7970 physical damage. Fixable?

S

Sketchus

n00b
Joined
Jul 26, 2014
Messages
29
Hi all,

Long story short one of my 7970s got damaged in a move. Here it is.

C9zhTJi.jpg


No video output any more. Is this card a wrote off or salvageable somehow?

Thanks in advance.
 
Looks like you're SOL. Pack better next time by removing all components, separating all components using bubblewrap (or if you have no $$$, wrap in clothes/towels) for each item and newspaper/popcorn in-between.

Or if you were driving: have the system ride with you like a little passenger, preferably on the floor.

Can always sell it on eBay and get some money back for it, so not a total loss. Someone will buy it, just list it as "For Parts / Not Working". Whether you include that photo is up to you
 
Totally fixable with a hot air soldering.

Cheapest go for about $80, then you would probably need something to measure to values of the surrounding caps
 
Last edited:
Hmm, I need to look into this. Preferably I'd get the work done by someone in the UK, no idea who that'd be. I have a pretty steady hand, but then I've never done something so small as that either.
 
master noran said:
Totally fixable with a hot air soldering.

Cheapest go for about $80, then you would probably need something to measure to values of the surrounding caps
Click to expand...

Its been a long while since my classes in this area, so my first question what are we looking at? specifically what kind of component is it that damaged? Im not ashamed to admit it, but im not even sure what those are? Are they tiny capacitors? where would you even find replacements? even if you had the tools, it would take brain surgeon fingers skills to work on stuff that small, or am i wrong?:)
 
primetime said:
Its been a long while since my classes in this area, so my first question what are we looking at? specifically what kind of component is it that damaged? Im not ashamed to admit it, but im not even sure what those are? Are they tiny capacitors? where would you even find replacements? even if you had the tools, it would take brain surgeon fingers skills to work on stuff that small, or am i wrong?:)
Click to expand...

Those look like small SMD caps/resistors, find out the missing caps values and order them online. You could probably solder them on with a fine chisel tip soldering iron. It's pretty easy, just google SMD soldering for videos.

Op, badcaps.net would be a good place to get help
 
Last edited:
Xinmosni said:
Looks like you're SOL.
Click to expand...

No he isn't. That is a easy repair for anyone with a little solder experience. Just find the the resistor type and value. Then just check your area for someone experienced in soldering to solder the new piece back in. Or if he is feeling up to it he can attempt the repair himself. Shouldn't cost him much at all to have it repaired.
 
Last edited:
99vw said:
No he isn't. That is a easy repair for anyone with a little solder experience. Just find the the resistor type and value. Then just check your area for someone experienced in soldering to solder the new piece back in. Or if he is feeling up to it he can attempt the repair himself. Shouldn't cost him much at all to have it repaired.
Click to expand...

Yea it is basically solder 102..The class after you learn how to turn on and tin your iron:p..
 
easily fixable, hardest part will be figure out the values of the parts needed to replace it.
 
Damn I'd rather pay to have it done. That badcaps place looks great, except I'm UK based :(
 
There is a chance those are 0 ohm. If that's the case, you can just use solder to connect the pads directly and bypass replacement parts altogether. I know certain manufacturers use 0 ohm "resistors" when enabling features on boards that can be disabled simply by not having one. Anyway, just a thought.
 
CruisD64 said:
There is a chance those are 0 ohm. If that's the case, you can just use solder to connect the pads directly and bypass replacement parts altogether. I know certain manufacturers use 0 ohm "resistors" when enabling features on boards that can be disabled simply by not having one. Anyway, just a thought.
Click to expand...

I actually was thinking the same thing....or i would at least try to solder a trace between the points or a small piece of wire....be worth a shot and not super difficult
 
The capacitors are 220nf (0.22uf) using the 0402 package (for pci-e 2.0 they were 100nf). Anything rated above 5V should work.

