Damaged Video Card, but it still works!

Diablo2K

Diablo2K

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Aug 10, 2000
Messages
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Knocked off about 7 resistors on my videocards GPU and the card still works like a charm. I was removing the shim on the GPU and the tool I was useing slipped shearing off about 7 of the really tiny resisters around the outside of the core. What are those for? Cause my card still works like a charm.

Tried to take a pic with my phone but its unuseable.
 
did you knock too many resistors off your phone too?

i'm glad it works for you but i think you're crazy for even trying it. :eek:
 
I got one of those phones that do everything, but does nothing well.

I bought an aftermarket cooler for it, and when I put it in the computer the first time the temps were higher then with the stock cooler, took it out and the core wasn't contacting the HS very well so i removed the shim, I had done it on several other video cards and never had a problem before. I almost cried when I seen what I had done, I dont even know why I tried to see if it would still work, but it did.
 
The card may seem to work ok, for now... Try running ATI Tool to check for errors. I kind of wonder what impact this will have on the life of your card. Your warranty is definately void, and you will have few buyers if you decide to resell later on.
 
Buy a soldering kit for cheap and solder those bad boys back into place. Of course, this is when / if it fails. Good luck. *crosses fingers*
 
Most of those SMD resistors around the CPU core are usually meant for GPU identification purposes - IE how the GPU identifies itself to the system and how it interacts with the card.

So it may work fine.. you never know! But you may have oddities next time it comes time to install drivers, etc.

And some of those 'resistors' are actually 0 value and meant as a jumper of sorts, again for the same purposes as above. You might look at the ones you knocked off and see if you see any numbers. A few of them might just read "000" - if that's the case you c ould effectively 'replace' them using one of those conductive ink pens from radio shack, or rear window defogger repair paint.
 
Blue Falcon said:
Most of those SMD resistors around the CPU core are usually meant for GPU identification purposes - IE how the GPU identifies itself to the system and how it interacts with the card.

So it may work fine.. you never know! But you may have oddities next time it comes time to install drivers, etc.

And some of those 'resistors' are actually 0 value and meant as a jumper of sorts, again for the same purposes as above. You might look at the ones you knocked off and see if you see any numbers. A few of them might just read "000" - if that's the case you c ould effectively 'replace' them using one of those conductive ink pens from radio shack, or rear window defogger repair paint.
Click to expand...

I would need an Electron Scanning microscope to read anything printed on them, those things are freaking small, and I dont think I can find them anylonger, I had them on a dry wash cloth but it went into the laundrey hamper.

I ran ATI tools and I get no errors there, even tried to find max core and it was at over 700 (621 stock) before I stopped it. I don't think I will be selling it anytime soon, by the time I can aford a replacement it won't be worth much anyway, just keep it for back up or something.

I am just happy it still works or I will be useing a 6600 Vanilla now that I have for back up.
 
Something sort of like that happened to me a couple months ago well sort of.

I bought a new case (Clear plexi with blue tint) I installed all my equipment into the new case and was getting ready for the smoke test. I was very gentle with my vid card when taking it out of my old case setting it aside and installing it in my new case.

As I was rotating my case to set it down so i could hook up - I heard a rattle sound. I looked a bit further and noticed it was some sort of power coil. I was worried it came loose from my board but i looked at the vid card and noticed one of the coils next to the GPU was missing. So i was like CRAP. I ended up soldering 1 14 gauge lead for each pad on the coil. I made it look the best I could considering my iron is a gay 30 watt cheap pos Needless to say, it looks like it has a hernia

The Vid card is a ATI X800 XT 256 AGP All in Wonder Pro. Seems to work just fine. All functions including tv tuner, fm tuner, 3d, 2d, openGL, etc all working fine. ATI diagnostic utilz show the card good.

Anyway, I've upgraded since.

