Radeon 9700 Pro crashes when playing games, burnt power connector? [PIC]

B

BlueIce41188

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 4, 2003
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Whenever I play any game, my PC freezes after a few minutes. So finally I took the video card out to find out what was wrong, and found this:
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I also thought the heatsink and fan were a bit dirty (dirty enough to cause cooling problems?):
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overall view of the card:
DSC00006.jpg

This is (was?) my first high end card, that cost me about $300 over 2 years ago so it's my little baby but now it won't play any games. Though everything runs fine with standard usage. Do you think the power connector is causing the problem and if it is, is there a way to fix it?
 
It may be me, but I cannot see the burn. Are you talking about the line around the connector (that goes between the U and the 2 in JU2)? The line kinda looks like it is due to warping (never really seen that before, sorta made it up :) ), but it just may be dust.

Does the fan work? Dust can hurt the fan.
 
Yeah, this isn't uncommon for 9700pros and even 9800pros with their proper molex connector. I've had this happen loads of times in the past (though I did over-volt my cards).

Typically you'll get a game freeze and then when you do a reboot, you'll get the blank screen with red text saying you haven't connected the power connector.


So in this case you wanna give those pins a good clean, and if it's really bad, go over them with some fine sandpaper.

Also, take the corresponding floppy dive power cable thing apart and sandpaper the inside edges of the connectors (specifically the one on the red wire).


That should sort you out (if this is what's causing your problem).
 
WOW can you say dusty ass.. Give the heatsink/fan a good cleaning. I make it a normal practice to blow out my case about once a month, get in there with the long tube extender on the canned air and maybe even see if you can blow out under the heatsink. When I have done this I have noticed a considerable gain. Also do what the above poster said and sand the last, dull, connecter with some very small grit sandpaper. Should help out with your connection. If that doesnt work check the connector from the power supply to make sure that you are getting proper voltage and the juice is not getting sapped due to a bad PS or cable.
 
Borgschulze said:
Ok, Off-Topic but damn, you are an amazing photographer.

What's your secret?
Click to expand...
not really that great, just the flash is off to the side.
 
I do agree that it's definitely not looking burned, but, for future reference, if you suspect contacts may not be working as well as they should due to burns or something else, take some sandpaper and sand the contacts just a little. I know fine already mentioned this, but, I want to emphasise that it applies to anything. Just enough to scrape them a little free of the burns or whatever so the metal can make some contact. Of course, you might want to consider some serious cleaning before scratching when it comes to gold plated contacts since the gold plating is there for the whole purpose of making sure the contacts last, but, obviously that doesn't apply here since there's no gold plating involved in power connectors last I checked.

One thing you might try doing is bending those pins JUST a bit. Just enough so that they go in there really tight. The harder they press against the contacts, the more contact is actually being made (of course, it's useless if you can't actually get the plug in there, so don't overdo it.)

I guess this is why ATI abandoned the floppy style connector for the standard huge molex crap that's nearly impossible to plug and unplug (but, by the same token, never slips loose either.) Every time I unhook the stupid thing I worry I'll end up ripping that connector right off the card.

EDIT: BTW, if you ever get really desperate, you can cut off the connector from some fan addon (eg the kind that has the female plug as well) and solder that into there, then hook up power to that. ^_^ Guess you'd have to be pretty desperate to do that.

Oh yeah, and while I'm adding stuff, the dust isn't really that bad. Can't hurt to clean it while you have the thing out and all, but, I've seen far worse do just fine. Really all I see is just a tad bit bunched up around the edges of the fan, but, no serious gathering of dust elsewhere to prevent proper heatsink operation.
 
lol the secret is.. wait for it... Macro ! yay macro ftw!!!!11111oneone
 
SAS91 said:
lol the secret is.. wait for it... Macro ! yay macro ftw!!!!11111oneone
Click to expand...
My camera takes terrible Macro shots.. Maybe his is just really high MP rating, mines 2.0MP and It takes descent Macros.. but not that great...

Back On-Topic.
 
Thanks to everyone for replying. Here is what I tried:
Used a nail file to gently sandpaper the connector that was a different color, but only it's top and side because the file was too thick to fit under. Then I bent all of the connectors slightly upward and put the card back in (this time it was noticeably more snug). As it booted up I took a look at the fan, it wasn't spinning! So I immediately turned off and removed the card. Nothing I did could make the fan work. Finally I just un-screwed the fan and booted up with the fan in my hand (i figured if it has run for over a week, with no fan, so what harm would a fanless boot do?) and the motor of the fan tried and tried but it never go to a good speed, so I broke the fan open and the little copper wires had a couple sticking out, maybe that caused the problem? and it was dirty around the motor enclosure.

Now I need a new fan
Any suggestions? :)

btw right now i am using the onboard video. geforce 4 mx 64mB. it works good :D
and the camera used for the pictures was a sony cybershot 1.3 mp
 
BlueIce41188 said:
and the camera used for the pictures was a sony cybershot 1.3 mp
Click to expand...
It takes damn nice pictures!

I recomment a Zalman cooler for your video card :)
 
Nazo said:
I guess this is why ATI abandoned the floppy style connector for the standard huge molex crap that's nearly impossible to plug and unplug (but, by the same token, never slips loose either.) Every time I unhook the stupid thing I worry I'll end up ripping that connector right off the card..
Click to expand...



Oh they did not abandon that, my X800XT AIW has that dang Floppy connector on it...it sux too :(
 
I ordered that fan :)

::edit::
UPS man came today and he was bearing gifts!

the install was alot easier than I had anticipated but still haven't run it yet cause I'm encoding a video on the PC but when it's done I will post results.
 
Instead of doing another edit I decided to make a new post so the people who are subscribed to this thread would see it updated in their User CP, even though right now when I try to view the CP I get a database error. Anyways, I played HL2DM for 33min and had no problems other than the usual stuttering at the beginning of some maps, but after I finish tweaking my PC with the TGTC and HL2 guide from tweakguides.com that shouldn't happen anymore.

Thanks to everyone for posting here, all your replies helped me alot, I probably would have ended up buying a new card if I didn't post here, here is a screenshot from the ~27min game which has to be one of the best HL2DM rounds I've ever played.

and some eyecandy:
 
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