Broken Video cards?

[mcdonis]

Hello

 

I do a lot of retro XP gaming on a rig I custom built in 2008 that is still running strong.   My issues are that I have a couple of broken GPU's that I would like to get some advice on.  Both cards appear to be broken but in different ways, I was wondering if anyone had any tips on fixes I can try.   Thanks to any responses and your time!  I appreciate it!

 

System specs (all working and tested with a 250 GTS card)  Fresh install of XP Home and last available drivers from Nvidia.  I know my issue is the GPU because with the 250S and other cards (8800 gtx, 9800 gtx) it will run fine.

 

• ASUS P5K LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
• Stock Intel cooler
• Intel Q6600 CPU
• Brand New EVGA 750 watt power supply
• OCZ Reaper Series 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHZ PC2-8500
• SanDisk SSD Plus 120GB TLC NAND SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5" Internal Solid State
• Creative SB0230 Sound Blaster Audigy EAX HD PCI Sound Card US Seller

 

 

1st Broken GPU

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 2GB PCI-e Video Card (Refurbished) (blower style card)

 

This card I think I know the failure reason.  I have owned this card since 2015 it was a refurb I picked up at MIcrocenter.  It stopped working in 2019 and has sat on a shelf since.  I recently watched videos on how to clean and dissemble cards and pulled apart this one.  I found that between the fan and the heat sync fins was 100% blocked with lint and hair.   I fully cleaned the card, applied new thermal paste and re-assembled.   The only thing past the obvious issue was on the pcb on the very edge of the card half way between the power connectors and the bottom edge of the card there are two flakes of paint that have come off the pcb.  THe PCB is black in color and the black coating has flaked off in two very small spots. 

 

Both working computers I tested it on will not power on.  Checked seating on the powercords and other PSU related cords and no issue.  I assume that it overheated and fried the GPU.  When it failed it was being used by my son in his gaming system.  

 

2nd Broken GPU

PNY Skyrim edition 560 TI 

 

Purchased from an online auction site with no assurance of it working.  So if its dead then I am stuck with it.  This card powers on as does the rest of the system.  Fans (case, cpu, gpu) working but system never boots, eventually the PC speaker will put out beeps which I assume is an error code.   Took apart card down to heat sync and it was without any dust so its recently been cleaned.  No obvious damage or discolorations to the card itself.  Did not change thermal paste or check the board under the heat sync yet.  This card I hope has more chance at life than the 760.  

 

 

 

[asheenlevrai]

Well @mcdonisif there are beeps then you should determine the cause of the boot failure by referring to the manual of the mainboard.

If you don't have it anymore, try to google using the brand of the mainboard (or the computer if its a prebuilt) or the brand of the BIOS : "[brand] beep error code" or something like that...

 

Good luck

-a-

[Biohazard777]

Unless you've got experience at component level repair my advice is not to waste time on either of those cards.
 

30 minutes ago, mcdonis said:

I recently watched videos on how to clean and dissemble cards

And from this sentence I can conclude that you don't have the expertise needed...

Those card go for 50-100$, if you were to take them to a professional to fix them for you it would cost you more than buying a working used one.

[mcdonis]

7 minutes ago, Biohazard777 said:

Unless you've got experience at component level repair my advice is not to waste time on either of those cards.
 

And from this sentence I can conclude that you don't have the expertise needed...

Those card go for 50-100$, if you were to take them to a professional to fix them for you it would cost you more than buying a working used one.

 

I appreciate that they aren't worth a ton but my motivation really isn't to sell them or even to use them but rather learn from the process.  I like to tinker and would like to learn from the experience.  Granted it likely I don't have the ability or equipment to fix what is actually wrong with them but even if I just understand what is wrong with them that would be a nice piece of knowledge to take away.    

[Biohazard777]

27 minutes ago, mcdonis said:

 

I appreciate that they aren't worth a ton but my motivation really isn't to sell them or even to use them but rather learn from the process.  I like to tinker and would like to learn from the experience.  Granted it likely I don't have the ability or equipment to fix what is actually wrong with them but even if I just understand what is wrong with them that would be a nice piece of knowledge to take away.    

In order to understand what is wrong with them you would need to have sufficient knowledge in electronics, also quite possibly you'd need to find the schematics for those card and understand those as well, then you'd need equipment in order to diagnose which components have failed.

It is great that you want to learn, but you've picked poorly where to start. Some components can be visually spotted as bad (like blown capacitors, burnt out resistors, corroded pads etc.), you could replace those without any deeper knowledge but if that visually damaged component died because of another component that doesn't look bad welp you've got the same problem again but this time you have to learn what is actually going in the circuit in order to fix it.

If you wanna learn about electronics in a practical way I recommend getting an Arduino or a Pi, multimeter, oscilloscope (if possible), solderless breadboard, jump wires, and some component starter kits (which contain: resistors, capacitors, diodes, BJTs, mosfets, sensors etc.). All (except oscilloscope) can be bought for cheap.
Start with working circuits, once you get a hang of that finding the cause of death in broken circuits will be much easier.