s… i had like 3-4 units from onkyo with dead ic’s. I bougt 2 times from china and both batches were some rebranded ic’s and i stopped buying. Then i found on ebay some new boards from different models and harvested the ic’s… i still have one unit in my shop which works flawlessly for over 2 years. Also i added cooling to dsp ic in order to prolong it’s life. Good luck!
I've been looking for HDMI boards for a LONG time on Ebay, they never show up at least on my searches. That's why I went with the reballing options, knowing it wasn't a long term fix. It was either that or the rubbish bin :)
@@tony359 reballing fix the issue if the ic is not internally damaged… boards found on ebay were like 50€ / piece… so it’s not cheap to revive an old audio “anvil” :)
Thinking back at the ic’s I’ve thrown away back then (faulty ones) i regret i did not check the pads connections underneath with a microscope… since then i encountered many other ic’s with broken traces between their pads and tracks. Some of them were restored and worked again.
Via in pad on BGA chips is a little dangerous on its own, add a hot chip then you can get failures regardless of a good or bad revision.
I can imagine!
This also plagued Pioneer, I bought a new old stock SC-LX85, the ti DSP failed, lucky the new old stock amp had warranty, the service was really good, the service centre said they could replace the board, but it would fail again so they replaced it with the new at the time SC-LX89. I did miss the THX but gained Atmos.
very kind of them to admit that! :)
Here's a question, is it possible to take a working chip from say a pioneer? Or are they not compatible
as far as I know those ICs are not programmed, if the chip is identical, it should work. The FW is on the board.
This really looks as the System is Searching for its Initial Startup config.
But the Storage is corrupted and it cant read Parts of it.
That and maybe CHEAP Solder.. As you heat the DSP the Solder turn liquid for a Time, connects a few paths. Then gets WARM again and the Solder disconnects. Would answer the Intermittent changes.
I would talk to a Lawyer, and gather as many People as possible, for a CRAP product that COULD be fixed except Onkyo wont give you access.
I warmed up the IC to something like 50C, I didn't reflow it. It would take MUCH more heat to reflow it.
It's a known issue with those ICs - though I'm told Rev A are better than Rev B and re-flowing and a heat-sink fix them for quite some time for a long time. Fingers crossed!
They're 15 years old units. They're history :)
@@tony359 tell that to my TX-sr696..
Just bought it about 1 year ago..
Hi Tony, what's the point of re-balling if as you say the problem is inside the chip, it sounds like bit rot to me, the logic level of the internal memory bits are right on the edge of changing hence heat and cold has an effect? would probably fix it if we could re flash the mem.Bob
Hi - I mentioned that at some point. It could go to the bin or I could have some BGA fun and maybe squeeze some time out of it.
It's still working after some days... :)
@@tony359 Absolutely, and I thought you did very well, you are working with electronics at levels way above what a person would normally be doing with the time you have been doing it, you are certainly a fast learner, I know there is nothing like doing it for yourself as an incentive 😄. Bob
oh and most importantly I wanted to get rid of it, it is taking too much space! So I was like "If I can "revive" it good, otherwise I have an excuse to push it out of the door"! :D
Thats actually quite cool that these run Linux under the hood, makes me wonder if the receivers we have now still run Linux or switched to some more efficient Real Time Operating System but atleast the network and stream ready amps do run it.
Yeah with some bga chips its common for them to fail and while a rebal/reflow often fixes the issue, it just extends it and makes it work for some time and after it will fail again.
Reminds me of the playstation 3 and xbox 360 issues that was cause of a bad chip design using underfill that is too soft causing the solder bridges to fail between the dice and substrate
I'm wondering if it's the same underfill issue here.
I have an Onkyo sat about with a similar issue, interesting.. will have to crack it open and have a gander. Though reballing is not my idea of fun :/
... and unfortunately it's often not a final solution. I'm told that "A" ICs usually work with a reball. But "B"... don't waste your time. Good luck!
@tony359 cheers, likely will either parts it, or look out for a compatible chip. Its annoying that such devices are effectively scrap due to a single chip / package.
Nice work and funny sir :)
Many many thanks!!
ha yep. that is the reason i have switched from denon / onkyo. its was a big issue. I know of onkyos that got sent back for issues with dsp doing all sorts of dumb stuff. Had my personal denon do the same. I know the issue can be fixed and its not an issue now but i swapped to yamaha and haven't had an issue now. each brand had their failures........ Good work on the BGA!
Indeed, no brand is perfect but that was a plague indeed! Thank you!
T believe lead free solder is the main cause for these chips to fail also a build up of dust on the hdmi board may cause heating problems.
Those ICs were recalled by TI, they definitely fail internally
Did you ever find a source for replacement chips?
No, apparently it doesn't exist. Very , very frustrating.
@tony359 thank you for the update. I hate to have to trash the entire system because of a single chip…
I suspect that the problem is not in the processor, but in the vias under the balls; when the chip overheats, the solder balls flow through the vias and contact with the chip is lost.
To prevent this from happening again, you need to install a cooling radiator on this chip.
flow through the VIAs! That would require 230C as a minimum! What MIGHT happen is that the solder balls develop some micro cracks and thermal expansion just widens them just enough.
But that IC is known for failing. They ALL fail. So the BGA theory is cute but unlikely!
I have to say that i am "afraid" of those highly complex multi channel receivers/amps
Too many things can and will go wrong. I reverted back to simpler stereo devices
I see where you come from - but if you want multi-channel ones, that's unavoidable I think!
I followed the link in description as instructed. This is going to be a good one!
ahah I hope you liked it :)
Incredible reball job, it'll probably last longer than factory.
ahah thanks! Fingers crossed!
