Blown solid capacitors: I've never seen it. (pics)

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MrWizard6600

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jan 15, 2006
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I've seen my fair share of leeky, bulging or cracked liquid caps, but I've never seen a busted solid one; which is why they're so popular. Well theres a first time for everything. Someone who was staying with my dad was telling me that the computer wouldn't boot. When I hit the power button, it gave me a beep code and a black screen, but numlock was responsive.

Sounded to me like a no video out device deteced failure to me: I just figured something had jimmied itself loose. So I open up the computer and to my suprise:

P2220869.jpg


P2220870.jpg


Those guys wont be providing much voltage regulation for the forseeable future.

three 6.3V 1mF to 1.5mF caps, cracked at the top with their capacitive substrate sticking out like cloth.
 
Nice fan...

I've never seen that happen either. Seen plenty of mobos with blown electrolytic caps though.
 
yeah sure, I've blown plenty of caps in my own bread boarding. But I've never used solid ones and both Gigabyte and Asus would tout them as invincible.

Everything has a breaking point.

I checked out the power supply and it's functioning perfectly. All the rails are well withen spec.

edit: and that fan's not actually as bad as it looks.All things considered the heatsink is in good shape.
 
With that fan it prolly overheated. Most likely multiple times. New sub $50 vid card time? At least it is pci-e
 
That's funny. My buddy just replaced the exact same card because the caps blew. His wasn't even close to being as dusty as yours though and only saw some WoW time at a lower res so his shouldn't have overheated either..
 
My guess is that an upstream part failed and ran the caps out of spec, or just the design was poor and ran the caps outside their specs in the first place.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
Its an 8600GT. It has 32 SPs on a 128 bit bus. It doesn't have an aux power jack.

I live in Canada.

its fine.
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Similar card to my old 8600gt XFX fan and it cooled it right, I still replaced it with a $25 Zalman cooler though.
 
"solid" capacitors are still electrolytic capacitors no matter how much marketing they can throw out there
 
Are you sure that thing isn't plugged up. Looks like smoker dust. The kind of grime that I hated when I did pc repairs. Its one thing to have dust, its another to have that gunk in it from smoke/tar/dust build up.
 
It's an XFX custom revision board (judging from the while "box lines" near the SLI connector), what did you expect? :p
 
lloose said:
Are you sure that thing isn't plugged up. Looks like smoker dust. The kind of grime that I hated when I did pc repairs. Its one thing to have dust, its another to have that gunk in it from smoke/tar/dust build up.
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yes im sure.

Why does everyone here want to assume its the fan? We're talking about a card with a TDP of 50W, even if the fan failed it would still have enough passive cooling capacity to keep the thing under 90C.
edit: the dark smear on the left dog tag is actually in the design of the sticker, its not some new breed of tar filled dust.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
yes im sure.

Why does everyone here want to assume its the fan? We're talking about a card with a TDP of 50W, even if the fan failed it would still have enough passive cooling capacity to keep the thing under 90C.
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With how much dust is on that videocard, its pretty safe to assume that the internal temp of the case was pretty high. Mix that with wattage and your caps will blow.
Edit: took another look and those are Sacon FZ caps. Notoriously bad quality.
 
lloose said:
With how much dust is on that videocard, its pretty safe to assume that the internal temp of the case was pretty high. Mix that with wattage and your caps will blow.
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ok: dust isn't an issue. I'm looking at the card right now. If I had a can of compressed air I'd clean it and retake the pics just so you guys would stop suggesting this. The dust is not an issue.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
ok: dust isn't an issue. I'm looking at the card right now. If I had a can of compressed air I'd clean it and retake the pics just so you guys would stop suggesting this. The dust is not an issue.
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I edited my last post before you replied but anyways, the caps are Sacon FZ series solids. Very notorious low quality caps found on a lot of cheap video cards. XFX, Powercolor and a few other vendors like to use them on their cards.

I wasn't saying that dust is causing the video card to not work, its obviously the blown caps. I was saying that maybe the heat contributed to the caps rupturing. Regardless, the card is dead and probably wont work until you recap it.
 