Old config:
AMD 64 3000+
K8N-E motherboard Socket 754
ATI x800 XT AIO Pro 256m
2 Gigs DDR 400 Dual Channel
SB Audigy PCI
ATI Remote Wonder Elite Theater 550 chip

New Config:
AMD X2 6000+ Socket AM2
Abit KN9 SLI Nvidia 570 chipset
2 Gigs DDR2 800Mhz Dual Channel
ATI x1300 Pro 256mb PCI-e
AverMedia m780 (MCE Combo Upgrade) PCI-e
753GB total drive space for both configs
Windows MCE 2005
 
scooter360 said:
Something sort of like that happened to me a couple months ago well sort of.

I bought a new case (Clear plexi with blue tint) I installed all my equipment into the new case and was getting ready for the smoke test. I was very gentle with my vid card when taking it out of my old case setting it aside and installing it in my new case.

As I was rotating my case to set it down so i could hook up - I heard a rattle sound. I looked a bit further and noticed it was some sort of power coil. I was worried it came loose from my board but i looked at the vid card and noticed one of the coils next to the GPU was missing. So i was like CRAP. I ended up soldering 1 14 gauge lead for each pad on the coil. I made it look the best I could considering my iron is a gay 30 watt cheap pos Needless to say, it looks like it has a hernia

The Vid card is a ATI X800 XT 256 AGP All in Wonder Pro. Seems to work just fine. All functions including tv tuner, fm tuner, 3d, 2d, openGL, etc all working fine. ATI diagnostic utilz show the card good.

Anyway, I've upgraded since.

Old config:
AMD 64 3000+
K8N-E motherboard Socket 754
ATI x800 XT AIO Pro 256m
2 Gigs DDR 400 Dual Channel
SB Audigy PCI
ATI Remote Wonder Elite Theater 550 chip

New Config:
AMD X2 6000+ Socket AM2
Abit KN9 SLI Nvidia 570 chipset
2 Gigs DDR2 800Mhz Dual Channel
ATI x1300 Pro 256mb PCI-e
AverMedia m780 (MCE Combo Upgrade) PCI-e
753GB total drive space for both configs
Windows MCE 2005
Click to expand...


What is with that "New Config"? Everything looks great except the video card. Is it just not for gaming then?
 
It's a gaming rig. In about 4 days (payday) I'm going to drop a new vid card in this thing. I was forced to grab the cheapest and best card i could when i upgraded. Although my current card is better than what i had before.

I'm looking at this card: 8800 GTS
 
I would also like to get a 8800, I would really like to get a good single slot card then upgrade it in a few to SLI. My main thing is I dont want to downgrade the amount of memory, 2x256 is only 256 when it comes to SLI. But the bench marks I have seen make me think going from 512meg to 256 wont effect me performance wise with the games I play. so a 8600GTS might be in my near future.
 
scooter360 said:
It's a gaming rig. In about 4 days (payday) I'm going to drop a new vid card in this thing. I was forced to grab the cheapest and best card i could when i upgraded. Although my current card is better than what i had before.

I'm looking at this card: 8800 GTS
Click to expand...

dont buy leadtek. they dont have any cs in the states and if you break it you will have to rma it to taiwan. even when leadtek was in california it took them 6 weeks to send you a new card. from taiwan, it could take the better part of a century.
 
Werd on the LeadTek issue. I'll go with either PNY or eVGA if they have a MSI version then i'll get that. I dont mind spending a few bucks more if I get good CS with it.

I'm a HUGE CS nut. I've been in call centers as a tech rep mostly in the last 10 years. my goal is to make every customer happy and fixed on the first call. Just in the last 4 years, i've been a systems administrator for a huge outsource call center now I'm in Corporate IT. I'm responsible for the operations of about 2000 machines on the floor.
 
Only time I have had to RMA anything was with BFG, and I must say it was a good experience, only reason it wasn't a great experience was because I had to RMA something with them :). I have had several of there video cards and will stick with them when possible.
 
Diablo2K said:
Only time I have had to RMA anything was with BFG, and I must say it was a good experience, only reason it wasn't a great experience was because I had to RMA something with them :). I have had several of there video cards and will stick with them when possible.
Click to expand...

Werd.
 
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