Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS

[ratdude747]

Made a score today:

The price:



A sticker included:



... which is not quite accurate:



The card's specs:



The ports:



Yay! All Poly caps:



and of course, given a second card, one could SLI it:



I have not had a chance to test it... But I will soon. Comments?

Side note- I wonder what to do with that massive sticker... Put it on my toolbox?

[Topcat]

^
Yup. good score for 5 bones.

[Scenic]

Good card and damn good deal if it works, but make a 110% sure the heatsink is clean and get new thermal pads for the RAM (the rubber-like type).
These cards have a design flaw (no.. not that it's a nvidia :P) where the thermal "pads" (whatever material the originals are) shrink over time, causing almost no heatsink contact for the RAM which can fry it.

I still have my Leadtek PX8800GTS 320MB (little brother of your card) somewhere. Damn good performer for its time, but the G80 does run HOT!
Bought that card specifically for GTA IV back then and it did pretty damn well with my OCed little Core 2 Duo 1.8 @ 3

[ratdude747]

Will do on the pads... I have a couple sheets of pad that I can cut from... I also have one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118001

(never mind, I think it may be missing 2 of the 4 tie down bolts... it and the RAM heatsinks were pulled of a fried ATI card)

[c_hegge]

Good score if it works, but remember, the entire 8xxx series has the nVidia manufacturing defect.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by c_hegge

Good score if it works, but remember, the entire 8xxx series has the nVidia manufacturing defect.

I know. luckily it has a massive heatsink.


---

I replaced the pads and thermal compound... for the pads, I used T-Pli 250 cut with an exato knife, as that's what I had a couple sheets of. There were pads for the RAM (12 chips), daughter BGA chip of some sort, and VRM silicon (4 pads, 12 Mosfets). Once I cranked down the bolts, it all came together nicely... everything has good solid contact, including the GPU.

The heatsink was pretty clean; not much to do there.

[kc8adu]

i assume it worked when tested?
as for curb finds a neighbor did a shed cleanout.
got a sansui g5700 reciever and a box of boards.one had a hole burned in it but had a am2 quad core and 8 gb ram. all good!
the sansui needs work in one channel.
found a 32" plasma set around the corner.thought it had the common shorted y buffer issue but just a shorted mosfet on ysus.easy fix.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by kc8adu

i assume it worked when tested?
as for curb finds a neighbor did a shed cleanout.
got a sansui g5700 reciever and a box of boards.one had a hole burned in it but had a am2 quad core and 8 gb ram. all good!
the sansui needs work in one channel.
found a 32" plasma set around the corner.thought it had the common shorted y buffer issue but just a shorted mosfet on ysus.easy fix.

The GPU? It was untested... It's goodwill.

it was from a ritzy rich area goodwill... I think somebody put that gtx 460 card in thier box as an upgrade and chose to donate the old card and the sticker they didn't use...

[ratdude747]

The GPU might be toast.

attached are pictures of what I saw... IIRC that means that underfill in the GPU is roasted (ie it couldn't be saved by a reball).

comments?

[Topcat]

^
Damn, thats too bad....it's toast for sure. It was worth a 5-dollar gamble to find out though. I've bought hardware cheap a lot of times and gambled that it was good....You win some you lose some....you will win more than not though....so keep your eyes peeled!

[Scenic]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

The GPU might be toast.

attached are pictures of what I saw... IIRC that means that underfill in the GPU is roasted (ie it couldn't be saved by a reball).

comments?

Oven method (as there's nothing to lose at this point).

The G80 core based cards (8800GTS 320/640, 8800GTX, 8800 Ultra) don't really have the bump/underfill problems. The bump/underfill problems are on the later G86 and G84 based cards, i.e. anything Geforce 8400 to 8600, which were (unfortunately) very common in laptops.

G80 cards either have BGA issues (card flexing ; heavy heatsink) or fried RAM (the thermal pad problem I mentioned before). Or they generally overheat due to asswipes never cleaning the heatsink, making them fail much faster.

