Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

Either of those from Newark will work.
In theory one with 'NASQ' in the part number is slightly better.
5000 Hr Endurance vice 2000 Hr for the other.
[In the real world that doesn't matter much. Either will last longer than the useful life of the card.]
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Digikey might also have something.
I didn't poke around there.
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[lukeman3000]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

I received the capacitor from Newark today and installed it.

I encountered an issue at the beginning when trying to remove the old leads that were still in the board. I couldn't seem to make the solder flow. I was using a 30 watt iron.

I went up to radio shack and bought the hottest one they had - a 50 watt. I had read online that typically you want a 40-60 watt iron when working with pcbs (although I don't know how true this is).

Irregardless, I was able to get it done with the 50 watt iron. Pulled the old leads out, put the new one in, added a little solder, and clipped off the excess leads. Ran some gpu stress tests and it didn't blow up.

However, although the new capacitor appears to be the same diameter as the others, it is slightly shorter. Should that matter?

[mockingbird]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

You can do it with a 30W too if you apply a little leaded solder to the unleaded stuff.

What did you go with? The Nichicon RS you linked to? That's fine. Don't worry about the height.

[Newbie2]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

Irregardless, I was able to get it done with the 50 watt iron. Pulled the old leads out, put the new one in, added a little solder, and clipped off the excess leads. Ran some gpu stress tests and it didn't blow up.

However, although the new capacitor appears to be the same diameter as the others, it is slightly shorter. Should that matter?

The size of the capacitor does not matter, the only factor is if it was a suitable replacement for the original capacitor (which other forum members figured out for you).

Congratulations on repairing your GTX 470. That is an awesome video card that would certainly deserve repair, good job.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

However, although the new capacitor appears to be the same diameter as the others, it is slightly shorter. Should that matter?

It's fine as long as the specs are good.
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40-70 watt irons are preferred for PCB [50-70watt for motherboards] by anyone that isn't masochistic.
- That's what MOST experienced people recommend.
A wimpy iron will lead to slow work, lifted traces, more bad joints and sometimes they just won't do it.

There are always some opinions on the fringes.
Mockingbird toughs it out with a wimpy 30 watt and on EE there's a gent that insists a 110 watt iron is the way to go for mobos and PSUs.
.

[lukeman3000]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

It's fine as long as the specs are good.
.
40-70 watt irons are preferred for PCB [50-70watt for motherboards] by anyone that isn't masochistic.
- That's what MOST experienced people recommend.
A wimpy iron will lead to slow work, lifted traces, more bad joints and sometimes they just won't do it.

There are always some opinions on the fringes.
Mockingbird toughs it out with a wimpy 30 watt and on EE there's a gent that insists a 110 watt iron is the way to go for mobos and PSUs.
.

That iron has to get hot as hell. I had never seen a soldering iron actively smoke, which is what mine was doing at 50 watts. It wasn't pouring out plumes of it, but you could see a little trail.

I went with this one.

Thanks again for all the help guys, I couldn't have done it without you. At least, not so easily. This was actually a really simple job -- the trick was knowing the right capacitor to get, and where to get it. I had never done anything with capacitors before, so I didn't know anything about the labeling system, which specs are very important, which are not, so on and so forth. I've done a little soldering in the past, particularly by modding my xbox 360 controller.

Changed LEDs from green to blue. Those SMD LEDs are extremely small!


Rapid-fire mod. Not pictured are the three holes I drilled in the back of the controller for new buttons. It looks pretty stock and functions very well. I don't even use it, but I had fun doing it. These are both the same controller.


Just showing you this to show you that I had a small amount of experience coming into this project, but I'm not being insincere when I say "small". I'm sure that compared to you guys, I am essentially the same as someone with no electronics experience. I don't really "know" a whole lot of stuff. I'm good at following instructions, though.

