PNY GTX1060 6GB - HDMI port burned or bad chip?

DiegoTavares · December 4, 2020

Hello tech maniacs! I'm wondering if any GPU/Hardware Guru can help this mere mortal

Normally when a graphics card come to me it's a bad BGA soldering or something "basic". Last one was a GTX780Ti that had a real hard OC: broken BGA on the processor, on processor's VRM controller and the memory VRM controller...But yeah, worked perfectly after re-soldering, no complains so far (and the client was really happy).

Right now i'm working on a PNY GTX1060 6GB (Probably i'm staying with this one, it's giving me so much headaches that i deserve to keep this ). It's not from any client, was bought for 1/10 the price of a brand new, so if end up being a bad chip or no repairable defect, it's not THAT important, but i would love to see this coming back to life.
I guess that if i can found the problem with this 1060 i can repair my HD7950 too, will explain later, but both shows a symptom in common on HDMI port. But the 7950 actually works perfect on DVI, the 1060 does nothing.

1º - What i can say overall:

The VRMs are working, two of them are showing a strange behavior, but the end voltage is stable. The VRM that provides 5V to outputs and to another VRM that feeds the chip; Another VRM that right now i cant remember what it feeds.
There's no visible bad component or broken soldering points by what i saw so far. Every components seems to be fine, but on HDMI output block many components shows little resistances between them.
The G-processor heats up, but it can run some time with just a fan. But i tried on my RIG, it boot the windows just fine on onboard, when it installs the drivers and try to output to the GTX it disable the onboard and then...just black screen. Just as expected for a graphics card with no output connected. I guess that the system recognized it.
Right now i cant test the display ports, but when plugged to DVI nothing happens and the monitor stays on power saving mode. When plugged in HDMI with PC off the monitor acts as nothing is connected at all (normal would be to turn off due power saving feature), when i start the pc it acts like it's receiving something, but can't really know what. It don't go to power saving mode, but it stays with both indicators lights on and all black screen with no backlight.
This is where my current 7950 comes to the history, the HDMI port shows the same symptom, when the pc is off any signal received from monitor vanishes, when i turn on the pc the monitor tries to start, but maybe receives incomplete or bad data.

2º - What i did and will probably do:

Most of my rework so far was resoldering bad looking points, testing components and signals, reflowing BGAs (not the perfect solution, but would at least show some result).
When i take out the inductor from the VRM that provides 5V, the PWM signal get back to normal. (will take some pictures and post).
Did some functional tests, like before that i said it boots to windows and probably recognizes the card.
Will isolate the HDMI output taking out all the components around it.

3º - Conclusions and cry for help:

So, the only clue that this board is giving me is that something is wrong on HDMI output components (or internal on the chip). I will still take every component out of there, but if any god knows what this possibly can be, have any advice for testing, i would be grateful. I will take some pictures of the tests by the rest of the day