Evga 7300gs

[Pentium4]

So here's the funny story of this card. A computer came in for repair, and his previous video card had failed. He then brings in this card and says "My old card failed, here's my test card" Every cap is bad, it has a fried coil, and the fan is seized. This thing is not worth repairing, as it's worse than pretty many any other video card. Just thought I'd share

[momaka]

Re: Evga 7300gs

Nooooooooooooo! Sacon FZ did it again. FFfffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Sacon
Probably fried the RAM if the coil is toast... or maybe not if you are very lucky.

Maybe it's the hoarder in me, but I'd actually try to save it... or at least recap it with some not-yet-failed bad caps . You know, just to see what happens. If the RAM is shorted, you won't have to desolder it with hot air - it could probably get hot enough to desoder itself .

By the way, IIRC the 7300gs and 7600gs have the same GPU core. If the card does work, I'm curious if soft-modding could make it into a 7600.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Evga 7300gs

That coil is no problem. It got fried because of the bad caps forcing the VRM to work harder. But it has just a few turns, evenly spaced out, so that even if the insulation burned off (which i doubt), it should still be impossible for it to short out.

Being a 7300 with a seized fan though, there's a large chance that the GPU core is toast too, so i agree. Not worth recapping.

@ momaka: The 6000 series and the X800 series from AMD were the last cards to have extra pipelines that could simply be unlocked with software. They have been laser cut since then. So no, it is not possible to magically turn it into a 7600. It is designed around the same core, but what's inside the die is different.

[Pentium4]

Re: Evga 7300gs

Nooooooooooooo! Sacon FZ did it again.

They never fail to.......fail

Maybe it's the hoarder in me, but I'd actually try to save it... or at least recap it with some not-yet-failed bad caps

If it's not too much of a pain to solder on, I actually might try that just to see if it comes back to life.

That coil is no problem. It got fried because of the bad caps forcing the VRM to work harder. But it has just a few turns, evenly spaced out, so that even if the insulation burned off (which i doubt), it should still be impossible for it to short out.

Cool. In what way does the higher ESR force the VRM to work harder?

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Evga 7300gs

With increased ESR comes increased ripple - so the VRM has to increase the duty cycle ("on time" of the mosfets) to keep the average voltage the same, as that's what the circuit senses. The higher the duty cycle, the more stress put on the mosfets and coils.

[Dan81]

Re: Evga 7300gs

So here's the funny story of this card. A computer came in for repair, and his previous video card had failed. He then brings in this card and says "My old card failed, here's my test card" Every cap is bad, it has a fried coil, and the fan is seized. This thing is not worth repairing, as it's worse than pretty many any other video card. Just thought I'd share

I think it's actually worth fixing - I've had that happen on a FX5500 I bought - Sacon FZ all over the place. I just gave it a recap,and it works fine,but it's retired as it's old. Also I don't think the coil is fried but I can't be really sure because I don't have that video card,you do.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Evga 7300gs

I recapped two 8400GS's with FZ's successfully, but the guy also had a 7300 with them, I recapped it, and a 'fet smoked

edit: Coil got hot, I don't think it fried

Also, Dan your computers suck :P

edit2: Dan, why don't you spend $15 giving you some more serious firepower

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from...D99%26_arr%3D1

[Pentium4]

Re: Evga 7300gs

It lives!
First of all, I tested it as it was, after oiling the fan, which brought it back to life. However, it cannot start by itself. With a little flick it spins up to full speed. As it was, that discolored coil got scorching hot in just seconds. After replacing all the FZ caps with YC LE and Asia'X TMX (brand new caps pulled from new PSU's that I recapped out of the box), the thing came up, only via DVI. VGA did not work. With the new caps, that coil is room temperature. Not even lukewarm. I tested all the FZ caps with my ESR70 meter. When testing 7 out of 8, the meter didn't even recognize them, it just said "Monitoring for component..." and on the 8th one, it immediately said "Open circuit or low capacitance..."

