Nvidia graphics card repair

[Hyperion]

I turned on my Son's PC last night with the intention of doing the usual round of updates. He doesn't regularly use it as he uses his laptop for almost everything now.

So I turn it on and everything seems normal, I go to do the Microsoft MSE update first and half way through, notice not only has the download stopped, but also the progress bar has corrupted video, the PC has also hung. I reboot the PC a couple of times and the same thing happens, the last time with a continuous tone coming out of the PC speaker.

So I decide to take the graphics card out and after a brief struggle with case removal, gain access to the card, a Nvdia GeForce 7300. It is filthy, so I remove it and blow the dust out of the fan and heatsink. Then I notice a Polymer Electrolytic that has 'vented' a 6.3v, 1500µF, I start looking around in my parts bins, knowing I don't have a direct replacement, but might have something similar. So I find a second hand but new 63V, 1000µF, much bigger than the original, and the PCB hole spacing and hole size is no help, - so I install it laying down on the PCB.

Put the card back in the PC, power on, boots up, MSE download and other updates done - all is well again. I will buy a proper replacement when I put in the next order for parts.

 

[jhtstone]

Video cards are the source of many computer problems; more than what people realize.

Nice that you could repair it. I've picked up a few discarded computers that had only a bad video card.

 

[blhagstrom]

Capacitors are turning out to be the failure point of a bunch of stuff outside of vintage audio.

I've fixed a few things including a furnace.

 

[Hyperion]

The technology used in modern graphics accelerators has been used in supercomputing for a while now, so I understand.

One of the considerations when I bought the graphics card was its power consumption, and a second big one was PCI slot compatibility. It is actually installed in an AGP socket, as I had no PCI slots compatible with the graphics cards whose spec's I liked.

As my son no longer uses the PC much, it is old, as is the graphics card now - so this is it's last gasp before a trip to the recyclers I think... so I was pleased to get it going again.

 

[Sam Cogley]

Capacitors are turning out to be the failure point of a bunch of stuff outside of vintage audio.

I've fixed a few things including a furnace.

The motor run cap on my home air conditioner has blown twice inside of a year. 359 days, to be exact.

 

[leesonic]

I trash picked a Gateway flat panel monitor a few years ago. Lots of swollen caps inside, so I spent about $20 and replaced them all, which brought it back to life.

Lee.

 

[blhagstrom]

Just remember Graphics cards are the high temp source now compared to CPU's. This is due to more complex design. Also most graphics cards draw more power than the CPU, on average.

:lmao:
I worked for NVidia for a while on the kernel mode driver team.
I heated my cubicle with 8 machines.
The SLI dual card machines could really throw some heat.

I was told "we waste more power than we use".
I don't think he was kidding.

The tech I saw and the code was insanely advanced.
I have a PhD in computer science with a mathematics degree to boot so I'm a fair judge.

They advanced physics researching the bump crack problem.
It was heat related. The laptop manufactures wanted to extend battery life so they turned the fans down.