[Chrisnbig]

I bought my computer in 2006 it is a Gateway 5474 came with a Asus G86-GW. I've been looking for hours and hours for a manual for this thing or even a manual for something similar with no luck.

Okay my problem is the card was failing on me so I pulled it out, It took a little force to get out then I noticed it had a cable pluged into it. I don't know if it was unplugged or if I unplugged it when pulling it out.

I noticed when I had the card out it has some bad capacitors, so I am going to replace the bad caps and reinstall.

Could someone please tell me what this cable is and if its needed I have no clue, maybe a cable for sli?

heres a pic

 

[edalbkrad]

im pretty sure that red cable with black connector is just for hdmi, dont worry about it.
I think its used to connect the soundcard to the videocard so the videocard will output both sound and video through an hdmi cable

does the card still work? it will be hard to find same caps and even harder to solder it.

 

[*ka24e*]

Good luck with replacing the capacitors, its not too bad if you take your time.

As for the extra wire, I believe it is a fan connector but the pics are so damn small.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?board_id=9&model=EN8500+Series&id=20090714021547453&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

 

[Chrisnbig]

Thanks guys,

The card does not work now, gives me a black screen so I'm using my vga port.

Replacing the caps shouldn't be too bad, its worth a try I guess. Radio Shack has the ones I need online..

So its either the fan or the HDMI sound cable, so IF i get this thing working again and plug it in if the fan doesn't work then I'll know what the plugs for..

Thanks again!

 

[MarshallRA]

Did you try putting it in the oven to see if it works?

 

[Chrisnbig]

No I haven't put it in the oven, it has noticeable bulging capacitors. I don't think a re-flow will help.. For the caps I need they cost $15 shipped which is more than I wanted to spend on this card.

Is there something better out there that I can still purchase for cheap? I'd rather put the $15 towards something better. I want to keep my 400w power supply..

I don't really want to put too more money into this computer as I'm saving up to build a new one.

 

[phantasmor]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1203488/9800-gt-for-30-bucks-at-compusa better and cheap, thread right above don't know if you have a comp usa near you though

 

[lightsout]

I'm pretty sure the wire is for spdif. I had the exact same card (oem 8500gt) and that wire enabled audio over hdmi.

 

[blupupher]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lightsout

I'm pretty sure the wire is for spdif. I had the exact same card (oem 8500gt) and that wire enabled audio over hdmi.

This. It is so you can have sound throught the HDMI. If you don't use HDMI, you don't need it.

 

[Princess Garnet]

Indeed, it's not for the fan. The fan header is the separate wires below plugged into the card itself so the fan will work without it. It's for sound. Newer cards don't need it anymore but older ones did.

The card obviously has failed capacitors, but do note that many GeForce 8600 and GeForce 8400 chipsets, especially OEM/lower cooling ones, did fail also due to poor solder (this largely affected laptops but most or even all of them were subject to it; it just took them longer to fail due to better cooling). I'm not sure if this affected the GeForce 8500s, but some GeForce 8800s were even seeming affected (maybe others too, like the GeForce 9x00s), so I would imagine so. If it still doesn't work after fixing the capacitors, keep that in mind.

P.S. That 400W will take something modest from that time frame like a GeForce 8800 GT. I imagine that's a modest Core 2-based dual core? If so, that's not all that hungry, so unless Gateway really cheaped out on the PSU and it has the amperage on the +12V rail, there's a chane it'll take something halfway decent. If I remember right, the GeForce 8600 cards were twice as fast as that, and my GeForce 8600 GTS OC was slow next to my GeForce 8800 GT OC. They're used, but it might be worth looking around the site here, or even elsewhere, for something cheap if this is just a temporary solution.

 

[TheSandman]

id just replace the 8500GT in all honesty its not really good for much, when it was released it was about the same speed as a 6800XT and that hasn't changed its just to slow to be of any real value

 

[Chrisnbig]

Thats exactly what I did, I just bought one of those 9800 GT's Lawman has for sale.. Hopefully that will be an improvement.