I've revived four G80 based cards (two 8800GTX, two 8800GTS 320MB) with the controversial oven method so far. All of them showed artifacts like in your photos and most of the time, slightly pushing on the card or squeezing it with your thumb and index finger where the GPU sits varied the amount of lines or weird blocks on the screen. Those revived cards worked fine for months in various PCs till I sold them on ebay.

On the other hand, I've never been able to get any good results trying to "oven reflow" any GF8400-8600 so far. On some of them, the symptoms didn't change at all, while on others the oven reflow made it worse or ended up killing the GPU for good (no image at all).

Oh and btw.. The G80 is HUGE! The GPU package is about the size of a 486, which doesn't really help when the board is flexing in the slot because of the heavy heatsink. The metal frame around the GPU (which isn't part of the heatsink) doesn't really seem to help much in the long run either..

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Scenic

Oven method (as there's nothing to lose at this point).

The G80 core based cards (8800GTS 320/640, 8800GTX, 8800 Ultra) don't really have the bump/underfill problems. The bump/underfill problems are on the later G86 and G84 based cards, i.e. anything Geforce 8400 to 8600, which were (unfortunately) very common in laptops.

G80 cards either have BGA issues (card flexing ; heavy heatsink) or fried RAM (the thermal pad problem I mentioned before). Or they generally overheat due to asswipes never cleaning the heatsink, making them fail much faster.

I've revived four G80 based cards (two 8800GTX, two 8800GTS 320MB) with the controversial oven method so far. All of them showed artifacts like in your photos and most of the time, slightly pushing on the card or squeezing it with your thumb and index finger where the GPU sits varied the amount of lines or weird blocks on the screen. Those revived cards worked fine for months in various PCs till I sold them on ebay.

On the other hand, I've never been able to get any good results trying to "oven reflow" any GF8400-8600 so far. On some of them, the symptoms didn't change at all, while on others the oven reflow made it worse or ended up killing the GPU for good (no image at all).

Oh and btw.. The G80 is HUGE! The GPU package is about the size of a 486, which doesn't really help when the board is flexing in the slot because of the heavy heatsink. The metal frame around the GPU (which isn't part of the heatsink) doesn't really seem to help much in the long run either..

yeah, It's a biggie.

Ive never done a reflow... Don't I need to get some needled flux and a heat gun?

but the RAM- I think the pads were still making contact when the heatsinkw as pulled.

Last, the GPU got HOT fast during the tests...


--

I was given an ATI card that starts good but as one loads it it goes to hell... similar problem?

[ratdude747]

I just remembered- my college has a BGA Station I can acesses in a few months... would that be better than an oven?

[SuperDuty]

You can try with a heat gun if you have one, just make sure to protect the surrounding components with tin foil. Heat the GPU for about a minute. It worked for me with a GeForce Go7400.
I have a whole bunch of dead low end GeForce 7xxx and 8xxx that I'm gonna try to "repair", but my heat gun is shot, I need a new one.

Did the problem occur with Radeon Xxxx and X1xxx ? I have three X300SE and none of them work, as well as a X1600 Pro. The latter didn't work at all at first, but after "baking" it in the oven, it came back to life but with a lot of artefacts and color problems.

[ratdude747]

I do not have a heat gun...

[momaka]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

The GPU might be toast.
attached are pictures of what I saw... IIRC that means that underfill in the GPU is roasted (ie it couldn't be saved by a reball).
comments?

If it displays a picture, it's far from toast. Artifacts can be caused both by bad BGA joints on the RAM and the GPU, so you should reflow both.

Originally Posted by ratdude747

Ive never done a reflow... Don't I need to get some needled flux and a heat gun?