I've always wondered what's inside those solid caps

Weird stuff, looks like some dried grass to me, lol
 
MrWizard6600 said:
Its an 8600GT. It has 32 SPs on a 128 bit bus. It doesn't have an aux power jack.

I live in Canada.

its fine.
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Was more pointing at how clogged up the fan seemed to me with, whatever that crud is, and not the actual fan itself, or your ambient room temps, or geography. If you say it's fine that way, it's fine, was just commenting.
 
Solid electrolyte caps don't have vents, those aren't solids. As already stated, the Sacon FZ are known to fail frequently, they're just regular crap-quality aluminum lytics with clear sleeves.
 
If the video card is that dirty how bad is the rest of the PC? That's really really bad.
 
Oh damn! :eek: I wonder what caps the XFX HD4850's with the custom PCB's have... :(

I'm hoping they don't blow out as well too. <Crossing fingers>
 
My friend's XFX 8600GT looks identical to that although it's been very thoroughly cleaned and is awaiting new caps from Mouser.

Apparently those specific caps have a very bad reputation. You can find out more if you research them.
 
Mouser is awesome. Just tossed a few catalogs away and found it ironic to quickly see a mention of company on the forums.
 
Thats the exact same card I have in my old computer. During winter it barely runs above room temperature, the fan barely even speeds up when doing what little gaming you can on it.
 
yeah I did register mine in time. Thats definately the only real downside to XFX and EVGA: they demand you register your stuff, and with good reason I guess, still an inconvenience.

Anyways, after doing a little digging I have seen that this exact card has seen wide-spread returns.

who knew: when you bring a regular cap up above its specified voltage rating, it blows up.
when you bring a solid capacitor up above its specified voltage rating, hey guess what:
it blows up.
 
So, since it's dead, who gets the Dog Tags? Will they be sent home to the 8600's family?
 
Just solder some new ones on there that are overspec.

Just did that on a 9800gt that blew two regulator caps near the aftermarket heatsink I put on there.

Word of caution, make sure you feel your caps after making a cooling change and not just the memory and chip backside.
 
Holy shit...did that fan even spin anymore with that dust cake in there?
But anyway...I just fixed a 7600GS that did the same thing. 4 bucks for a bag of new caps, soldered them on, and it's good as new.
 
Cschill1290 said:
Holy shit...did that fan even spin anymore with that dust cake in there?
But anyway...I just fixed a 7600GS that did the same thing. 4 bucks for a bag of new caps, soldered them on, and it's good as new.
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yeah I'm thinking more and more I should just do something like this.

But XFX is just about to issue me an RMA ticket, and who knows, maybe they ship out 9600GT as a replacement. This little 32SP thing really was kinda dinky. I mean it does TF2 just fine but, eh :p.
 
Same thing happened to me, same card xfx 8600gt with the dog tags. A few weeks ago, a loud pop was heard near my pc. I checked on it everything seems to be working fine. I thought it was just the microwave dinner, you know how those things do that. Then 2 days ago when i booted up the box, lots of artifacts were cropping up the boot screen its like nintendo when you yank out the cartridge in the middle of a game. I opened the box and checked on the video card.
l


I made out a ticket to xfx explaining what happened. Now they are weaseling out of their double lifetime warranty; even though i took the time to register my product within the deadline.
 
techpimp said:
Same thing happened to me, same card xfx 8600gt with the dog tags. A few weeks ago, a loud pop was heard near my pc. I checked on it everything seems to be working fine. I thought it was just the microwave dinner, you know how those things do that. Then 2 days ago when i booted up the box, lots of artifacts were cropping up the boot screen its like nintendo when you yank out the cartridge in the middle of a game. I opened the box and checked on the video card.
l


I made out a ticket to xfx explaining what happened. Now they are weaseling out of their double lifetime warranty; even though i took the time to register my product within the deadline.
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I also heard the loud pop when mine went. Did XFX say why they won't cover it under warranty? I didn't register mine in time.
 
techpimp said:
I made out a ticket to xfx explaining what happened. Now they are weaseling out of their double lifetime warranty; even though i took the time to register my product within the deadline.
Click to expand...

Damn, what is XFX saying?
 
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