My next project is to use an antec 620 liquid cpu cooler on the gpu. I actually got it installed this weekend and it works great, but I realized that I did something incorrectly. Others have recommended that the surface of the cooler head (which contacts the gpu) should be lapped, so I bought some sandpaper and polished it to a mirror finish.

The only problem is, I have never lapped something before, and the instructions were somewhat unclear. It didn't occur to me to use a flat surface to do the sanding. I just held the paper in my hands. So I'm going to do two things. One, I'm going to lap the cooler head correctly with a piece of glass. Two, I'm going to take the heat spreader off of the gtx 470 and put the cooler directly onto the die. Although I am aware that this is a somewhat risky proposition, others have done it with great results: up to 10C cooler temperatures. I think I should be fine as long as I take my time and work carefully.

Any advice on lapping or removing the IHS?

[mockingbird]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

Any advice on lapping or removing the IHS?

I realize this is for the GTX470, but did you ever see the pics of the guy who tried to take the IHS off his Core i7? Intel bonds it on now with solder. Never seen someone do it to a 4xx.

How will you compensate for the height discrepancy (Of the GPU - i.e. the space between the die and the heatsink) after it's removed?

[lukeman3000]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

I realize this is for the GTX470, but did you ever see the pics of the guy who tried to take the IHS off his Core i7? Intel bonds it on now with solder. Never seen someone do it to a 4xx.

How will you compensate for the height discrepancy (Of the GPU - i.e. the space between the die and the heatsink) after it's removed?

No, I haven't. I'm guessing that it didn't go well?

There are threads about removing the IHS.. people have done it and they have documented it with pictures. Here's one.

As far as the height discrepancy goes, I don't think people are compensating for it. I think they're putting the cooler directly on it. I have read that there should be no negative consequences of this, but who knows. Is that a bad idea?

[mockingbird]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

Ah, easy. I did that to Tualatins back in the day (With mixed success - easier with the CPU. I realize that you can't take off the GPU from the PCB and you have to work around all the components). Yea, the Core i7 is not as easy. So the whole heatsink is just lowered by a very small amount... Interesting.

[lukeman3000]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

Ah, easy. I did that to Tualatins back in the day (With mixed success - easier with the CPU. I realize that you can't take off the GPU from the PCB and you have to work around all the components). Yea, the Core i7 is not as easy. So the whole heatsink is just lowered by a very small amount... Interesting.

Why is there a space between the top of the die and the bottom of the IHS? Someone on the overclock.net forums hypothesized that it was a manufacturing tolerance issue, that the gap was there to ensure the safety of the die or something like that.

Is this legit, or is there another reason for the space? As far as you know, am I safe to do this and to strap the antec 620 cooler directly to the die?

[mockingbird]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

No. The space is there when the heatsink is removed because the heatsink is designed to only get so close to the PCB. He even addresses this in your link (Read Step 5):

Optional to Step 5: Leave off the IHS completely
If your heatsink allows it, you actually can attach the heatsink directly to the chip without the heat spreader. This will give you 1-2C better temps since you won't have 2 layers of thermal paste and more metal between the heatsink and actual chip. Just understand that you might need to remove any standoff's on the heatsink if there are any, and you might have a clearance problem with the Vram or VRM heatsinks farther down on the PCB. If your chip allows you to, I actually suggest leaving the IHS off completely if you can.

You *might* be able to do this, but I doubt it.

[Scenic]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

I realize this is for the GTX470, but did you ever see the pics of the guy who tried to take the IHS off his Core i7? Intel bonds it on now with solder.

Intel has been soldering the IHS to the Die since Socket 775.
Found that out after I killed a S775 Pentium 4 620 (2.8GHz). Ripped the Die straight off of the substrate
No big loss though..

Managed to get the IHS off of a Pentium D 805 (2.66GHz .. HUGE Die!) but ripped off and damaged some SMD components and a corner of the Die.

