Asus RTX 2080ti physical damage

sabbin

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Hi all...
During the last cleanup of thermal paste on my GPU... I managed to remove some capacitors (or what are they) that are near the GPU processing unit.

Are these components something that can be found somewhere else than a same video card?
Can anyone help me with finding out what exactly are these component and where can I find them?

Thanks in advance!

photo5821165624234194848.jpg
 
Kind of difficult to wipe off thermal paste and wipe those diodes off. You must've used some serious force. I've never had that happen to me. I've sliced off diodes using a razor blade when removing the IHS off a CPU tho.
 
Send it to the repair shops on YouTube that specialize in electronic repair on computer boards 😉.
 
So are you sure you removed anything? like did you see the pieces come off or are you assuming they did because the spot looks empty?
 
I can't explain myself how did I manage to remove them, believe me I'm breaking my head on this too... I have a repair shop for electronics here, they said that they can help but they need to know what type of component is needed... I removed them because of the empty spaces, also found only one in the thermal paste... so I cannot be 100% that I removed all that are empty but I have to assume that I did.

I took that one with me, but the guys who looked at it at the microscope said that it's nothing written on it that may help to determine what kind it is...

That's what kind I'm asking here... What are those and if they can be found anywhere else than the same model of video card
 
I can't explain myself how did I manage to remove them, believe me I'm breaking my head on this too... I have a repair shop for electronics here, they said that they can help but they need to know what type of component is needed... I removed them because of the empty spaces, also found only one in the thermal paste... so I cannot be 100% that I removed all that are empty but I have to assume that I did.

I took that one with me, but the guys who looked at it at the microscope said that it's nothing written on it that may help to determine what kind it is...

That's what kind I'm asking here... What are those and if they can be found anywhere else than the same model of video card


I mentibed the YouTube videos because they don't always know what parts were there but can figure it out. They seem to be electronic wizards that either know from experience or can figure it out based out knowing the primary voltages for each subsection.
 
I mentibed the YouTube videos because they don't always know what parts were there but can figure it out. They seem to be electronic wizards that either know from experience or can figure it out based out knowing the primary voltages for each subsection.
I would be grateful if you can recommend someone in Europe who can help me with this. I don't usually watch repair channels, so if anyone comes in mind, please tell
 
RazorWind is the only person who comes to my mind who might know if this can feasibly be fixed with readily available tools.
It's hard to say without better pictures, and with components this small, you pretty much need microscope shots. The real danger is that in addition to the missing caps (they're probably MLC caps), the pads they go on may have also gotten ripped off, meaning you'd need to repair that damage first, and that's likely to be very difficult.
Are these components something that can be found somewhere else than a same video card?
Probably. The ones you're missing appear to be an oddball package, but there are numerous suppliers that sell replacement SMD capacitors, such as Digi-Key and Mouser. I'm surprised that the shop you took the board to wasn't aware of this, if they're qualified to repair this.

Assuming it's not damaged, you should be able to measure the capacitance value of the one you ripped off with a multimeter. You could probably also figure out which circuits they're part of by checking the pads with a meter, and that would help with finding an appropriate part, since it would tell you the voltage rating you need.

What I would do is try to find a photo of an undamaged one, and compare yours to that, and see where you're actually missing components. I suspect those pads aren't all supposed to be populated.

What kind of thermal grease were you using that you had to scrub off this violently?

Edit: A little more digging indicates that these are probably LICCs (Low inductance ceramic capacitors). In other words, special oddball SMD caps, and I'm not seeing them on Digi-Key. I could probably figure out where they come from if I were sufficiently motivated, but once I did, I'd probably have to buy about $100 worth in order to get even one.
 