I didn't know there was a recall. Doh.
Sorry not a recall - a warranty extension
@ warranty, my bad. I still have mine. I replaced it with a Denon 4311 which needs another upgrade.
Regarding memory: 64MB is the RAM, 32MB is the ROM.
Ah yes, it makes sense! Thanks!
Could it be that the ROM is 32Mbit = 4MB?
@@tony359 As var as the logging is stating the NAND ( Flash ) is 32 MB and the DRAM is 64 MB. If I look on the board, it has external DRAM, but I suspect internal NAND ( flash ). Otherwise it would be a possibility that the chip reflow could work. I didn't see the complete schema, but I think that the flash chip is also onboard, so probably a lose pin??
Ah, and the flash is on the bottom of the board 🙂 This is going to last.
I love onkyo and I couldn't care less about DTS crap. HDMI 8 channel PCM is good enough.
Missed chance is to have a zita net to jack realtime network receiver running on that arm. Although the arm is a bit underpowered, but it is fast enough to do realtime network jack audio.
But I know companies like onky and denon wouldn't want that, because that would mean you can directly interface a steam machine or a steam deck straight to the speaker without paying a lot extra for some kind of app like with denon where you have to pay for that weird audio player.
Yes but when the DSP fails, you lose ALL audio, not just Dolby/DTS! :)
will take it..... have a 906 that have broke my hand punching half a dozen times, but....when it does work I cherish every second of it because..... there is simply nothing like it not even close..... I have even ripped it out of the cabinent hoisted it over my head____ barely...and slammed it on the concrete floor and let it sit tacoed for two months..... pulled the cover reinserted fuses hooked it back up,..... and it worked like new....these 906s are a special entities with there own soul and living protons and neutrons and electrons allot of them....anyway I will take the one u got there....hit me up
it's gone already I'm afraid :)
try Micro land Parts Store or Obsolete Electronics / 4 Star Electronics
@tony359 what program did u use to see on your laptop what the chip was doing please?
it's called "putty" but there are others.
@tony359 thankyou and keep up the good content 😊
Maybe try wayback machine
❤
Yamaha RX-A1020 suffered the sme fate. Tired a couople chips from AliExpress which go for stupid money but alas all were fake..
Unfortunately - I also went that path with my Onkyo 609. I just made a video where I finally fix it by... swapping the HDMI board with a "D" revision. So sad there is no proper source for those.
@@tony359Unfortunate indeed! The I'll fate these also suffer from is people falsely assuming it's the firmware that gets corrupted. By going through the motion of trying to update the firmware it actually goes off and successfully wipes the ROM off off the EEPROM attached to the DSP but then fails to write the firmware back and thus fails the fw update causing the unit to become a complete brick, while it would somewhat work prior. The DSP actually does go through the init routine well after the power being switched on with Yamahas as you could leave the unit running for some 10-20 min and the sound would just appear out of the blue at random time intervals, once the DSP had warmed up enough.
If it's a DSP quality, it's not important if it's running Linux or not. It's more about the SoC crystal defects in production rather than the software you are trying to blame
am I blaming the software?
@@tony359 at the very beginning of your movie, it sounds like "Linux" is the reason "why"
I just said "it's running Linux", I'm not sure why you assumed that I was blaming Linux! Anyways, if you keep watching the movie, I think that's very clear :)
This should be an interesting video
I won't comment or I'll Jinx it :) Enjoy!
Life just isn't fair. To think that all of my favorite movies were made decades before this 'computer', which I wouldn't even attempt to fix. No wonder FranLab prefers Kodak and Eastman film stock. What a monstrosity this ONKYO is.
DTS chip has poor solder joints/balls. I have two onkyo receivers now because I was able to use the serial number off the defective one to get a really good deal on a new one. But they didn't ask me to return the defective one. I got to keep it. So I reworked the DTS chip and fixed that receiver (It did take a couple of attempts). This has been almost 3 years ago. No problems. And I now have two onkyo receivers
it's not just that unfortunately. I did reball one before, it lasted 3 months. You were lucky, heat "fixed" the internal fault. It can happen. But that IC was officially tagged as "defective" by Texas Instruments.
Won't hurt to try of course :)
Thanks for watching!
@tony359 I have not checked in on this issue for some time now since my original Onkyo receiver never failed again. But I only ever knew about the solder issue. I didn't realize that there were actual faults with the chip in question. I have no idea what revision that DTS chip is in my particular receiver. My older Onkyo is a TX-NR818 that I got a hold of around 2012. It worked for about 2 years before it exhibited that all too familiar fault. Then it sat in a storage unit for a couple of years. I didn't have the heart to throw it out. When I finally did pull it out and start researching the issue online, I found out that Onkyo offered a discount program for these defective receivers. All you had to do is put in your serial number, and they allowed you to purchase a new receiver (new at that time) at a really reduced discount. So I jumped at the chance. They didn't even make me return the older defective one. So the defective one set in a closet in the original box for two more years before I finally pulled it out and repaired it.
I reworked the chip the first time, and it lasted a couple of months. So I did it again, and it has worked flawlessly since then, knock on wood. I did add heat sinks to that chip as well as most of the others on that HDMI board. I also wired in a couple of 120 mm case fans over top of that board to give that board some active cooling.
I bought an ONKYO a decade ago based on reputation, ...until it had issues. I am an electronics engineer so I opened it up, and was shocked at how UTTER CHEAP GRABAGE it was inside!!!!!!
ONKYO may or may not have been great once upon a time, but today they are UTTER GARBAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I bought a DENON to replace and have not looked back sine.
ahahah to be honest I've always had Onkyo but mostly because I had them for cheap/free! :) Maybe there was a reason for that! :)