Repairing 2x 9600gt(s) or From Trash to Toys!

[Space_Monkey]

The other day I decided to do a closet cleanout and found a bunch of old parts I had laying around. After getting everything together I came out with a halfway decent backup rig. But it was missing something... A gfx card. After scouring Ebay I came across an auction for 2 9600gt(s) 512mb models. The seller posted that they were working but would shut off after a day or so of operation, but the were physically fine outside of the dust. So I decided to take the leap and snag em, I ended up paying $30 after shipping.

So they came in yesterday, horribly packaged and... damaged.

IMGCard3 by Space0Monkey, on Flickr
^^^^^^^^^^
This card has some wonderfully popped caps and is missing a capacitor


IMGCard7 by Space0Monkey, on Flickr
^^^^^^^^^^
The bottom card has a cap that fell off while I was handling it. It looks like the seller had tried to glue it back on.


IMGCard6 by Space0Monkey, on Flickr
^^^^^^^^^^
A close up of the carnage.


IMGCard5 by Space0Monkey, on Flickr
^^^^^^^^^^
This is actually a pic of the other card, same popped caps.


IMGCard1 by Space0Monkey, on Flickr
^^^^^^^^^^
A better shot of the missing cap.



So after checking with XFX it looks like the previous owner never registered it, soooo I'm outta luck on the double lifetime warranty. I wouldn't expect them to replace the card either way, as it is damaged by the owner. Its now up to me to repair it, hopefully by replacing the caps and cleaning it up I can get it working again. No real way to tell until I get started though.

I'll be updating this soon with more pics and progress!

[ExodusC]

Did the cards boot and run like the seller had stated? I'm just curious since there are numerous damage areas on those cards. I had heard of cards running while missing a capacitor, but I'm amazed they run at all with quite a few damaged caps.

Either way, I'm excited to know if you get them running stable. Make sure to post more pictures.

[Space_Monkey]

ExodusC - Unfortunately I haven't tried powering them on yet, I don't think I'm brave enough haha, I'm worried it could damage the cards more... But we'll see when they're all done.


I've cleaned them up a bit and put on new thermal paste, but I also ran into a new problem...


IMGCard8 by Space0Monkey, on Flickr
^^^^^^^^^^
Soooo while I was cleaning the back I noticed this little guy hanging on with only one contact... After touching it lightly it fell off all together. I'm not sure whether I'll be able to get in there to reattach it or not. Looks like it may be the end of the road for one of the cards, but I'm certainly going to try to repair it.

Here are some more pictures, just cleaning and reapplying some arctic silver.


IMGCard10 by Space0Monkey, on Flickr


IMGCard9 by Space0Monkey, on Flickr


IMGCard12 by Space0Monkey, on Flickr


IMGCard15 by Space0Monkey, on Flickr
^^^^^^^^^^
All cleaned up!


IMGCard14 by Space0Monkey, on Flickr

^^^^^^^^^^
My graveyard of q-tips.


Coming up with my list of parts now, hopefully I'll get them ordered today.

[Splave]

subscribed good luck man

[K404]

Missing caps don't have to be a big deal at all I have an 8800 Ultra that's missing caps around a few of the memory chips and it just happens to OC better on the RAM than any G80 i've ever had

Replacing caps is easy, but if you're new to it, this should be a great learning curve for you

[Space_Monkey]

Splave - Thanks man, I think I'm going to need it

K404 - Haha I hope so lol. I've replaced a few capacitors over the years so I'm not afraid of it, but that little guy on the back is gonna be a pain

Well I'm still sourcing the parts, trying to get as many as I can from within the US but that seems to be increasingly difficult. Looks like I'll be spending well under $20 for the parts though

[little_scrapper]

in regards to that chip cap on the back, if the landing has been torn off the board you should be able to carefully scrape the masking off of the end of the trace exposing a bit of copper and re-solder the cap back in place. just make sure NOT to scrape off any of the mask from nearby traces as you could then cause the cap to be soldered across multiple traces which would be BAD!

However if the cap simply came off with no damage to the landings then just solder it back on and it should be fine.

The electrolytics, just replace the blown ones and any that are pushed up on top. As in they are no longer flat on top. They dont need to burst to be bad, they can puff up at the top and if they are visible domed, replace them.

[tiro_uspsss]

I knocked one of those SMD Caps of my RAID card.............. soldered it back on, works no problems!