Etrogann

I have a 7600gt that was on my main system. Vedio crashed and when I rebooted I got the beep codes for bad video. Pulled out the card and some of the caps had the middle blown out with insulation coming out.
So. I am ordering a 9800gtx+ from newegg and I want to know what could have cause the card to go bad. I recently moved my system. I cleaned the case and fans out with compressed air, but forgot the video card fans. The fan wasn't gunked up, but there was a little dust in there.
Could there be something wrong that I need to fix before installing the new card? If so how do I test for it, I do not have another video card to test with.
Thanks in advance

Nalty

The only thing i could think off is a bad PSU, or a surge; were you using a surge protector?

Firestorm252

were they electrolytic caps? you can tell since they're little cans/drums with printed heatshrink wrapped around them.

if they were they might've just leaked out. it happens with those, although some are alot better than others about how long it takes before failure.

were they literally blown out like charred or were they kinda sticking out with corrosion on/around them?

other than than, i'd go with what Nalty said.

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Etrogann

Yes, I have a surge protector on the system. but wouldn't the POST check the power supply first and give me the beep codes for that?
What does typical damage from overheating look like? Figured if anyone knew, overclocker's would lol

Etrogann

The middles of the silver cans were split open, with a little flux looking stuff coming out, and what looked like insulation. About 5 of them blew.

Andy!

idk about what happened to your old card

but 9800gtx+ is a nice card :]

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Lunchbox21984

did you overclock the card any? sometimes that puts a strain on the caps, thus making them not last as long.

And for what you just spent on the 9800, you could have bought a 5770 for that. just figured i let you know.

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Etrogann

I never overclocked it, I just want to know how I make sure the power supply is good, and if there is anything else I should check before installing my new one.
And I am an NVidia fanboy, so no Radeon cards for me thanks. lol

Firestorm252

sounds like electrolytic capacitors bursting all right. although i don't know what would cause 5 to burst at once O.o
they may have been in series with each other and possibly had a cascading failure, i dunno

did it look anything like this picture (found in subsim.com [edit]thread[/edit] here):


although the oddity with the pic is that I believe those are solid-state caps. and those only do that on catastrophic failure and not leakage...

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Etrogann

That is exactly what they look like. What would cause catostrophic falure though?