Servant of Shodan
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2002
- Messages
- 1,777
This is an expansion of a Post your favorite card of all time post I made.
I occasionally buy stuff off of eBay that is listed as untested or As Is, with hopes of scoring a great find for cheap. It has worked out very well in the past.
So one day, I bought a 7800GTX that was listed as non-working, just to see if I could fix it. When it arrived, I saw under the small black heatsink, that one of 9 mosfets was obviously burned out and damaged. Of course, the card would not boot.
So I got to wondering if I could fix this by finding an equivalent part and soldering it back on. I carefully removed the damaged one, and it was not at all pretty.
I quickly knew that I was not going to be able to resolder anything Well, I thought for a while, Why would there be so many mosfets? I wonder if there is any built-in redundancy? Like the space shuttle, right? So I put the heatsink back on, pop it in the PCIe slot, push the power button, expecting nothing to happen (but also ready to put out any electrical fire that starts) and the computer POSTs. Without any screen corruption.
So, Im thinking, OK, this is cool, but how long can it last before it reboots, or Windows is all artifact-ed But everything worked just fine! After several hours of looping 3DMark, I figure its good to go. So Im happy, considering that I paid about $35 dollars for this card that cost $600 not too long ago.
And then I think, Please sir, may I have another? I go back onto eBay and score another. Again, for about $35! It arrives, same mosfet burn-out, I do the same procedure, it works perfectly! And so now I have SLI 7800GTX.
I have just purchased a 3rd 7800GTX, it has the exact same issue, and this one is going into a computer Im building for my dad.
I have no idea why this works! Logic tells me that is should NOT work. But nothing ventured, nothing gained! The moral of the story is, fellow [H]ers, never give up!
I occasionally buy stuff off of eBay that is listed as untested or As Is, with hopes of scoring a great find for cheap. It has worked out very well in the past.
So one day, I bought a 7800GTX that was listed as non-working, just to see if I could fix it. When it arrived, I saw under the small black heatsink, that one of 9 mosfets was obviously burned out and damaged. Of course, the card would not boot.
So I got to wondering if I could fix this by finding an equivalent part and soldering it back on. I carefully removed the damaged one, and it was not at all pretty.
I quickly knew that I was not going to be able to resolder anything Well, I thought for a while, Why would there be so many mosfets? I wonder if there is any built-in redundancy? Like the space shuttle, right? So I put the heatsink back on, pop it in the PCIe slot, push the power button, expecting nothing to happen (but also ready to put out any electrical fire that starts) and the computer POSTs. Without any screen corruption.
So, Im thinking, OK, this is cool, but how long can it last before it reboots, or Windows is all artifact-ed But everything worked just fine! After several hours of looping 3DMark, I figure its good to go. So Im happy, considering that I paid about $35 dollars for this card that cost $600 not too long ago.
And then I think, Please sir, may I have another? I go back onto eBay and score another. Again, for about $35! It arrives, same mosfet burn-out, I do the same procedure, it works perfectly! And so now I have SLI 7800GTX.
I have just purchased a 3rd 7800GTX, it has the exact same issue, and this one is going into a computer Im building for my dad.
I have no idea why this works! Logic tells me that is should NOT work. But nothing ventured, nothing gained! The moral of the story is, fellow [H]ers, never give up!