Flakey Graphics card question.

  • Thread starter Thread starter ~misfit~
  • Start date Start date
M

~misfit~

I have a GeForce 2-MX400/64MB that has been giving me trouble. (Before
anyone says to biff it and buy a new one, I'm broke okay?) It first started
giving me trouble in a system that had the AGP bus running too high due to
overclocking the FSB. It was in my main machine so I borrowed the money and
bought a new GF 4 ti4200 and clocked the PC back to spec. The GF 2 was
sitting on my desk and I was thinking I'd love to still be able to use it in
one of my other machines. I removed the HSF, cleaned the GPU and 'sink,
applied AS3, reassembled and tried it in another machine and lo and behold
it worked! I was pleased for about three days and then it packed up, just
garbage on the monitor at boot-up, with the BIOS message scrambled all over
the screeen. Multiple re-boots made no difference.

So it was back, sitting on my desk. I hadn't the heart to throw it away, I'd
had to make do with crap video adapters for so long and I was so pleased
with it when I got it I just didn't want to bin it. (It's only 15 months
old, it was fitted OEM in a machine a friend bought who then upgraded it and
sold it to me cheaply). After a week or so I put it in another machine I
have running here as an internet gateway/server that I had open, doing
something else to. Yet again it worked, this time for three weeks before it
packed up.

So, as I said, I don't want to bin it. I was thinking of maybe replacing the
capacitors? What do you guys (and gals) think about that? There's nothing
else I can do to it, everything but the caps are surface-mounted and I was
thinking it *could* be the caps giving me trouble. I'm confident I can
un-solder them and replace them, I'll take it down to NZ's equivalent of
Radio Shack (DSE) and get one of the guys to give me advice on which ones I
need and it shouldn't cost much. Do you think it's worth trying?

(I can't find out who manufactured the card and there is no FCC number on
it)

Thanks for any advice. (I have xposted this to a.c.h.o as, although it's a
little OT, there are some knowledgable people there/here)

Cheers,
 
fi were you i'd get a magnifying glass and inspect the surface mount
resistors for dry solder joints. i've come across many many nvidia boards
with this problem. often just a touch with a fine tipped soldering iron
solves the problem. a dry joint will sometimes explain the on-off behaviour
you have experienced.
 
Nick Hogg said:
fi were you i'd get a magnifying glass and inspect the surface mount
resistors for dry solder joints. i've come across many many nvidia boards
with this problem. often just a touch with a fine tipped soldering iron
solves the problem. a dry joint will sometimes explain the on-off behaviour
you have experienced.
Click to expand...

Ok, thanks. I'll have to buy a magnifying glass. What am I looking for?
Cracked solder, that sort of thing? I've just scanned it with the naked eye
and I'll ceratinly need a magnifying glass with my old eyes and I'll have to
remove the HSF again to get at some of them. There are some v. v. tiny
surface-mounted components on there!

Cheers,
 
Some One said:
Did you ever consider that the bracket might be pulling the card out
of the AGP socket? AGP cards are notorious for not staying in the
socket. Next time the card fails, just pull it out and put it back. If
this fixes it, you just need to find a way to keep it in the socket.
Click to expand...

I havn't tried re-seating it but it did look to be seated correctly before I
took it out of the last machine. I'll check it out though, thanks for your
input.
 
the resistors that usually go are at the points where hands would grip the
card to seat/unseat it (not everyone does this properly, like you and me
;-)). look for cracks etc like you say, but also for places where the
solder joints look pitted or/and dull. these would maybe just need another
dab with a hot iron, usually no need to add more solder. but also look for
places where the resistor has disappeared altogether - this can be pretty
hard to spot, as machine-soldered joints often break away leaving no
residue. also, solder joints often go at the base, and cracks here can be
extremely difficult to see. good luck!
 
I have a GeForce 2-MX400/64MB that has been giving me trouble. (Before
anyone says to biff it and buy a new one, I'm broke okay?) It first started
giving me trouble in a system that had the AGP bus running too high due to
overclocking the FSB. It was in my main machine so I borrowed the money and
bought a new GF 4 ti4200 and clocked the PC back to spec. The GF 2 was
sitting on my desk and I was thinking I'd love to still be able to use it in
one of my other machines. I removed the HSF, cleaned the GPU and 'sink,
applied AS3, reassembled and tried it in another machine and lo and behold
it worked! I was pleased for about three days and then it packed up, just
garbage on the monitor at boot-up, with the BIOS message scrambled all over
the screeen. Multiple re-boots made no difference.

So it was back, sitting on my desk. I hadn't the heart to throw it away, I'd
had to make do with crap video adapters for so long and I was so pleased
with it when I got it I just didn't want to bin it. (It's only 15 months
old, it was fitted OEM in a machine a friend bought who then upgraded it and
sold it to me cheaply). After a week or so I put it in another machine I
have running here as an internet gateway/server that I had open, doing
something else to. Yet again it worked, this time for three weeks before it
packed up.

So, as I said, I don't want to bin it. I was thinking of maybe replacing the
capacitors? What do you guys (and gals) think about that? There's nothing
else I can do to it, everything but the caps are surface-mounted and I was
thinking it *could* be the caps giving me trouble. I'm confident I can
un-solder them and replace them, I'll take it down to NZ's equivalent of
Radio Shack (DSE) and get one of the guys to give me advice on which ones I
need and it shouldn't cost much. Do you think it's worth trying?

(I can't find out who manufactured the card and there is no FCC number on
it)

Thanks for any advice. (I have xposted this to a.c.h.o as, although it's a
little OT, there are some knowledgable people there/here)

Cheers,
Click to expand...


