dead pc

Triton · 11 Nov 2015 at 17:52

what would cause my graphics card to send sparks to my motherboard southbridge heat sink. gpu and boar are now fried.
took the gpu cooler off and some little chips under the heatsink had burnt out bad

FixupSellon · 11 Nov 2015 at 17:54

was the card dusty? needed new thermal paste? maybe your psu is at fault or you have some how shorted it..

Triton · 11 Nov 2015 at 17:59

psu is brand new
card was an old 7950

Triton · 11 Nov 2015 at 18:01

we have took the board out and cant see any way it could have shorted. the sparks came from the gpu heatsink to the southbridge heatsink.

wazza300 · 11 Nov 2015 at 18:02

could be failed vrm or memory chip? how big are the chips? tiny=vrm large square ones are memory

modo77 · 11 Nov 2015 at 18:06

Is the new PSU a decent one or something cheap.

FixupSellon · 11 Nov 2015 at 18:06

you can short anything on a board if its not connected correctly be it the components or the screws

Triton · 11 Nov 2015 at 18:07

its the VRM chips.
the chips is almost gone and a big burn mark on the back of the heat sink

wazza300 · 11 Nov 2015 at 18:08

did you clear the cmos on the mb? leave out the cmos battery for 10-15 minutes then try

yeah the vrm's can pop pretty bad,idk if its still in warranty? 3 years

FixupSellon · 11 Nov 2015 at 18:13

was there paste on the heatsink or dried up and burnt away? couldve overheated?

Triton · 11 Nov 2015 at 18:24

paste was on the gpu but on on memory or the Vrm.
the board is gone..
was just out of warranty

wazza300 · 11 Nov 2015 at 18:29

you have thermal pads for the memory/vrm I think,you can stick/glue aftermarket heatsinks on them but no point now,really bad luck aswell

Triton · 11 Nov 2015 at 18:31

have manage to get hold of a new board and a 7970.
Am 100% sure its not the mother board that's done this as my PSU died last week so got a new one and it died, then got another new one and did a test with everything unplugged and the board came to life. then gave the gpu power and as soon as i turned it on it sparked like mad

wazza300 · 11 Nov 2015 at 18:32

its the gpu if its fried the vrm's on it,the sparks then jumped/shorted to the nearest thing,that being your motherboard and fried that aswell

Triton · 11 Nov 2015 at 18:54

ok its been over 3 years since i used thermal paste. whats the best to use for my h100 cpu cooler

wazza300 · 11 Nov 2015 at 19:01

Grizzly paste,or mx4