Mending a Radeon9000 (surely you can't do that!)

[SebRad]

I was repairing a Packard Bell PC the other day, it used a 120mm faned PSU as the only exhaust fan and the fan had failed. This had caused the PSU fail, once I got the PSU replaced I found the HDD had developed bad sectors and was no longer bootable. With a 2.8GHz P4 in it and no case fans must have gotten "pretty warm", which may have caused or contributed to the HDD problems. Turned out the PC hadn't been used for a while and data had previously been retrieved from it so I rebuilt it on a new HDD. Once Windows was reinstalled I discovered a problem with the graphics. BIOS / boot was fine but once Windows tried to kick in a "proper" resolution the screen would go blank, although the PC seamed to be working as pressing the power button would trigger a shut down. As Windows XP's "VGA Mode" worked I tried messing about with chipset and graphics drivers with no luck. I tried the card in another PC and it didn't work there either so I concluded it too was a victim of the PC overheating As PC going to a business environment I swapped in an ATI Rage XL card I had to hand, which worked fine and returned the PC to it's owner (with an invoice )
Earlier today I had another look at the card, it's a Gigabyte Maya Radeon 9000 Pro, tried it in another PC that had just got a fresh Windows XP install and got similar problems to before, at one point got full res display but very corrupted and 3D stuff wouldn't run at all. I removed the heatsink and thick thermal pad and cleaned up all the residue and put it back with heatsink paste to be sure no heat problems. This of course made no difference I then inspected the card more closely and saw one of the capacitors had a bulging top and small amount of orangey stuff starting to leak out
This capacitor (orange stuff just visible in bottom of cross in pic)

I thought, I wonder if that can be replaced It’s rated at 1200uF, 6.3V, must be possible to get one, but to get just one at sensible price on reasonable time scale, humm so I went and looked at my pile of “dead stuffâ€

[Chris Chan]

Nice! I need a soldering iron because I have an ECS L7VMM board here whose capacitors need replaced. You didn't by chance run across badcaps.net did you?

[Elixer]

I was repairing a Packard Bell PC the other day...

This happens far too often. If I remember right, Packard Bell had one of the worst ratings for reliability. Nice work, Capacitors are generally rated + or - 10%, so it's possible your 1500uF capacitor is in fact within spec! That's a lot of work for just a Radeon 9000 card, but I understand how it is in a lot of cases where you just need an AGP card, it doesn't matter if it can run games or multiple monitors.

[SebRad]

didn't by chance run across badcaps.net did you

Since doing the repair I did a little digging and quickly found badcaps.net. Looks like what I've done doesn't break any new ground, I was just so surprised it works, electronics are supposed to be really delicate All the caps on the Radeon are Sanyo, apart from the failed one that is GSC. GSC not well spoken of on Badcaps, goes to show I guess, you shouldn't compromise on quality even a little.

That's a lot of work for just a Radeon 9000 card, but I understand how it is in a lot of cases where you just need an AGP card, it doesn't matter if it can run games or multiple monitors.

Yes I'm sure I do lots of PC work that's not really economic and I should value my time. On the other hand I enjoy doing it and if I make a little money then it doesn't matter. The Radeon is now in an old Dell 1.8GHz P4 I'm re-conditioning. I'll make enough on it it was worth messing with and the Radeon will give it some gaming power, just fine for the person it's going to. It's easy to loose touch with how little performance beginners need and any replacement AGP card is £15-20 which is fair chunk of the profit, the repair only took ~30 minutes, making it one of the more cost effective ones I've done.
Regards, Seb

[pipperoni]

The PSUs had too high voltage (and not right capacity)

My understanding of capacitors, the voltage only matters as an upper limit (think of voltage ratings on wires). You can use a high voltage cap in a low voltage application so long as the capacitance is right.

But good job on the repair! I love repairing old stuff back into working order. It is somehow very satisfying.

[jhhoffma]

Looks like Solderboy has a new sidekick!!!

For fine soldering with a largish soldering gun, I've found that if you stick a needle into the end of one of those clicky erasers with the sharp side out you can use the soldering iron near the point of it to indirectly heat the tip. It makes it possible to solder small resistors with only requiring 3-4 hands. In all seriousness, it's hard to do it this way but there would be no possible way to to this with a standard solder tip.

I did something similar with my VF700 installation on my 6600GT AGP

I haven't seen Weldingheart around in forever so I guess I'm the new solder king by default (even though I have no idea what I'm doing)!