• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Broken cap on 4870

T

Tudz

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jun 15, 2008
Messages
7,434
G'day all,

Today I finally decided to install a Twin Turbo Pro on my Sapphire 4870. I didn't actually have it from new, my friend had it for a while then gave it to me. As long as I've had it, its always made whining noises at times, scrolling windows, in certain games (but not all games). I figured it was just capacitor whine which some people report and didn't really think a lot of it (other than it being annoying).

But when I went to remove the stock heatsink today I noticed one of the caps is actually half broken off the PCB! I'm pretty sure I didn't do it, though maybe my friend did before he gave it to me, or maybe the store that put the computer together. Do you think this would be the cause of the whining noise?

Now the thing is pretty old, it was a launch 4870 so that'd make it, ummm, coming up on 2 years old now I suppose.

The card still performs great, though the noise has always bothered me. The join that's broken looks really small, smaller than anything I've ever tried to solder before (I'm not a proficient solderer by any means, not even sure if the tip of my soldering iron would fit in the tiny gap).

The cap that's broken is the one close to the fan header, if you look at this picture, the one in the very bottom right of the card (to the left of the fan header).

http://www.coolingconfigurator.com/upload/pictures/Radeon-4870-ATI-PCB.jpg

What do you think I should do? Have a crack at soldering it? Take it to an electronics joint to repair it?
 
Check if any of the leads are actually broken off of the pcb. If it's bent and the lead's are attached it should be fine assuming the leads weren't pulled on the inside of the cap. If any of the leads are broken then you should simply solder it back on, or have somebody else do it.
 
By leads do you mean the circuitry around the cap? It just looks like where the cap solders to the board, its broken just above the solder. Excuse my ignorance, I dont know much about electronics. I actually put it back in my computer and am using it now, figured if it hasn't set on fire in the past 2 years it wont now, and needed something in the computer to come on here to ask the question, lol. When I get back in a couple of hours I might take it out and see if I can take a photo of it with my iPhone.
 
the leads are the two little wires coming out of the cap.
 
Oh, well I guess its the lead that's broken then, but its broken right near the solder.
 
At least you had a 4870 that worked at one point. My POS keeps throttle crashing. Nothing fixes it either. Not Rivatuner and not disabling Powerplay.
 
Tudz said:
Oh, well I guess its the lead that's broken then, but its broken right near the solder.
Click to expand...

Alright, then simply check to see if there is a similar situation with any of the caps around it and have somebody solder them back in place.
 
easy fix with any luck;)

anyone else find it amazing how well these 'old' cards still preform? mind you i have an older 24" monitor so all i care is that i can run at 1920x1200...and i don't care much about AA. if i can turn it on cool, but if not i really dont mind all that much
 
the 4870/50 are still great cards.. i've been running a 4850 since launch and a 4870 for over a year now. i would say it is probably the 2 best cards i've bought. I've had it coupled with my 37" westy from the beginning and haven't had a problem yet..

I'm actually hoping to find a crossfire moboard for cheap and i was going to try a mixed crossfire between the 4850 and 4870 and get even more life out of them
 
Yeah, the 4870 was great value. $360AUD at launch was a bargain, it didn't drop much below that for a year and even now the 5850 has only just gotten into the same price bracket and isn't a huge upgrade over the 4870 given that its 2 years old. Just before the 4000 series finished you could buy a 4890 for a bit over $200AUD and I regret not buying it, because even now nothing is as good in the same price range (5830 and GTX460 are both closer to $300 than $200AUD).

I was actually pretty disappointed with the release prices of the 5870 and 5850, way higher than the release prices of the 4870 and 4850 but really not huge of a jump performance wise.
 
Managed to solder it back on. Against my better judgement I just did it myself. It wasn't very easy to solder, I dont think my iron is hot enough for whatever they used, it wouldn't melt easily without scorching the PCB, but luckily there wasn't any other circuitry close to the break so I managed to get it rejoined without damaging anything else (just a slight scorch mark below the cap on the PCB).

It runs fine now.... that said it ran fine before too so I dont know whether anything has actually changed. The capacitor whine is still there under load (in Furmark for example).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top