Onkyo TX-NR Receiver DTS chip Reflow Procedure 

Hi! I also have an Onkyo TX-NR414 amplifier. After switching on, there is no sound. My question would be, how long did you heat the chip? In addition to sound, there is no network and USB.

Awesome. I'm glad you got it running. It takes enough heat to melt the solder under the chip. The foil was blocking that heat from getting to the surface like it needed to.

You're welcome! Something weird is going on with RU-vid right now. Your comment is the only one showing right now. This video has many comments on it since I posted it. I wonder where they went.

Because we discuss many things in those comments about these receivers.

Got'em. Took me refreshing Chrome a couple of times. I'm glad you got it working. It could fail again though. What I was doing to make them last longer, is to glue a heat sink onto the DTS chips. With the unit on and the top off (be careful not to touch any 110v wires that should be on the right side looking at the front) touch the DTS chips to see how hot they get. If they are too hot to touch or it is more than just warm, heat sink them. I used epoxy to glue them on with. A very thin dot in the center of the chip, then press the heat sink on to spread the glue thin.

btw op says he uses jb weld and then says lets hope there isnt a fire.... use a small well finned heat sink and thermal paste infact i used one the size he holds up last is a bit big............. that i salvaged off a south-bridge... and 420c from a heat gun for about 15 to 30 sec is fine across the chip. then let it coooooooooooooool. seriously leave it . bam test it and if it works rejoice mofos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome! Glad I could help

Thank you for the kind words. It really means a lot to me. Replacing caps is really easy. I usually try to find the best brand cap and replace with the same values. These boards have SMD caps so if you can't find the right voltage they may not line up if you go up in voltage which is okay function wise, but since they are SMD the caps have to line up with the soldering pads.

Shane Carles

Hi Matthew Lau!

Very Awesome! Let's hope it holds up for a long time. Otherwise, the chip would need to be replaced with the new style package.

Check the HDMI sockets for any that may have cracked the HDMI board or damaged the pins inside of the sockets.

Freaking awesome! Let's hope it lasts.

Glad to hear it!

They usually last after doing this if the chip is heatsinked. I was going to do one on replacing the caps but I lost the shop and all of it's contents in the flood down here in Louisiana. We are rebuilding and I hope to be back at it by the end of the year. The only thing is I lost all of my equipment. I have to replace everything from the ground up.

Mine been going for 18 months now. No problem. I reflowed using a gu10 50 watt halogen lamp.

If the radio receiver is driving an analog signal than no, it doesn't run through the DTS chip for audio conversion. You may hear a relay click when switching to the radio in that case. I've never thought about that as a test but then again none of the other analog inputs or outputs would work when the DTS chips do this on other models. The key thing to look for is the speaker matrix. The left part of the display that shows what channels are active. If that's coming up, then the DTS chip may be okay. I would try just warming the chip up at first to see if you get a change before going ahead with the reflow.

@@ShaneCarles Thank you. I don't believe me model has that individual speaker display but I will try some non-HDMI inputs and try gently heating the IC first.

These receivers do have fans. This one has 2. A push and a pull fan. But to tell you the truth, I've NEVER heard them come on but that could be because the sound was so LOUD from these receivers, I probably couldn't hear the fan come on. I needed to test one of these with the top off and running at 75% volume on 7 Polk tower speakers. Then take a look at the heat situation while I jam.

the problem is that the power supply gets hot even with no sound output, at least in my older onkyo. if it has a fan just for the power amplifier, then the hdmi will always get super hot. if it ouver heats even with fans, then onkyo have a really bad design on this units

Actually, it's both. The DTS chip is being supplied too much voltage due to the design of the board, AND the heat from the PSU board underneath further accelerates the problem. My TX-NR515 lasted 6 years before giving up the ghost, others have had their amps last for as little as 2 years. I'm sending mine away to see if it can be repaired, if not, I'll try the method in the video, in addition to adding some heatsinks to the larger chips on the board. The comment in the video about the fan on the heatsink is total tosh though. The fan will help wick the heat out of the heatsink. Why do you think PC-CPU coolers have had fans for the last 30-odd years, if it doesn't work?

No, because my shop was completely destroyed in the flood of 2016

@@ShaneCarles Sorry that happened. Hope you have recovered from that.

That explanation about gave me an aneurysm.

yes, but this free of charge repair for units out of warranty ended 2017 or 2018 :(

I just fixed my TX-NR616, so it's worth trying. The chip is located towards the back right. Just to the left of the right fan bracket arm. It's a square chip with no legs.

Can you make a audio recording with a cell phone and email that to me or link it with Google Drive? I need to hear it to be able to diagnose. But if I had to guess, anything from the high output caps to the output transistor finals or even the transformer which is very unlikely but could be with a big enough surge. my email address is advancedpcrepair@cox.net

Yeah, he lost some credibility when he said adding a fan to a heatsink will cause the chip to burn up. It actually will improve the heat sinks ability to pull the heat out. The heat sink will pull heat out through conduction then the fan adds convection and it improves the heat sinks ability to pull heat out.

