capacitor fell off graphics card - thoughts?

[webbhost]

Hi guys,

I've had an issue (a rather sudden issue) where my computer started crashing several times a day due to a hung graphics card.. including once whilst loading windows itself.
I took graphics card on out today (It's a GTX 660 Ti) , and whilst cleaning it I noticed C153 didn't look quite right.. touched it and the component (im assuming a capacitor) fell off... it's about the size of a grain of sand.
Plugged it back into the PC to see if it will still work... however since booting it up and loading windows, everything is acting perfectly... no crashes.

thoughts?
Should I not touch it now it seems to work? (If I do this, is it likely to cause any performance issues in games?)
Should I get a board level repair done? (is it worth it for the price of this graphics card now?)
Should I just get a new card before it blows etc? I'm happy that the computer seems to be working again... but being self employed, my PC is my business... if it dies then I don't have time to mess about trying to get it working again!...

Thanks, Nathan

 

[bemaniac]

Due to the business critical nature you answered your own question and need to purchase a replacement asap. It's a £50 GPU and there are a lot of good parts around £100 that would potentially be reliable.

 

[Begbie]

If its your business, grab a second card just incase surely?

Personally I'd probably have spares readily available, or a laptop etc that I could continue to work on.

 

[Wucked]

It may be just a particle of debris causing an intermittent short. But either way, if it's for your business then it's a single point of failure. Best to purchase a backup card. And while you're at it make sure you have a solid backup plan for your mission-critical data and apps.