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Yeah, I really wouldn't recommend trying to fix it based on watching the videos when I see then on my recommendations. You need a microscope, microsolder skills, parts, and have to test the voltages to verify things. I will see if one in Europe I will update the post.
 
yes go easier on the thermal paste next go round. the stuff we used to use years ago was very conductive and would short that stuff out if it touched. make sure your using some good alcohol cleaner to break that stuff up. op might should look into high quality thermal pads for the future.:)
 
yes go easier on the thermal paste next go round. the stuff we used to use years ago was very conductive and would short that stuff out if it touched. make sure your using some good alcohol cleaner to break that stuff up. op might should look into high quality thermal pads for the future.:)
Yeah a little isopropyl and a toothbrush will do the trick nicely.
 
It's hard to say without better pictures, and with components this small, you pretty much need microscope shots. The real danger is that in addition to the missing caps (they're probably MLC caps), the pads they go on may have also gotten ripped off, meaning you'd need to repair that damage first, and that's likely to be very difficult.

Probably. The ones you're missing appear to be an oddball package, but there are numerous suppliers that sell replacement SMD capacitors, such as Digi-Key and Mouser. I'm surprised that the shop you took the board to wasn't aware of this, if they're qualified to repair this.

Assuming it's not damaged, you should be able to measure the capacitance value of the one you ripped off with a multimeter. You could probably also figure out which circuits they're part of by checking the pads with a meter, and that would help with finding an appropriate part, since it would tell you the voltage rating you need.

What I would do is try to find a photo of an undamaged one, and compare yours to that, and see where you're actually missing components. I suspect those pads aren't all supposed to be populated.

What kind of thermal grease were you using that you had to scrub off this violently?

Edit: A little more digging indicates that these are probably LICCs (Low inductance ceramic capacitors). In other words, special oddball SMD caps, and I'm not seeing them on Digi-Key. I could probably figure out where they come from if I were sufficiently motivated, but once I did, I'd probably have to buy about $100 worth in order to get even one.
They are not GPU repair shop, they are general electronics... I think they repair circuit boards for TV's etc... They said that they can help me but I need to help them with the missing parts...

As for the thermal paste, I don't know to be honest. I tried removing it to add a waterblock
yes go easier on the thermal paste next go round. the stuff we used to use years ago was very conductive and would short that stuff out if it touched. make sure your using some good alcohol cleaner to break that stuff up. op might should look into high quality thermal pads for the future.:)
I went as easy as can go. I can't even understand myself what the hell happened
Yeah a little isopropyl and a toothbrush will do the trick nicely.
I used isopropyl and q-tips
 
As for the thermal paste, I don't know to be honest. I tried removing it to add a waterblock
Something isn't adding up. If they came off this easily, then it seems likely to me that something about the thermal paste damaged the solder. This is known to happen with indium-based liquid metal TIMs, but I wonder if maybe some other types do as well.

I once got a dead 295x2 from Ebay that came with some really weird thermal paste on it. It was very shiny and metallic looking, but still a paste, unlike "liquid metal" which really is more of a globby semi-liquid. The stuff in your photo looks a lot like that oddball paste, and it wouldn't surprise me if maybe there's a brand of thermal paste we don't see much here in the States that contains indium, or something else that dissolves one of the components out of lead free solder. I think the 295 I bought was shipped from Israel.

Anyway, the fix for this is to:
0. Clean the remaining thermal grease off very carefully using lots of isopropanol and very gentle mechanical scrubbing. It must be CLEAN before you do anything else. I would not attempt to use an ultrasonic on this.
1. Use a multimeter to measure the capacitance of the cap you still have.
2. Track down a cut tape of LICC caps in that capacitance with voltage rating in the 1.5-2V range or more.
3. Use either a very fine soldering iron or some mad skillz with a hot air station (NOT A HEAT GUN!) to solder the new caps on there.
4. I might touch up the solder on the remaining ones once I was done, using a good leaded solder and a super fine tip on my iron.
Is it just me or has there been a flood of new members about damaging boards recently? The microwave one was epic...
I've noticed this too. I've wondered to myself if maybe my threads have trained Google to point certain keywords related to this to those threads, and that leads all these folks here. That may just be my overinflated sense of self importance talking, though. <shrug>
 
They are not GPU repair shop, they are general electronics... I think they repair circuit boards for TV's etc... They said that they can help me but I need to help them with the missing parts...

