Small scratch on GPU = Broken?

[Buckley]

I saw another post on here about someone scratching (very minorly) their GPU (the chip itself), and his card started to pump out a pilelated screen and rendered the car unuseful.

Earlier this month my 290x broke and I thought it was a ram issue since the screen was pixelated. but then I remembered that when I was cleaning off the thermal paste I used a small small screw driver to remove some paste from between I'm assuming a transister on the outer edge of the chip. I didn't use any force but I think I just barley nicked the chip and scratched it.

My question is, why would such a small scratch "break" a card? Isn't everything internal? The transistors on the outside or whatever they are I never touched.

[Vitalius]

.... 

No. Everything is not internal. Even the slightest scratch damages the traces in a Processing Unit if you do it directly to the die. That'd be this area:

Delidded CPU,

 

Bare GPU,


They are very fragile. That's why you have to be careful with them.

[Wats]

idk if i should laugh or what.. You cant touch anything harder than a q tip to a bare die lol. Don't worry about getting every little bit next time, just get the top of it nice and clean. there's not a difference.

 

 

 

on top of that... that's not how you use a flat head, flat head. But hey, look at it like this... you didn't lose any stickers that say P/N and S/N..right? RMA is all you can try and even that might not work if they find the scratch. Damaged hardware is not covered most of the time.

[Bagmup]

Screwdriver? What...why?

[Cronus97]

idk if i should laugh or what.. You cant touch anything harder than a q tip to a bare die lol. Don't worry about getting every little bit next time, just get the top of it nice and clean. there's not a difference.

on top of that... that's not how you use a flat head, flat head. But hey, look at it like this... you didn't lose any stickers that say P/N and S/N..right? RMA is all you can try and even that might not work if they find the scratch. Damaged hardware is not covered most of the time.

I 2nd the rma part, put new thermal paste on and call it in. My friends little bro did that to a gpu in his comp he just built. Rma'd it the next day

[Askew]

I used a small small screw driver to remove some paste

 

Don't do this again man...

[Askew]

Delidded CPU,

 

Put me out of my misery, is that a 3570K or not? :lol:

[Vitalius]

Put me out of my misery, is that a 3570K or not? :lol:

No clue. Not my picture.

[Akolyte]

I saw another post on here about someone scratching (very minorly) their GPU (the chip itself), and his card started to pump out a pilelated screen and rendered the car unuseful.

Earlier this month my 290x broke and I thought it was a ram issue since the screen was pixelated. but then I remembered that when I was cleaning off the thermal paste I used a small small screw driver to remove some paste from between I'm assuming a transister on the outer edge of the chip. I didn't use any force but I think I just barley nicked the chip and scratched it.

My question is, why would such a small scratch "break" a card? Isn't everything internal? The transistors on the outside or whatever they are I never touched.

I've accidentally scratched my gpu pcb lightly when I was working on my computer (with my finger) but its okay.  The the graphics card has allot of traces and just one traced scratched and everything can go to hell, so.  Its important to try not to scratch it.

 

Also, never use Metal things on your graphics card, the graphics card does sit right below my metal cpu cooler, But they aren't touching, If you rubbed your gpu with a screwdriver then you could have not only scratched the card but shorted it out and ruined everything.

[Buckley]

I've accidentally scratched my gpu pcb lightly when I was working on my computer (with my finger) but its okay. The the graphics card has allot of traces and just one traced scratched and everything can go to hell, so. Its important to try not to scratch it.

Also, never use Metal things on your graphics card, the graphics card does sit right below my metal cpu cooler, But they aren't touching, If you rubbed your gpu with a screwdriver then you could have not only scratched the card but shorted it out and ruined everything.

It worked after I scratched it for about an hour, and then the screen started flickering and then pixelated and finally the system shut off. So maybe I didn't break it with the screw driver? I know it was just habit Somehow I guess and it happen to be the closest thing to me. But yeah maybe I was right about it being a ram issue. No?

[Buckley]

idk if i should laugh or what.. You cant touch anything harder than a q tip to a bare die lol. Don't worry about getting every little bit next time, just get the top of it nice and clean. there's not a difference.

on top of that... that's not how you use a flat head, flat head. But hey, look at it like this... you didn't lose any stickers that say P/N and S/N..right? RMA is all you can try and even that might not work if they find the scratch. Damaged hardware is not covered most of the time.

[Akolyte]

It worked after I scratched it for about an hour, and then the screen started flickering and then pixelated and finally the system shut off. So maybe I didn't break it with the screw driver? I know it was just habit Somehow I guess and it happen to be the closest thing to me. But yeah maybe I was right about it being a ram issue. No?

In all honesty, it could be anything.  For all you know it could be your power supply.  Things randomly happen and its weird.  So, dont cross out anything.  Its all a part of learning,  See if its your memory, then see if its your gpu etc.  

[LukaP]

 

 

as you can see the die is still enclosed in a very thin layer of (i presume) resin, that makes it stick to the PCB and protects it. so unless your screwdriver went through the resin, you havent damaged the chip itself. you may have damaged the capacitor (its not a transistor, those are inside the chip) and its changed capacity messed with the currents in the chip, damaging it