It's puzzling that the card will work for a period of time then
malfunction again. If there's any further pattern to the failure,
those additional details might prove important.

If the card was passively cooled I would suspect that either the core
is damaged or the caps are just worn out. That's an issue not often
considered with passively-cooled cards, that just because the card
runs stable, it doesn't necessarily mean it'll last a long time.

If the failure is reproducible, consistently, you might try removing
the card, warming it under a hot lamp or with a hair-dryer... hot
capacitors will wear out faster in the long term, but in the short
term, for a test or two they should work somewhat better. If the card
works better after a MILD warming, I would suspect the caps. It's not
necessarily better to buy generic caps like those at Radio Shack,
you'd need a much larger can size to achieve the same low-ESR as those
originally on the card. Perhaps (whatever) shop you have locally has
low-ESR caps, but Radio Shack does not, at least none I've been to,
did.

You might try cannabalizing an old (but not too old) motherboard for
it's caps. It might not be the best choice for a new high-end card,
but if minimizing costs is important, it's hard to justify buying new
caps for an older card with so little value. In particular many Asus
boards, some newer Intels, may have some Fujitsu caps ( yellow, look
like this: http://edevice.fujitsu.com/fmd/products/fpcap/img/re.jpg ,
often 6.3V 680uF) that would be a good choice.

Often the motherboards have a suitable size that's under 15mm tall,
like 6.3V / 1000uF, 10V / 1000uF, 6.3V / 1200uF, depending on the
pin-spacing available on the video card... some cards use smaller
diameter caps like 8mm, but there's actually a second hole that would
allow using the larger 10mm diameter part, they just used a smaller
cap to reduce costs, but of course it can vary per card (I don't
remember these very fine details about the reference GF2MX400 pcb.

If the card can accept a larger cap, I'd use one. Those electrolytic
caps don't need to be exact matches to the original part, merely of
high enough voltage rating for the circuit, amperage and mF value
(which is usually far exceeded by the original caps used), but mostly
the ESR rating needs be low... they use caps of higher voltage and mF
rating because the larger physical size allows them to achieve the
low-ESR they need in the cheaper electolytic parts. In general a 6.3V
cap could be used but check with multimeter while the card is powered
in a testbed motherboard, there "might" be one or two needing rating
for, filtering 12V, that most likely won't even need replaced, could
be ignored.

By Google searching you may find lists of the potentially-defective
Taiwanese capacitor brands... if the card uses any of those, they'd be
the first I'd replace. A partial list might include Lelon, Luxon,
Tayeh, Jackcon, I,Q, JPCON, Chhsi.

Now that I've given details about the caps, it should be mentioned
again that it might not be the caps that are the problem.


Dave
 
kony said:
It's puzzling that the card will work for a period of time then
malfunction again. If there's any further pattern to the failure,
those additional details might prove important.

If the card was passively cooled I would suspect that either the core
is damaged or the caps are just worn out. That's an issue not often
considered with passively-cooled cards, that just because the card
runs stable, it doesn't necessarily mean it'll last a long time.

If the failure is reproducible, consistently, you might try removing
the card, warming it under a hot lamp or with a hair-dryer... hot
capacitors will wear out faster in the long term, but in the short
term, for a test or two they should work somewhat better. If the card
works better after a MILD warming, I would suspect the caps. It's not
necessarily better to buy generic caps like those at Radio Shack,
you'd need a much larger can size to achieve the same low-ESR as those
originally on the card. Perhaps (whatever) shop you have locally has
low-ESR caps, but Radio Shack does not, at least none I've been to,
did.

You might try cannabalizing an old (but not too old) motherboard for
it's caps. It might not be the best choice for a new high-end card,
but if minimizing costs is important, it's hard to justify buying new
caps for an older card with so little value. In particular many Asus
boards, some newer Intels, may have some Fujitsu caps ( yellow, look
like this: http://edevice.fujitsu.com/fmd/products/fpcap/img/re.jpg ,
often 6.3V 680uF) that would be a good choice.

Often the motherboards have a suitable size that's under 15mm tall,
like 6.3V / 1000uF, 10V / 1000uF, 6.3V / 1200uF, depending on the
pin-spacing available on the video card... some cards use smaller
diameter caps like 8mm, but there's actually a second hole that would
allow using the larger 10mm diameter part, they just used a smaller
cap to reduce costs, but of course it can vary per card (I don't
remember these very fine details about the reference GF2MX400 pcb.

If the card can accept a larger cap, I'd use one. Those electrolytic
caps don't need to be exact matches to the original part, merely of
high enough voltage rating for the circuit, amperage and mF value
(which is usually far exceeded by the original caps used), but mostly
the ESR rating needs be low... they use caps of higher voltage and mF
rating because the larger physical size allows them to achieve the
low-ESR they need in the cheaper electolytic parts. In general a 6.3V
cap could be used but check with multimeter while the card is powered
in a testbed motherboard, there "might" be one or two needing rating
for, filtering 12V, that most likely won't even need replaced, could
be ignored.

By Google searching you may find lists of the potentially-defective
Taiwanese capacitor brands... if the card uses any of those, they'd be
the first I'd replace. A partial list might include Lelon, Luxon,
Tayeh, Jackcon, I,Q, JPCON, Chhsi.

Now that I've given details about the caps, it should be mentioned
again that it might not be the caps that are the problem.
Click to expand...

Hi Dave, thanks for the info.
 
Back
Top