What I meant by that statement was, there is no mounting options for that chip on the board. So the heatsink would have to be glued on and if the surfaces didn't meet correctly then cooling the heat sink would trap the heat in the chip. I've seen that before.

Where did you source your heat sinks?

Is the unit going into protection mode? If not, it still can have an open output transistor that may not trigger the protection circuit. The correct thing to do is start removing the output transistors and checking them for shorts and open until you find the one or multiple bad ones.

@@ShaneCarles I get no errors so I will do the out put transistors an see what I get. Thanks for the info

Oh an no it is not going in to protection mode thats why I'm trying to just bounce some ideas off someone else. The unit works an does everything it should but just no sound out. So I will use your info an see what happens Thanks again

Also Great video 👍

They did a recall, many of the models effected will be repaired for free or if no longer available they will offer a new model at a steep discount.

Have you tried doing a reset or updating the firmware for the Onkyo TX-SR705?

I see it doesn't have networking. Does it have a USB port on it?

Also, have you seen this thread? www.whathifi.com/forum/home-cinema/onkyo-tx-sr705-firmware-update-dts-bomb-fix

Look here also. You would download a WAV file and play that sound wav with a SPDIF optical cable from a CD player with optical digital out to update the BOMB glitch issue. You could do that with a PC. - www.avforums.com/threads/onkyo-main-firmware-and-dsp-updates.739501/

I've had to replace every single one of the capacitors on these boards before to get them working again. If that doesn't fix it then the chip is bad.

Thanks again for the great info! I may just have my local EE friend take a look. I'm just a lowley CS Guy! :-) I'm really pissed at Onkyo right now! I'm considering a future replacement of almost any "non-Onkyo" (or Integra) brand! Maybe Marantz, Pioneer, Yamaha, etc. Do you have any favorites?

Lance Bledsoe you are very welcome.

I Like Marantz, Yamaha, Pioneer in that order. But there are other more expensive brands out there that are far better than any of those even.

Yep, that should be fine.

Grat thanks, i will try to fix it myself. So process goes like follow right? 1)clean DTS chip with pencil 2) put flux and tilted for flux to go underneath 3)heat chip - ~600F until flux melts in waves of 10 second each 4)let it cool and try 6)apply thermal glue and place heatsink Thanks

Thank you Walter. I've since completely rebuilt my shop and have things pretty opened up now. Happy New Year to you!

I doubt it's the chip set. Check if that system has separate outputs for Zone 1. You could have a bad output in Zone 1 if there are separate outputs for Zone 2.

Try 500 degrees for 1min while evenly moving the heat around the chip. Also, use flux

shane thanks for the quick response. i am planning on getting a heat gun and some flux and trying your method. i will let you know how i make out.

@@steveweber7902 - No problem. Let me know how it goes. Also, check the temp of the chip if you get it going after its been on for a while and see if its getting too hot. It should never get so hot you can leave a finger on it for more than a few seconds. This is the main reason why these chips fail

Eric, what did you end up doing after the 4 days? I'm about to het mine up, My gun's top heat is 1200. I'm thinking 800 for 10 seconds like another post did. Any new learnings from your experience?

​@@kurtwedgwood1766 Thanks for asking. I gave up. I also tried a technique found elsewhere (I forgot where) of baking the whole board in the oven for a little bit to reset the connection and that also failed. My engineer friends tell me that microsolder failures are permanent. But it seems to work for some people so what have you got to lose? I wish you much luck.

Shorted outputs or caps.

This is what I'm using. When Radio Shack went out of business I bought 5 containers of this so it would last. It works great and I like it because it's easier to clean off with alcohol. They are out of stock though. - www.radioshack.com/products/rosin-soldering-paste-flux

Here's another place that sells it but out of stock also - www.4surpluscity.com/radioshack-6400022-rosin-soldering-flux-paste-non-spill-2-oz-jar.html

I would try any Rosin flux and see which one works for you.

fixed it ! Had a bad optical connector lol

Fahrenheit

I use rosin flux I got from Radio Shack a while back. But a flux pen will work also

Me too. I know where everything is too.

I don't use an iron on these. I use a heat gun as explained and showed in the video.

You can't desolder a matrix chip with a soldering iron anyways. All of the pins are under the chip and are not exposed around the chip.

I'm doing everything as shown and still cannot get the audio to come on. What else can it be? I can't get the temperature as high as 650, 400 was my max. Saw another video where the guy only got it into the 200s. Either I fried it or just can't get it hot enough. The hot air gun I bought is supposedly advertised at 650 degrees. Wagner HT400 gun MG Chemicals No clean flux paste

Tomz Rain - I've seen the chips be damaged before. Also, the caps on the HDMI board have gone bad before. I just replace all of them to make sure.

Sounds like a job I'm not qualified for. I guess I'll have to get it recycled at Best Buy then.