As for the thermal paste, I don't know to be honest. I tried removing it to add a waterblock

I went as easy as can go. I can't even understand myself what the hell happened

I used isopropyl and q-tips
https://www.amazon.com/ArctiClean-Thermal-Compound-Remover-Purifier/dp/B001JYQ9TM?th=1 this stuff will break up paste much better than alcohole....its just kinda expensive for the amount you get.
 
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Something isn't adding up. If they came off this easily, then it seems likely to me that something about the thermal paste damaged the solder. This is known to happen with indium-based liquid metal TIMs, but I wonder if maybe some other types do as well.

I once got a dead 295x2 from Ebay that came with some really weird thermal paste on it. It was very shiny and metallic looking, but still a paste, unlike "liquid metal" which really is more of a globby semi-liquid. The stuff in your photo looks a lot like that oddball paste, and it wouldn't surprise me if maybe there's a brand of thermal paste we don't see much here in the States that contains indium, or something else that dissolves one of the components out of lead free solder. I think the 295 I bought was shipped from Israel.

Anyway, the fix for this is to:
0. Clean the remaining thermal grease off very carefully using lots of isopropanol and very gentle mechanical scrubbing. It must be CLEAN before you do anything else. I would not attempt to use an ultrasonic on this.
1. Use a multimeter to measure the capacitance of the cap you still have.
2. Track down a cut tape of LICC caps in that capacitance with voltage rating in the 1.5-2V range or more.
3. Use either a very fine soldering iron or some mad skillz with a hot air station (NOT A HEAT GUN!) to solder the new caps on there.
4. I might touch up the solder on the remaining ones once I was done, using a good leaded solder and a super fine tip on my iron.

I've noticed this too. I've wondered to myself if maybe my threads have trained Google to point certain keywords related to this to those threads, and that leads all these folks here. That may just be my overinflated sense of self importance talking, though. <shrug>
Yeah q tips and iso won't take those off. Well, maybe they can but if you got a dead card handy you can do an experiment and see how hard it is?
 
I've noticed this too. I've wondered to myself if maybe my threads have trained Google to point certain keywords related to this to those threads, and that leads all these folks here. That may just be my overinflated sense of self importance talking, though. <shrug>
This one is on me. I referred the OP from the LinusTechTips forum over to you. (y)
 
Yeah q tips and iso won't take those off. Well, maybe they can but if you got a dead card handy you can do an experiment and see how hard it is?
I don't think I'd be able to scrub hard enough to knock one off with a q-tip. I've posted videos of myself scrubbing these with a toothbrush and isopropanol, and I've never knocked one off, even when the toothbrush is already crusty with flux residue.

Hence why I suggested that the thermal grease did something to the solder. That's the only way I can imagine accidentally knocking them off using any sane level of cleaning effort. Maybe OP is actually the Incredible Hulk?
 
I don't think I'd be able to scrub hard enough to knock one off with a q-tip. I've posted videos of myself scrubbing these with a toothbrush and isopropanol, and I've never knocked one off, even when the toothbrush is already crusty with flux residue.

Hence why I suggested that the thermal grease did something to the solder. That's the only way I can imagine accidentally knocking them off using any sane level of cleaning effort. Maybe OP is actually the Incredible Hulk?
He sure taught those caps a lesson!
 
He sure taught those caps a lesson!
I don't think I'd be able to scrub hard enough to knock one off with a q-tip. I've posted videos of myself scrubbing these with a toothbrush and isopropanol, and I've never knocked one off, even when the toothbrush is already crusty with flux residue.

Hence why I suggested that the thermal grease did something to the solder. That's the only way I can imagine accidentally knocking them off using any sane level of cleaning effort. Maybe OP is actually the Incredible Hulk?
When I got the GPU, the previous owner used liquid cooling paste, I think it was thermal grizzly conductonaut...

I removed the original cooling radiator and fans and replaced the with a Kraken G12 + Kraken X62 AIO... When I changed this, I took some thermal paste from the same person (not liquid metal), which I don't know what it was, but assumed that is ok given the fact that the person uses quality products....

