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Cracked capacitor!!

1818 Views 13 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  Hephasteus, 
S
So today I open up the case to do a little more cable management/dusting and after pulling my 8600GT out, I noticed that one of the capacitors has cracked open on the top. I'm pretty sure I didn't nick it or anything.. I am thinking it may be from all the recent heat trouble I had with my old case. I was seeing load temps of above 90* on a regular basis. and I live in Florida to top it off.

When I saw it I was kind of surprised it was still functioning fine. Should I be worried?? It isnt completely busted open but on the top where the "K" shape is, is cracked/popped open a bit
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D
Capacitor?

RMA it as it is a card defect. It's a pop cap and pretty much useless. The electrical properties are now all kinds of wacky.
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heelsparky0501
as duckie said, rma it
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kwudude
I assume you mean a capacitor- it's a small cylinder with 2 wires to the card, right?

If you ever get any errors, immediately RMA or warranty it, but if you aren't, you might as well just not bother. I had an 8600gt that lasted a while without a cap.
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S
lol... conductor. must have heard that on tv or something. good catch.

I don't even know if I can still RMA this thing.. i've had it for a couple years now. I don't remember the warranty details for XFX cards.. i'll have to check into that. sucks that i'll be without a GPU for a while though
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rippon
Quote:


Originally Posted by Shooter116
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lol... conductor. must have heard that on tv or something. good catch.

I don't even know if I can still RMA this thing.. i've had it for a couple years now. I don't remember the warranty details for XFX cards.. i'll have to check into that. sucks that i'll be without a GPU for a while though

Look at the specs on the top of it or identical ones and see if you can find a replacement. Most likely you can. With those big capacitors it shouldn't be too much of a problem to find a replacement and solder it on.

If you can find a part number, you might even be able to get an exact replacement off digikey or mouser.
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S
I doubt i'll be doing any soldering or anything. The worst that can possibly happen is me having to upgrade sooner than I want to. I would like to have this card and focus on other things for now. I don't know when this even happened, but would it still be wise to play games with it in this condition?
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S
Quote:


Originally Posted by Shooter116
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lol... conductor. must have heard that on tv or something. good catch.

I don't even know if I can still RMA this thing.. i've had it for a couple years now. I don't remember the warranty details for XFX cards.. i'll have to check into that. sucks that i'll be without a GPU for a while though

If you are the first or second owner of that card, you are covered by warranty. More specifically, if you are the first or second person to register the card. You can be an owner but if you dont register, xfx knows nothing.

But yeah, RMA it. Just because it works now doesnt mean that its not killing something else on the card. Just think of it this way, if it wasnt needed, I doubt that broke nvidia would take the expense of putting it there
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rippon
It would be a risk. The capacitors are designed to crack open at the top like that rather than explode. The capacitor probably was not working right from the start, so you might still be good, but I would not risk it. The card could completely go, but I'm sure if it created a short or something it could somehow take out other things on the PC.

Check with your warranty first. I know my card has a lifetime warranty, and the first XFX 8600 I looked up on Newegg had a lifetime from xfx, too.
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S
I spoke with an XFX technician and it turns out, I wasn't under warranty since I hadn't registered the card when I bought it. But he was cool so he approved it and gave me an RMA number. Just need to send it in!
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S
Could this possibly be the cause of me having some recent windows startup errors? Sometimes the PC won't boot, and will enter startup repair mode, followed by the advanced boot menu after rebooting.
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C
Hehe Reminds me of the time I had the 7900GX2. I accidently poped off TWO caps when doing calbe management (I have HUGE hands). I was so freaked out lol, but the card still functioned 100%. I even ended up selling it to a coworker lol.
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C
Quote:


Originally Posted by Shooter116
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Could this possibly be the cause of me having some recent windows startup errors? Sometimes the PC won't boot, and will enter startup repair mode, followed by the advanced boot menu after rebooting.

I dont believe the video card would have anything to do with this honestly. Sounds like you possibly have some OS issues/HDD issues.
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H
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shooter116 View Post
Could this possibly be the cause of me having some recent windows startup errors? Sometimes the PC won't boot, and will enter startup repair mode, followed by the advanced boot menu after rebooting.
What you have is a capacitor that vent popped. They are cut so that if they overheat they blow out the top at set pressures. Yes any device that is electrically unstable on a PCI addon bus or AGP bus can cause problems with the operation of the entire computer since they are not buffered. You can have card explode and burn on a pci bus or old AT bus or EISA bus without it mattering because they are electrically isolated by buffering but not so on PCI express or AGP.
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