Howdy folks!
I've been reading the Badcaps Forums for awhile now and using the info. to diagnose--and sometimes fix--DOA mobos for myself, friends, and customers. Now I have a new problem. I bought a 'lot' of salvage video cards. Many of them work, which is nice, but quite a few do not, which I expected, and the cause, methinks, is capacitors for many of them. With the defective units, some will simply refuse to pass on a video signal while others will, but the signal will be obviously garbled in some manner or another (staticy images, funky multi-colored images, etc.).
I've concluded that it is capacitors for a few reasons: for some it is obvious, they are missing a capacitor, one or more are broken, or something like that. For others, it is apparent that the capacitors are starting to bulge, sometimes alot, sometimes a little, but it looks like failure nonetheless. And then there are the cards whose capacitors are either fairly old (and, hence, the card is as well) and/or the capacitor look really scraped up, but not yet punctured or destroyed. These are more on the cusp, but I figure that these might have failed due to capacitor issue as well.
So what am I looking for? Well, first off, I'd like to learn to distinguish, basically, between cards that are likely capacitor failure issues and cards that have failed for other reasons (I wouldn't mind learning about other video card causes of death either). I can easily replace capacitors, but a card that was simply manufactured incorrectly is probably a lost cause. Any help?
Second, once I can more accurately diagnose the card issues, I'd like to find a good source for capacitors for video cards. While Badcaps seems to be a fantastic source for mobo capacitors, I don't think I've seen many of the type of capacitors (e.g- 470microfarads, 16volts) that I'd need for a video card here. Any ideas?
For the moment, these are really my two goals. I've done a little hunting and pecking, but any help that can be offered will be greatly appreciated!
-Aaron
I've been reading the Badcaps Forums for awhile now and using the info. to diagnose--and sometimes fix--DOA mobos for myself, friends, and customers. Now I have a new problem. I bought a 'lot' of salvage video cards. Many of them work, which is nice, but quite a few do not, which I expected, and the cause, methinks, is capacitors for many of them. With the defective units, some will simply refuse to pass on a video signal while others will, but the signal will be obviously garbled in some manner or another (staticy images, funky multi-colored images, etc.).
I've concluded that it is capacitors for a few reasons: for some it is obvious, they are missing a capacitor, one or more are broken, or something like that. For others, it is apparent that the capacitors are starting to bulge, sometimes alot, sometimes a little, but it looks like failure nonetheless. And then there are the cards whose capacitors are either fairly old (and, hence, the card is as well) and/or the capacitor look really scraped up, but not yet punctured or destroyed. These are more on the cusp, but I figure that these might have failed due to capacitor issue as well.
So what am I looking for? Well, first off, I'd like to learn to distinguish, basically, between cards that are likely capacitor failure issues and cards that have failed for other reasons (I wouldn't mind learning about other video card causes of death either). I can easily replace capacitors, but a card that was simply manufactured incorrectly is probably a lost cause. Any help?
Second, once I can more accurately diagnose the card issues, I'd like to find a good source for capacitors for video cards. While Badcaps seems to be a fantastic source for mobo capacitors, I don't think I've seen many of the type of capacitors (e.g- 470microfarads, 16volts) that I'd need for a video card here. Any ideas?
For the moment, these are really my two goals. I've done a little hunting and pecking, but any help that can be offered will be greatly appreciated!
-Aaron
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