After a while I had issues with the VRAM, because the G12 doesn't have any solution beside a fan for them. I had to underclook the memory clock in order not to have artifacts. That is when I decided to go for a full water block and custom loop... Cleaning the thermal paste to prepare for the water block got me in this situation...

First when I assembled the water block on the GPU, I didn't apply enough thermal paste to make full contact and it always went into protection after 10 seconds. It didn't make full contact because the thermal pads on the VRMS created a little gap between the waterblock and the chipset. I took it apart again, cleaned again the chipset and applied more thermal paste. All good the PC booted up, but in Windows the device could not start... I could see the video and all but the device could not be started

I thought that something else was wrongly put together and took it apart again, cleaned the paste off and then I thought to clean all the paste. In that moment I saw that there were missing already some of them, and only one was left in the paste.

It's odd for me too... It's not the first GPU I clean, I'm not a professional but have done some builds in my life...
 
When I got the GPU, the previous owner used liquid cooling paste, I think it was thermal grizzly conductonaut...
Hmm wonder if they really botched the application and got it on the caps and it ate the solder? Don't know much about LM myself aside from the fact it eats at certain metals.
 
I betcha he got some liquid metal on those SMD components. This is a known thing, and why the smart overclockers cover them with nail polish before applying liquid metal.
Yep, you're supposed to do the same when delidding lots of the intel CPUs. Mainly as a precaution.

Also the memory does not need active cooling typically with a kraken so I'm guessing this former owner was a total amateur.
 
Yep, you're supposed to do the same when delidding lots of the intel CPUs. Mainly as a precaution.

Also the memory does not need active cooling typically with a kraken so I'm guessing this former owner was a total amateur.
I had to go back and read his last post again to see what you meant about the memory, but it should be noted that 2/3 of those little SMD components are most likely related to the memory. I didn't check when I had my 2080 Ti apart last, but most nvidia GPU designs seem to do that. A few of them will be wired up to the VCore power rail, but at least half are actually connected to the memory. Same with the larger ones on the back of the GPU area - most are actually memory related.

If he was able to knock those off with a q-tip, I bet at least a few more of them are loose, and may have something to do with his memory artifact problems.
 
I had to go back and read his last post again to see what you meant about the memory, but it should be noted that 2/3 of those little SMD components are most likely related to the memory. I didn't check when I had my 2080 Ti apart last, but most nvidia GPU designs seem to do that. A few of them will be wired up to the VCore power rail, but at least half are actually connected to the memory. Same with the larger ones on the back of the GPU area - most are actually memory related.

If he was able to knock those off with a q-tip, I bet at least a few more of them are loose, and may have something to do with his memory artifact problems.
Yep, I didn't say it in the last post but I was thinking he got sold a partially broken card already. This is the reason I'd never buy a card from someone who used LM unless I was sure they knew what they were doing.
 
When I got the GPU, the previous owner used liquid cooling paste, I think it was thermal grizzly conductonaut...

I removed the original cooling radiator and fans and replaced the with a Kraken G12 + Kraken X62 AIO... When I changed this, I took some thermal paste from the same person (not liquid metal), which I don't know what it was, but assumed that is ok given the fact that the person uses quality products....

After a while I had issues with the VRAM, because the G12 doesn't have any solution beside a fan for them. I had to underclook the memory clock in order not to have artifacts. That is when I decided to go for a full water block and custom loop... Cleaning the thermal paste to prepare for the water block got me in this situation...

First when I assembled the water block on the GPU, I didn't apply enough thermal paste to make full contact and it always went into protection after 10 seconds. It didn't make full contact because the thermal pads on the VRMS created a little gap between the waterblock and the chipset. I took it apart again, cleaned again the chipset and applied more thermal paste. All good the PC booted up, but in Windows the device could not start... I could see the video and all but the device could not be started

I thought that something else was wrongly put together and took it apart again, cleaned the paste off and then I thought to clean all the paste. In that moment I saw that there were missing already some of them, and only one was left in the paste.