Hmmm. Damn. That's some crazy different issues but with no speaker matrix, it sure sounds like the DTS chip. That's all analogue to digital issues from the sound of it

But. The USB has me wondering. Take a USB cable you can cut so you can check the red and black wires for 5v there. Let's see if you lost power supply somewhere. Maybe capacitors.

Could be 2 issues like I was seeing on this unit where it had 6v on the 5.2v rail. It should be a tad over 5v for voltage sag but not 6v. Capacitors were the issue on that.

I don't think there is a DTS chip for the video side, it's just used for converting audio from analogue to digital and vise versa. It would be where the SPDIF goes and when it has an issue like overheating and desoldering from the board by cracking the solder joints when it flexes from the heat then cooling over & over, you lose the audio matrix grid on the display and the amplifier relay never clicks to fire up the amp. This is the most common issue that happens. Also HDMI doesn't switch in some cases.

And thank you. The camera I was using is a great camera, but I was trying out settings on it when I made this video and I did finally get it smoothed out. The strange thing though, it plays and looks good when played local. RU-vid did something to it when I uploaded it. I didn't use any modifications either.

For sure on the rework station. That will let you upgrade this chip to one that doesn't have the issue. Look into the part numbers on your chip and see if there is a package update that matches the grid type of the original. They have updated these DTS chips for most of the HDMI boards.

:-) After about a year the video would drop off after a while. Fast forward a year and now I get about 5 minutes of video. What's an SPDIF? I was messing with it a couple hours earlier and touched one of those chips to see how hot (it wasn't hot) and the video dropped. I don't know what to do, I don't want to buy another amp and should not have to and Onkyo is in denial. Any suggestions?

SPDIF is the square ports on the back of your receiver. Those are for optical SPDIF digital audio and they also have the single orange RCA jack for coax SPDIF Digital Audio in. Lets say you have a desktop PC and it has SPDIF Optical out on the back panel. You would take a toslink optical cable and connect that optical out to one of the optical ins on the receiver. You go to the video input settings and change the audio to SPDIF Audio 1 (Most Onkyo receivers have 2 of these...1 & 2) or something like that. That would then give you the digital audio tracks of movies in DTS surround sound or whichever surround sound coding was used, it switches it for you and you hear a relay click when its working. The sound range is instantly changed to a much higher sound quality and the channel separation is unreal. I can do a video on a newer Onkyo Receiver I have here that's very much like the way its done on all of them and show you where those settings are. Any audio device that you aren't using HDMI for would use this since the video output may be something other than HDMI. HDMI passes digital audio over the cable but I think on a computer audio setup, even if the computer has HDMI, it sounds better with the SPDIF Optical doing audio because the chipset would be Realtek and the HDMI video out would be Intel, Nvidia or ATI...something like that. The audio drivers for those are simple & not very great in some cases.

Do you get a speaker matrix on the display? The common issue with most of these are the DTS chip on the HDMI board. Check SP Mode means a short across the outputs somewhere. If no speakers are connected then you have an internal short. Could be a capacitor or transistor output shorted.

Check SP Mode stands for Check Speaker wiring from what I can read. But if no speaker wiring is connected then that would be an internal short across the outputs somewhere.

Check the speaker terminals closely and make sure there are no stray strands of wiring still under the banana screws. All it takes is one jumping across.

The chances are good as long as the DTS chip isn't damaged internally.

Thank you did you ever get the one working in this video

Yes. But then I lost it in the flood of 2016.

Shane Carles I'm sorry to hear that where was this flood sounds like it was bad

I appreciate that a lot...Thanks. It was bad. We lost everything we owned, including our cars. Had to rebuild my house from the floor up to the ceiling. It was the flood of 2016 in Louisiana. It was a 1000 year flood. I had over 4ft of water that came into my house. A lot of people's homes were over the rooftops though.

You may have used too much heat for too long.

Shane Carles not that long, only for few seconds. So does it means the chipset is damaged?

Probably so. If it cracked the lower layer of the matrix circuit, it could break the pin layer connections.

If your getting speakers at all then its not the DTS chip. I would be looking at output transistors. Maybe smaller caps around the preamp section.

Did you ever figure out the problem? My Onkyo HT-R393 just lost the front Left and Right channels. I can get sound out of the Right speaker if I use direct mode.

I saw your video. Your unit is going into standby to protect itself. This usually means damaged outputs. Most likely shorted outputs so they would be easy to test. These are the power transistors that are on the heatsink. Could also be shorted capacitors. Many things really. Is anything connected to the receiver? If so, disconnect everything from it but power and see if this happens.

@@ShaneCarles hI NOTHING TO CONNECT

@@ShaneCarles You say about chips problem ? about omh its havid the chips radiator ?

Have you cleared the firmware settings and then flashed with the newest firmware? Other than that bad outputs maybe?

little too late...the unit flashed sparks on one of the boards and started smoking. Soooo, dead.

ouch. Did one of the amp boards fry? Maybe shorted outputs?

Yep, I use a laser reflow station to do those.

What? Lasers???