Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 /w vented MV-WX

[Sudum Gumudu]

Last night, the graphics card in my secondary box, a Creative Labs Geforce4 Ti4400 began to act up. Graphics glitches galore.
Pulled it, and upon closer inspection discovered a bulging cap on it. There are five Sanyo MV-WX and four yellow (Fujitsu polymer ?) on it, and one of the Sanyos shows a distinct bulge.
Sanyos aren't supposed to do that, right ? Hopfully it can be saved by a recap. Should I change all the Sanyos, or will changing the visbly bad suffice ?
Pics to follow.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 /w vented MV-WX

That was very intersting, yet troubling to hear

Yes, a recap of only one cap should hopefully do it because I think it might have been one bad cap out of all produced... You would actually do us a favor if you only changed one cap and then reported back in a few months if the others has bulged/vented...

Be sure to also post all stuff written on the cap if it can not clearly be seen in the pics...

[Sudum Gumudu]

Re: Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 /w vented MV-WX

I'll do the bulged one first. If that fixes the problem, I'll leave the rest. And, here are the pics. It's hard to see on the pics, but they have the Sanyo logo, and series denominator WX marked on them. Four 470uF, 16v and one 1000uF, 6,3v.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 /w vented MV-WX

Thank you for the pictures!

I notice you use a heatpipe cooler, is it fanless? If so could you monitor the temperature of the card when looping 3dmark or something else that loads it 100%? (the general area around the VRM section where the caps are)

Hoping you good luck with the recap, ps, I notice you are from Sweden, here is the part number in Elfa for the exact same type of cap...

www.elfa.se Search for: 67-233-81

[Sudum Gumudu]

Re: Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 /w vented MV-WX

Fanless it is. I'm beginning to think that was not such a great idea, the failed cap could be due to excessive heat. I will probably attach a ZM-OP1 fan to it if the recap is successful. I'll measure the temp without it first.
The card is four years old, but has not seen heavy use the last two. The stock fan was used the first two years.
Thanks for the Elfa tip. I had that all figured out though.

[hkivan]

Re: Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 /w vented MV-WX

The die temp. of my winfast 6600 reach 75C at full loading with
a copper HSF. IMHO, your fanless GPU should well above 75C on loading.
In general , cap life span will double for ever drop in 10C according to
a pdf from Rubycon. In this way, high temp. does kill caps whichever are
good caps or not. Keep them cool will certainly extend their lifes.

[Tom41]

Re: Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 /w vented MV-WX

It's odd for a 'good' cap to fail like that, but as said before it could just be one bad cap in a batch of 1000. The top didn't look bulged to me - it looked more like something had been spilled on the cap and wiped off, but couldn't be got out of the vent area. The side-on pic tells a different story though.

It looks to me as if not only the top has domed up, but the bung at the bottom is coming out as well. Definitely worth a recap.

[Sudum Gumudu]

Re: Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 /w vented MV-WX

Changed the cap today, but the graphics glitches were still there. Then I found something out by chance. If I pressed against the inside of the VGA connector, the glitches became less pronounced. Tried the DVI connector with an adapter, and the card works fine.
It would seem that the VGA connector is in fact the problem. Can anything be done about that ?

[MD Willington]

Re: Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 /w vented MV-WX

Replace the VGA connector and see if it helps, you still have the DVI to fall back on.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 /w vented MV-WX

The problem could of course also still be in the monitors cable...

It's a PITA to replace those connectors, so much solder...