It's odd for me too... It's not the first GPU I clean, I'm not a professional but have done some builds in my life...

OF COURSE.
The idiot used Conductonaut (Liquid Metal), a Galinstan alloy, and didn't properly insulate the SMD's around the die with conformal coating (MG chemicals conformal coating), 3 coats of transparent (nitrocellulose based) nail polish, or Super 33+ electrical tape (the only tape that should be used, besides 3M high temp polyimide tape). To be safe, you can use nail polish first over the SMD's, then after it dries for 10 minutes, then use Super 33+ (or 3M polyimide tape) afterwards on top of it. Then to fully complete the job and 100% protect everything around the core, you can throw on a very thin (like 1/8th of an inch thick) cutout square of air conditioner polyurethane foam (it must be very very light and must compress to <0.1mm without any force required, otherwise this may interfere with contact pressure on the die).

Any gallium based liquid metal (Liquid Ultra, Conductonaut, Silver King, or generic / homemade Galinstan (68% gallium, 22% Indium, 10% Tin) will slowly dissolve any solder it comes into contact with, and SMD's like that will simply be sheared off with no effort, after that happens People found this out when they were using liquid metal to short shunt resistors as a ghetto shunt mod, back in the day. Now everyone just solders shunts on top properly.
 
OF COURSE.
The idiot used Conductonaut (Liquid Metal), a Galinstan alloy, and didn't properly insulate the SMD's around the die with conformal coating (MG chemicals conformal coating), 3 coats of transparent (nitrocellulose based) nail polish, or Super 33+ electrical tape (the only tape that should be used, besides 3M high temp polyimide tape). To be safe, you can use nail polish first over the SMD's, then after it dries for 10 minutes, then use Super 33+ (or 3M polyimide tape) afterwards on top of it. Then to fully complete the job and 100% protect everything around the core, you can throw on a very thin (like 1/8th of an inch thick) cutout square of air conditioner polyurethane foam (it must be very very light and must compress to <0.1mm without any force required, otherwise this may interfere with contact pressure on the die).

Any gallium based liquid metal (Liquid Ultra, Conductonaut, Silver King, or generic / homemade Galinstan (68% gallium, 22% Indium, 10% Tin) will slowly dissolve any solder it comes into contact with, and SMD's like that will simply be sheared off with no effort, after that happens People found this out when they were using liquid metal to short shunt resistors as a ghetto shunt mod, back in the day. Now everyone just solders shunts on top properly.
This is exactly what I think happened.
 
there ya go sabbin...These things happen when buying used hardware from people. I wont personally buy hardware that i know has been modafied for any reason. You bought a ticking time bomb and didnt know it.

Yeah. Shunts can be resoldered pretty easily with any decent soldering iron (65W+) and some Rosin Flux. But SMD's like that, that small, no normal person is going to have the skills to fix that.
That's why it pays to do "too much" work to protect the area around the core, not too little.

LM can even potentially get under Super 33+ tape (especially if that's not your first application/clean), so putting some conformal coating on top, then putting Super 33+ tape on top of that, is a good idea.
Air conditioner type Foam dams (in addition to the above), are for if you absolutely don't want LM to go anywhere it shouldn't go, ever. In that case, then your only worry in the future is dealing with the cleanup if the LM ever oxidizes and temps worsen over a long period of time, and you need to clean up the hardened LM and reapply. Cleaning up the chip is pretty easy (just again messy, LM goes where it wants so cover up everything). Cleaning up the heatsink of dried gallium requires something abrasive like 3000 grit sandpaper and pure isopropyl alcohol (and is even messier).
 
This definitely looks like liquid metal eating away at the SMD's and detaching it from the soldering point.
 
If you could find the parts, that is something that any experienced person with a good hot air station (I like JBC) can fix. I would clean it up, lay down kapton tape around the area, and use low temp solder paste from chipquick along with a fine tip on the hot air station. Not that difficult. The bigger question is if all of them need to be replaced though due to the grease eating away at the solder. Doable, just a pain in the ass.
 
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