Any flux will do - both paste and liquid work in my experience. Since your video card is lead-free, reflowing without flux opens the possibility of tin wiskers forming between the BGA joints and bridging them. So using flux is highly recommended. Don't go overboard, though (i.e. don't do like most people show on YouTube, where they drown whatever they are reflowing with flux - that's bad).
As far as oven vs. heatgun:
- if using the heatgun, heat the card from underneath first (i.e. don't heat the chip directly from top as most people show) and heat the whole card slowly on low setting. Heating/cooling quickly puts a lot of stress on the board. When the flux starts bubbling and you can see the solder on the top side of the video card is shiny, proceed to heating the GPU chip from top. Don't heat to more than 250C either.
- if using the oven for the reflow, make sure to cover all plastic parts with Aluminum foil and don't wrap it too tightly around them. Also remove any electrolytic caps (polymers can stay). Then put card in the oven (with flux under the GPU), set to 220-230C, and let it reflow. Once the oven temperature hits 220-230C, let the video card sit in there for about a minute, then turn off the oven and carefully open the oven door. Do NOT move the card or the oven - let it cool down well before handling.

Originally Posted by ratdude747

I was given an ATI card that starts good but as one loads it it goes to hell... similar problem?

Possibly. I do have a FX5600 that does that when I play heavy 3D games. Underclocking the GPU makes it work 100% stable for hours. Nothing wrong with the BGA, just something wonky with the GPU clock since games actually choke worse when the card is running at normal speed vs. underclocked.

Originally Posted by ratdude747

I just remembered- my college has a BGA Station I can acesses in a few months... would that be better than an oven?

Depends on the station and its features and settings (and knowing how to change them/use them too). You can just as easily screw the card with it if you don't know what you are doing.

Originally Posted by ratdude747

I do not have a heat gun...

Buy one? Easy to find cheap ones for ~$20. It's actually a very good investment. You can use it to pre-heat thick boards with lead-free solder - it really does help. I use mine all the time for that. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't be able to do any of my motherboard recaps with my 35W Radio Shack iron.

[ratdude747]

Moving to a new thread...


the bga/hot air station is a newer one... they got it last fall. I was the first guy to test it... The building's tech guy knew I was more skilled than the average freshman and one day saw me and asked me to test it on some dummy soldering test boards... that was fun...

they had a HUGE bag of nozzles with it...

As for heat guns, I have thought about it... If I bought one, I'd get a good one... A lesson I have learned is that quality tools of that kind make all the difference. Lately I have not had a need to preheat, since i now have a Weller W60-p 60W iron... If I was still using the 30W, I'd have more of a use for one. Granted, being able to use heat shrink would be nice...

I forgot the model no. of the dead ATI card... and due to my recent toe surgery, I can't go to the basement right now to find out. I did steal the 4 pin yellow header off of it to add a 90 degree header to a USB card. I also repadded that card; the new pads that time didn't agree as well and bowed the RAM plate. Given that the card came with an aftermarket Zalman cooler on it (I was also given the stock cooler), my guess is that somebody OC'd it to death.

I think I may go with the oven method since it could be the RAM as well... Should I also flux the RAM chips? The secondary BGA chip too?

As for flux, I'll have to see... all I happen to have is a Kester flux pen... So any product suggestions?

[Scenic]

By "secondary BGA chip" I assume you mean the little one close to the DVI ports?
If so, that one is almost never a problem.

That little chip does get warm, but nowhere near as hot as the GPU itself. The G80 idles at 50-60°C with the stock cooler, which is normal for them. No wonder the solder gives up after some time.

Those idle temps also explain why they die so quick if the owner doesn't take care of the heatsink. With a clogged one, the idle temps could easily ramp up to well over 80°C.
Then think about what they will shoot up to when the card gets some load in that state..

[ratdude747]

the heatsink was clean on this one...

--

yeah, that BGA... but sine I am going to oven it, I should flux it as well?

[Scenic]

Previous owner probably cleaned it after it started showing problems (i.e. when it was too late already)

I'd say flux that chip as well. Tin whiskers are nasty.