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7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

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    #1

    7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

    I have a customer with a 7300GT PCI-e card. I found one smd capacitor (very small one) missing. The cap is on the back side connecting one of the pins of the card with the core. The cap is connecting the trace so it's not put there just to filter ripple but also provide continuity. I haven't checked the card yet but the customer said the system would lag and lock up randomly so I guess this is the cause of the problems. I just need your confirmation on the defect. I don't know if my soldering skills are up to the task but I will give it a go so any advice on how to go about this is appreciated. Also would like to ask if going for a cap with the same size from another board would work. I have some closeups but they are kinda blurry.
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    Guns don't solve problems. I'll take 12
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    #2
    Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

    These caps are almost always 100n. You can just grab a similar one from another board. I've done this on several occasions, worked every time. But if you have a multimeter with capacitance function i'd advise you to measure one of its neighbors (you might have to lift it from the board tho) and be double sure about it.

    They are actually really easy to solder once you get past the "omg how small they are" phase.
    Originally posted by PeteS in CA
    Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
    A working TV? How boring!

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      #3
      Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

      Are you sure that it's not the caps on the card causing instability? I recently re-capped a 7300GS.
      "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

      -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

      Comment

        #4
        Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

        Originally posted by mockingbird View Post
        Are you sure that it's not the caps on the card causing instability? I recently re-capped a 7300GS.
        Caps are quality panny's and no visible defects.

        BTW can I change the smd cap to a ceramic one?? there are free circular pads above and below the place where the cap should be and it'd be a lot easier to solder on a ceramic there.
        Guns don't solve problems. I'll take 12

        Comment

          #5
          Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

          Might work, might not too. At the high clock speeds the PCI-E interface works at, the added length of the non-SMD capacitor's leads could cause issues by affecting the trace impedance\length.

          Of course, I don't know a huge deal about such things so I could be tallking rubbish. Give it a try and see if it works I guess!

          Otherwise, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66GV4OuShzI and have some fun (?)
          "Tantalum for the brave, Solid Aluminium for the wise, Wet Electrolytic for the adventurous"
          -David VanHorn

          Comment

            #6
            Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

            Originally posted by Koda View Post
            BTW can I change the smd cap to a ceramic one??
            Caps in that format are ALWAYS ceramic, so yes, you can use a regular leaded ceramic there, but cut the leads as short as possible.
            Originally posted by PeteS in CA
            Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
            A working TV? How boring!

            Comment

              #7
              Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

              Gess what, the card is perfectly stable even without the capacitor (ran furmark for an hour with no problems). Guess that pin is not critical to the card. The card is passively cooled though and it gives really high temps 78C at idle and that might have been the cause for instability. When will people learn not to buy passively cooled cards. I hate the damn things.
              Guns don't solve problems. I'll take 12

              Comment

                #8
                Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

                Could be, if his case doesn't have good airflow.

                That said, my old 8600GT was passive cooled and it never lagged or locked up. I didn't stuff it in a tiny case with no airflow but it did run about high 70s during gaming too.
                "Tantalum for the brave, Solid Aluminium for the wise, Wet Electrolytic for the adventurous"
                -David VanHorn

                Comment

                  #9
                  Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

                  Well the thing died on mean hour ago. I mounted a PSU fan on the heatsink to try it out and see what temps I'd be getting, it was running 49C idle and 78 full load with furmark. Left it to run for about 2 hrs and things were just fine. Fired up HL2 and played on the thing for about a hour and half (I was bored ) againg everything fine. Restarted the system and after about 1-2 min in windows the screen went dark. Restarted and while loading windows it happened again. After that no more display at all. Any idea as to what might be the problem??
                  Guns don't solve problems. I'll take 12

                  Comment

                    #10
                    Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

                    Maybe it really did need that capacitor?

                    Or perhaps the capacitor didn't matter, and the GPU or a RAM chip (or something else!) was going faulty and your stress testing finished it off.
                    "Tantalum for the brave, Solid Aluminium for the wise, Wet Electrolytic for the adventurous"
                    -David VanHorn

                    Comment

                      #11
                      Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

                      The 7300GT is old and slow anyway; an inexpensive NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS or ATI Radeon HD 5450 replacement (cards in that class) don't cost much.
                      My gaming PC:
                      AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition 3.3GHz Six-Core CPU (Socket AM3)
                      ASUS M4A77TD AMD 770 AM3 Motherboard
                      PowerColor AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB GDDR5 PCI-Express x16 3.0 Graphics Card
                      G.SKILL Value Series 16GB DDR3-1333 RAM (4x4GB dual channel)
                      TOSHIBA DT01ACA200 2TB 3.5" SATA HDD (x2)
                      WD Caviar Green WD20EARX 2TB 3.5" SATA HDD
                      ASUS Xonar DG 5.1 Channel PCI sound card
                      Antec HCG-750M 750W ATX12V v2.32 80 PLUS BRONZE Power Supply
                      Antec Three Hundred Mid-Tower Case
                      Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
                      Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit

                      Comment

                        #12
                        Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

                        Maybe it was the capacitor or something else, I added a capacitor after it died but it was already too late (stupid me...) I guess it doesn't matter now. I'm not that good at electronics to troubleshoot other smd components so I'll just return it to the owner. BTW a 5450 here is atleast 60$, uset 7300 goes for 30$ and I was gonna charge 10$ for the added cooling and the repair (if any needed) so do the math. People here don't buy new things unless they absolutely have to.
                        Guns don't solve problems. I'll take 12

                        Comment

                          #13
                          Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

                          7300 is a piece of junk, even slower than a 6600... Is that the best you can get there? I got a Radeon 4890 off eBay for $20.
                          "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

                          -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

                          Comment

                            #14
                            Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

                            That's receiver lane 14 differential pair's negative half AC coupling capacitor.

                            From the PCI-E specification they are to be from 75 to 200nF.

                            The card should still work fine without it, but will be reduced to x8 mode operation.

                            Comment

                              #15
                              Re: 7300GT smd cap knocked off causing instability

                              Originally posted by mockingbird View Post
                              7300 is a piece of junk, even slower than a 6600... Is that the best you can get there? I got a Radeon 4890 off eBay for $20.
                              Yeah 7300 is a piece of junk but even junk costs money here and I can't order from ebay cause we don't have paypal in macedonia.

                              Originally posted by b700029 View Post
                              That's receiver lane 14 differential pair's negative half AC coupling capacitor.

                              From the PCI-E specification they are to be from 75 to 200nF.

                              The card should still work fine without it, but will be reduced to x8 mode operation.
                              So I guess something else is wrong with the card. The hell with it, I wasted enough time with it.
                              Guns don't solve problems. I'll take 12

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