Squealing Capacitors
There seems to be alot of fear/ignorance on this subject. So I've decided to give everyone that doesn't know the straight poop.
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FIRST, to make sure it is in fact your caps, take a straw (or hose) put it in your ear and use it as a stethoscope to isolate where the sound is coming from. It may be a coil or it may not be It may not be your card at all, PS can squeal under stress and adding a higher wattage component can cause this.
This happens from micro vibrations under high turnover. It is not a symptom of failure. I.E. Your card will not blow up.
But it IS an RMA'able occurrence.
If it is indeed a cap here are a few things you can do.
1. RMA (Make sure to specify the reason so you don't get a card returned that does the same) If they tell you it's not an rma'able reason then argue (you will win).
2. Ignore it (this will result in slightly lower life expectancy of caps (like a car with a wobbly tire it will fail sooner) More than likely it will not fail within the life expectancy of the card anyway.
3. Repair
Method A (correct method) Remove and replace making sure Cap's bottom is in contact with PCB. Or just reseat cap as it is still good.
Method B silicon caps so that they cannot vibrate. You will see this on many cheap power supplies. Looks like someone dropped glue all over the caps. This woks but will also lower the life of the caps do to heat. Again not to a level where the life of the cap should not outlast the expected gpu lifetime. Also sometimes epoxy will be used.
Method C There has been alot of talk of hot glue and while I cannot recommend it as I haven't tried it and think it would be tough to remove you can certainly try it.
Hope this cleared up any misconceptions and fears.
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Edited:
As was mentioned here is a good link on the subject. But I would warn not to use nail polish. Silicon can be removed by pulling it off.
THX Broken Pixel and shinji2k for the link.
FIRST, to make sure it is in fact your caps, take a straw (or hose) put it in your ear and use it as a stethoscope to isolate where the sound is coming from. It may be a coil or it may not be It may not be your card at all, PS can squeal under stress and adding a higher wattage component can cause this.
This happens from micro vibrations under high turnover. It is not a symptom of failure. I.E. Your card will not blow up.
But it IS an RMA'able occurrence.
If it is indeed a cap here are a few things you can do.
1. RMA (Make sure to specify the reason so you don't get a card returned that does the same) If they tell you it's not an rma'able reason then argue (you will win).
2. Ignore it (this will result in slightly lower life expectancy of caps (like a car with a wobbly tire it will fail sooner) More than likely it will not fail within the life expectancy of the card anyway.
3. Repair
Method A (correct method) Remove and replace making sure Cap's bottom is in contact with PCB. Or just reseat cap as it is still good.
Method B silicon caps so that they cannot vibrate. You will see this on many cheap power supplies. Looks like someone dropped glue all over the caps. This woks but will also lower the life of the caps do to heat. Again not to a level where the life of the cap should not outlast the expected gpu lifetime. Also sometimes epoxy will be used.
Method C There has been alot of talk of hot glue and while I cannot recommend it as I haven't tried it and think it would be tough to remove you can certainly try it.
Hope this cleared up any misconceptions and fears.
Edited:
As was mentioned here is a good link on the subject. But I would warn not to use nail polish. Silicon can be removed by pulling it off.
THX Broken Pixel and shinji2k for the link.
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Maybe I wasn't clear. The caps will outlast your need for the card (probably) how many years do you expect the card to work? There will more than likely be a new bus type within 10 years so the card will be worthless by then and the cap will more than likely still be fine.
Originally Posted by broken pixel  http://theovalich.wordpress.com/2008...ling/#comments |
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Originally Posted by Spike. I'm sure a good 50% of our cards have this squeal under load, it really is going to lower the life of my card? Overclocking, 24/7 100% load use, and Squealing caps all being things that contribute to a slightly reduced life may add up to a pretty short life compared to cards that don't squeal? I'm even more scared now! hehe. |
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My 8800 Ultra had bad hissing cap under load, I was going to RMA it but decided not to. The card has been OC 17% from the default clocks for almost 2 yrs and never did I see a performance drop. I think it is cause by the charging, discharging and frequency changes. As long as you keep the GPU cool it will live a long and happy life.
Originally Posted by Spike. I'm sure a good 50% of our cards have this squeal under load, it really is going to lower the life of my card? Overclocking, 24/7 100% load use, and Squealing caps all being things that contribute to a slightly reduced life may add up to a pretty short life compared to cards that don't squeal? I'm even more scared now! hehe. |
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Nope, just waylaying the obligatory, They won't rma it cause it's not a bad cap" Bull I hear when I try to help peops that the sound bothers them.
And I know thier are other EE's in the world
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Sorry if you felt insulted in some way?
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Originally Posted by gnolnats "......My EE degree trumps your ignorance." A little bit conceited, are we? I'm an EE also btw, and I'm sure there are several others in this forum. |
And I know thier are other EE's in the world
Sorry if you felt insulted in some way?
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Ahh yup good read, I especially liked this
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I wasn't aware the stock thermal compound was that bad. I may have to remove/replace mine for higher shader!
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Also using silicon as opposed to epoxy or finger nail polish as they did here has the added benefit of being easy to remove!
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Originally Posted by shinji2k This is probably what pixel was trying to link to: http://theovalich.wordpress.com/2008...280-squealing/ There is a comment on that page that is very relevant to the topic: It's not just caps, the inductors are also the main culprit (and in my opinion moreso than the capacitors). As the anonymous poster rightfully imlpied, do this with caution. |
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| Daniela filled the inside of the capacitor/choke. We also removed all the factory-default thermal paste from the GPU and replace it with Gelid’s GX-1 compound. That reduced load temperature by 3 degrees, as we wanted to lower the thermal load of the PCB. |
Also using silicon as opposed to epoxy or finger nail polish as they did here has the added benefit of being easy to remove!
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+rep thx for the link too added to OP
Originally Posted by broken pixel My 8800 Ultra had bad hissing cap under load, I was going to RMA it but decided not to. The card has been OC 17% from the default clocks for almost 2 yrs and never did I see a performance drop. I think it is cause by the charging, discharging and frequency changes. As long as you keep the GPU cool it will live a long and happy life. |
thanx for the info Hueristic
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Thank you!
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Good info
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... and i half expected the entire post to be spelled out in smilies
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:la chen:
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:ba nd:
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:appl aud:
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:heyyo u:
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Originally Posted by SlicketyRickety Good info
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good info, I was just wondering if thermal glue would work better for cementing the caps down like Arctic or something else.
Hueristic Lord of they emoticons
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Hueristic Lord of they emoticons
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