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Real hardware expert needed...

Finwe

n00b
Joined
Apr 26, 2006
Messages
3
I've a Radeon X800XT PE AGP version, and my pc has a watercooling kit, which leaked...right on the graphic card, precisely very near the AGP bus...
So, my pc started crashing randomly until I discovered this leakage problem. So I removed the gfx card, dried the pc and the card, also the agp connector. But what is very strange now is that my gfx card has a new PCI-ID !! some bit are forced to 1 in the ID...so I removed the card and dried it in an oven for some hours, hoping to evaporate the remaining liquid left under some component, but it didnt change anything.
I plugged an other gfx card and checked its pci-id and it was correct so it's not a problem on agp bus.
I tried to clean the agp connector of the gfx card by scratching the seemingly oxyded connection and cleaning with alcohool to remove any grease but nothing do, the card still show a new wrong pci-id.
I tried to redo some of the soldering on some of the component (resistor/capacitor) who had some liquid on them, but still no changes...
So, my question is: does anyone know where is encoded the pci id on an ati card ? (BTW: The pci-id in the bios (I dumped it) is the right one...)
Apart from this, the card works well, but its a nuisance to upgrade the driver because the card is not recognized and so I must upgrade each parts of the card manually...
 
The GPU ID is determined by the layout of resistors on the OPGA GPU package itself. How much leakage was there? Enough to get to the GPU itself perhaps?

Odds are when the water evaporated it left behind enough mineral deposits to create a jumper across two of the points on the GPU where the ID is set.

Carefully remove the cooler from the card and again VERY CAREFULLY clean the GPU core (might as well) and the area around it where all of the little resistors are soldered on. Be VERY careful here as you don't want to accidently knock one of these little resistors loose.

Once you're satisfied that the resistor area is clean, make sure the core is clean and re-apply some thermal paste (AS5 or Ceramique would do nicely). Clean the GPU contact area of the heatsink, and then re-attatch it to the card carefully and making sure all screws are hand tight.

Then give it a go. :)
 
I tried to clean the resistor around the gpu, it looks like some water went there eventually, but the pci-id has not changed (still wrong). I think I didnt cleaned well but it's very hard to do, do you have any advice on how to clean these resistors ? I went with a very small needle and scrapped around the body of each resistor, but I couldnt clean under them...
 
See if you can get something like ATI Tray Tools and force the ID to what it's supposed to be. That might fix the problem. It's also possible it shorted with a power/ground and burnt out one of the resistors. Any idea exactly which but changed? Did something turn into a 1 or a 0?
 
How long has it been sinse the leak?

Last time I had a leak the machine did a lot of strange things. It took 3 or 4 days for it to get bone dry and work 100%

James
 
Another fine reason not to do watercooling :)


Have you tried washing the entire card? Some other thread here (i think on the mobo section) discussed washing components.
 
Ockie said:
Another fine reason not to do watercooling :)

There's nothing wrong with watercooling. As long as you are willing to take responsibility when it fails.

James
 
The primary vga id is now 1002-4B57 instead of 1002-4A50
and the secondary has 1002-4B77instead of 1002-4B70
So that's 4 bit that have been (are) shorted to '1'.
It's several weeks the leakage happened so I dont think it will change with time now...
ATI Tray Tool doesnt start, says it doesnt recognize the card...
I will take a look at the card washing solution hehe
 
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