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Capacitor/something fell of GPU (pic)

squarepusher

squarepusher

squarepusher

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While replacing my broken chipset fan I was having trouble so removed my graphicd card (Asus 7900gt) to free up some space to work with.

When putting everything back together and switch my system on, I found this little guy next to me... It's the same as the many others on my GPU and I cannot see where it has came off but I don't know what I'm looking for...

capacitor.jpg


I wouldn't like to solder it on myself as I've never soldered before, the machine is working fine, I'm on it now and temps are fine. I don't do any gaming now, just browse the web / load up photoshop so I dont really put it to any strain.

Was just wondering what's my chances with this now? is it dangerous as in it can cause a fire when I'm not about or conk out and lose data? I've had it about 2 years.

It's kind of a nice excuse for a new card.. hmm.. would appreciate you're help, thanks.
 
You may be lucky and it may work ok without it. But nothing will catch fire though. ;) Don't worry about that. Worse case is the card will just stop working.
 
Keep an eye on it mate,should be okay i think they are basically used to store up an electrical charge,then can be used to smooth out electrical impulses, or turn a constant electrical flow into a series of impulses.Thats my understanding of what a capacitor does,so you may be lucky and notice no side effects at all.
 
It'll probably be fine.

If you have another half and need a reason why you need a new card though... this is a good one :D
 
If it's like my 7900GS then it's probably from near the power connector. I did something similiar with my 7900GS but it was a resistor from behind one of the memory chips that came off mine. Tiny little thing but as I used it it gradually degraded in performance until it stopped working, so I decided to try soldering it back on as I didn't have anything to lose. Managed to get it on but probably burnt the memory chip in the process and as I was plugging it back in I knocked one of those capacitors off it. lol.. new card was in order.
 
What's that? it's a serious danger and may explode at any moment? best get looking at new cards then!! :p

Thanks for the info, I'm gunna hold on for awhile and see how it performs and get a new card within the next couple of months :).
 
It looks like its taken a clump of PCB with it lmao! It can't cause a fire unless its mashed other cables together, which it probably hasn't! I'd say just keep running it till you want a new card/it fails!
 
A few years ago I accidently knocked *something* off the mb when installing a stupidly oversized heatsink. Was a big fat resistor or something. Computer survived for years :D
 
Mostly there to smooth out the power. If the computer is stable with the graphics card under load, I wouldnt worry to much about it. Could work for years, might fail tomorrow :P

The better your PSU, and the smoother its power outputs are, the better the odds of the system being stable even with the capacitor knocked off.

I wouldnt bother trying to solder it back on though, Perhaps its the photo, but it does look like that cap has a chunk of PCB still attached.

a lot of motherboards have similar caps around the northbridge, and cpu, so worth checking if it was from the motherboard rather than the graphics card. I would have thought that it would be pretty obvious where it had come from.

Anyway if everything is stable, odds are you'll be lucky anyway. Not saying that computers are "over engineered", but they are designed to compensate for some pretty RUBBISH power supplies. If you have a good PSU it really makes life easier for the rest of the componants anyway.
 
I knocked one off my 6800GT and glued it back on, was running absolutely fine until I upgraded (and probably still works fine to this day, it's just sat in a box now)
 
It's a surface mount aluminium capacitor. The black plastic bit underneath is used to aid the placement and polarity checking when the card is manufactured. (it is not a piece of the board)
 
If I am reading that right it looks like a 100microfarad electrolytic capacitor

Are there any other numbers on it at all ?

If indeed that what is value is , thats pretty high in electronic terms , you might be looking at the card checking out earlier than expected.

Its most likely from around the power supply part of the board , or perhaps a coupler for one of the main IC's.

I remember 20 years ago when I was studying electronics , they used to give us Hi-res pictures on PCB boards and asked us to play spot the missing components ....endless hours of fun that was ....

Keep looking , you might find its home
 
Thanks for you're replys, It seems its working so its OK for now but will probably be a problem in the future thing, just glad it isn't a new card and this has happend around my time cycle I get an upgrade :D. I had to open my case again today so while at it a pulled the GPU out to grap a few snaps - please help find my flux-capacitor thing find its home.

The red arrows are my suspicions, I got abit carried away with the other red.

cap1.jpg


cap2.jpg


cap3.jpg


The little chizz nizz zalman chipset cooler :D
cap4.jpg


There is a lot of burning around the card - especially near the PCI-E slot, this is supposedly a defect issue with these 7900 cards, is everything defective from nvidia these days? :o
 
Burning, cap fell off... deffo exucese for a new card if you ask me.

Plus it looks like your mem is in the wrong slots.

Should be in matching coloured slots.
 
HeX said:
Burning, cap fell off... deffo exucese for a new card if you ask me.

Plus it looks like your mem is in the wrong slots.

Should be in matching coloured slots.
Click to expand...

:eek:, If I just move it into the blue slot should I be alright, as in no tweaking to do? Thanks for pointing that out man :)
 
The solder pads on C138 look like a capacitor has been knocked of them. The profile of the black plastic base should match the silk screen on the board. I agree wombraider, it is a 100microfarad (aluminium) electrolytic capacitor.
 
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