Next ultra-careful attempt on a Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.86GHz) was successful (no damage ; CPU still works).
I'm using a Thermalright XP-120 cooler with S775 mounting brackets and rubber pads around the die to keep the CPU firmly in the socket (outer pins not losing contact). You have to remove the "pressure plate" (the part that you open up when inserting a CPU) from the socket though.

I didn't throw away the P4 as the Die looks so cool. Need to find someone with a microscope some day for that one. Kept the Pentium D just to show off the gigantic Die.. The keychain idea I had was scrapped.. corners and edges of the die are sharp enough to cut through the cloth I used to clean it up and subsequently the skin on my finger.. *ouch*

I've also removed the heatstpreader from my old Geforce 8800GTS (G80 ; 320MB) and replaced it with a somewhat thinner copper plate and good thermal compound. Temps went down by 8-10°C.. Probably because of the crappy thermal compound they used at the factory (under the heatspreader ; was rock-hard by the time I got to it)

edit: no pics of the 8800GTS as it's currently in my 2nd computer. Don't feel like taking it out and apart just for a few pics. Next time I clean the heatsink maybe..

[mockingbird]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

Wow! That's what's under a Pentium D?! For such a huge die, the thing is slow as molasses.

I'm tempted to take the IHS off mine. I think mine's a 930. I use it on a daily basis and I think I can get the temperature lower without it. What did you use, a heatgun?

[lukeman3000]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

No. The space is there when the heatsink is removed because the heatsink is designed to only get so close to the PCB. He even addresses this in your link (Read Step 5):

You *might* be able to do this, but I doubt it.

Why do you think that I might not be able to do it? I've seen others do it with similar GPUs..

Are you speaking to the level of difficulty in successfully completing this without ruining something, or the fact that I may not be able to make contact with the die without touch other components on the pcb? I'm pretty sure the die is raised high enough of the pcb so that this wouldn't happen, and the cooler head is flat with no standoffs.

[Scenic]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

The thing is.. the cooler is designed with the (usually around 1-2mm thick) heatspreader in mind. If it's missing, what's gonna fill that gap?!

If the heatspreader is soldered onto the GPU or GPU, it's damn near impossible to get it off without risking to kill the card / CPU in the process by ripping the die straight off (like in the first pic in post #32)

[lukeman3000]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

The thing is.. the cooler is designed with the (usually around 1-2mm thick) heatspreader in mind. If it's missing, what's gonna fill that gap?!

If the heatspreader is soldered onto the GPU or GPU, it's damn near impossible to get it off without risking to kill the card / CPU in the process by ripping the die straight off (like in the first pic in post #32)

Well, it's not soldered on. And I don't think anything is supposed to fill the gap between the die and the IHS -- people are strapping the cooler heads right onto the die itself.

[mockingbird]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

No, not the die and the IHS, the die and the videocard heatsink... If you put the IHS back on you should put some thermal grease between them and then some grease on top between the IHS and the heatsink.

[lukeman3000]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

Well, I decided not to remove the IHS. However, I did attempt to lap it with it still on the pcb. I thought I did a fairly decent job (although the corners are slightly lower than the rest of the IHS for some reason), but during the process I must've nicked a couple of the pcb components.



Yes, I am a moron. First a capacitor, and now this, whatever it is. You see the smd component that is kind of crooked (right under the hole)? Well I must've nicked that one too. But directly to the left, one is completely missing. I got lucky, and found it in the floor when I heard it fall off the counter. (I'm assuming that it still works ok...)

Anyways, it looks easy enough to put back on the board. What I'm wondering is if there's a right or a wrong way to put it back on. Does it have a polarity?

[mockingbird]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

Good question. I don't *think* those have polarity. They're capacitors. Straighten that crooked one out and solder it in place, then solder back the one that fell off.

Here's where that high-wattage iron will come in handy with the fine tip. A little flux applied with a needle point would help.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Broke my GTX 470, need help identifying replacement cap

How can you possibly tell they are capacitors?
They aren't marked on the PCB.
They use that package for resistors, diodes and sometimes inductors too.
.