These should do the trick:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10-X-CAP-MLCC-X5R-220NF-10V-0402-Part-MURATA-GRM155R61A224KE19D-/390881606553?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Components_Supplies_ET&hash=item5b025bfb99


Might be worth double checking the card to see if all the pads are still there, I can only see solder on 4 out of 6.
If you opt to do the repair yourself it shouldn't be too difficult. If not then I'm in the UK and have done these before, I'll send you a PM.
 
Just to confirm this would likely be the issue surrounding me getting no video right?

As it stands I doubt I'll be repairing myself. Definitely drop me a pm.
 
OK cool.

Initially the card would display for a time, then would crash if I was running any game in crossfire. Now it just doesn't output any signal whatsoever.

It'd be good to get this fixed, it'd at least mean I could hold off on upgrading for a little while. If it's broken for good, I imagine I'll go for the 800 series Nvidia cards.
 
Yep, those are caps, not resistors. The SMD resistors are black. capacitors are always that light tan color.

Super easy to tell apart, and not sure why people almost always think they are resistors.

Super easy to fix as well. Find any electronics repair place and you can probably have it fixed for really cheap. It is about a 5 minute fix for a person good with a soldering iron.
 
Haha, I posted this elsewhere and I've had multiple people say they're resistors (not that I'm doubting you). I looked at the solder we had here, and it's a giant thing, not really suitable for something so small. Did use it to solder a modchip into the original Xbox I think, but that thing was massive.
 
case sensitive said:
The capacitors are 220nf (0.22uf) using the 0402 package (for pci-e 2.0 they were 100nf). Anything rated above 5V should work.

These should do the trick:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10-X-CAP-MLCC-X5R-220NF-10V-0402-Part-MURATA-GRM155R61A224KE19D-/390881606553?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Components_Supplies_ET&hash=item5b025bfb99


Might be worth double checking the card to see if all the pads are still there, I can only see solder on 4 out of 6.
If you opt to do the repair yourself it shouldn't be too difficult. If not then I'm in the UK and have done these before, I'll send you a PM.
Click to expand...

I for one am seriously curious how your able to identify the exact model of those caps...im not doubting you for a second, just trying to pick up how you did it
 
primetime said:
I for one am seriously curious how your able to identify the exact model of those caps...im not doubting you for a second, just trying to pick up how you did it
Click to expand...

Agreed, do tell. Guessing you do quite a bit of electronics work?
 
I could be wrong, but he may have just referenced some PCIe spec sheet to see what sort of caps are called for at the various pins on the slot. Pretty much every GPU I've seen has those rows of caps along the slot so I'd imagine it has something to do with the pci specification.
 
Sapphire responded to my email regarding them fixing it:

Dear Customer,

The damage is a bit serious, we couldn’t guarantee it can be repaired. And it needs to be shipped to our China plant for repairing, customer will bear the freight cost.

Thanks and Best Regards
Click to expand...
 
haz_mat said:
I could be wrong, but he may have just referenced some PCIe spec sheet to see what sort of caps are called for at the various pins on the slot. Pretty much every GPU I've seen has those rows of caps along the slot so I'd imagine it has something to do with the pci specification.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this, those capacitors are the same on any pci-e 3.0 card. On any pci-e 2.0 card they are 100nf.

If it was anywhere else on the pcb then I wouldn't have a clue :)

Sketchus said:
Initially the card would display for a time, then would crash if I was running any game in crossfire. Now it just doesn't output any signal whatsoever.
Click to expand...
Was this after the damage? I would of thought that kind of damage would cause no video output immediately.
 
Well.I'm a little unsure as it was acting as my second card in a crossfire setup. Sometimes it wouldn't show up as plugged in, then if did almost any 3D game would crash it. If I plugged it in on its own it would almost never display anything unless my PC was on its side. Even then it would just crash. It's definitely nothing to do with my mobo though, since I did replace it a week or two ago, and the same issue occurred.
 
Sorry to dig this up, but if anyone was interested, I sent the card off to case sensitive and he soldered some new caps on for me. Magically everything seems to be working great! I can't believe it, thought the card was a total write off.

So thanks a ton to him.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top