[Pentium4]

Re: Evga 7300gs

Also, Dan your computers suck :P

If they work well for him, more power to him! No harm in getting use out of old equipment, that's what badcaps.net is about

[momaka]

Re: Evga 7300gs

It lives!
First of all, I tested it as it was, after oiling the fan, which brought it back to life. However, it cannot start by itself. With a little flick it spins up to full speed. As it was, that discolored coil got scorching hot in just seconds. After replacing all the FZ caps with YC LE and Asia'X TMX (brand new caps pulled from new PSU's that I recapped out of the box), the thing came up, only via DVI. VGA did not work. With the new caps, that coil is room temperature. Not even lukewarm.

Yay!
More stuff saved from the . I know it's not a really worthwhile card, but isn't this cool or what? - Using whatever junk is available on hand and making something from nothing almost.

Made my day for sure

Up next: change that tiny heatsink and see how far it overclocks (well, if you want to, of course... I know I always enjoy overclocking old stuff, just to see how far it will get).
I'd say, first check the RAM speed in GPU-Z. According to the RAM's datasheet (Samsung k4n56163qg), this RAM is made for either 266, 333, or 400 MHz. My guess would be that even if it's one of the slower speeds, you may still be able to overclock it up to 400 MHz, as Samsung RAM is usually very good. That's a not-so-shabby 800 MHz DDR. The GPU could also probably be pushed to 400 MHz or so, since that's what the 7600 runs at. Only real limitation would be the 64-bit architecture... unless by some miracle eVGA did actually use the same 128-bit arch. as the 7600.

I tested all the FZ caps with my ESR70 meter. When testing 7 out of 8, the meter didn't even recognize them, it just said "Monitoring for component..." and on the 8th one, it immediately said "Open circuit or low capacitance..."

Yeah, you are so right. They never fail to fail indeed. I'm starting to think even Rulycon isn't this bad. Here's my take on FZ :
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1322029921

I think it's actually worth fixing - I've had that happen on a FX5500 I bought - Sacon FZ all over the place. I just gave it a recap,and it works fine,but it's retired as it's old.

Yeah, comapred to even the lowest of the lowest of cards that came a few years after it, the FX5500 is quite dated. What does it have? Like 4 pixel and 2 vertex pipes or something like that?
That said, it will still allow you to run Half-Life 2 (which for me is a big plus, since it's one of my favorite games) and some equally old (or older) games. Maybe at not more than 800x600, but who cares . Retro gaming can be fun too, no?

If they work well for him, more power to him! No harm in getting use out of old equipment, that's what badcaps.net is about

+1
I just spend some time today playing with my finicky AsRock 939Dual-SATA2 and its Athlon 64 3200+ CPU. Got that old CPU overclocked from 2 GHz to 2.5 GHz no problems on stock voltages and stock heatsink. The temperature won't even budge above 43C at full load (used to peak at 39C before). And the power consumption only got up by 10W or so. All of this is laughable when compared to modern hardware, but I found it fun to play with. Especially considering I got that motherboard and CPU from the trash. It will browse the web just fine with a GB of RAM. Add one of my Radeon HD2400's, and it plays YouTube 720p. Good enough!

@ momaka: The 6000 series and the X800 series from AMD were the last cards to have extra pipelines that could simply be unlocked with software.

Ah, okay. Thanks for letting me know.

[Sparkey55]

Re: Evga 7300gs

Looking at those blown FZ makes me want to go to the factory and run down the lines dumping the cap parts bins on the floor, then jumping on top of the machines and spraying bullits at anyone that picks them up again.

[momaka]

Re: Evga 7300gs

^ But wait, there's more!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AS-IS-NVIDIA...item259d4dc845
http://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-e-GeFor...52910405&rt=nc
http://www.ebay.com/itm/XFX-NVIDIA-G...3D191475064262

Oh, and last but not least, have a look at this one very, very carefully:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/XFX-NVIDIA-G...72734724&rt=nc

I did some search, and caps on that card appear to be Elcon EEZ, which turns out is the same thing as Samcon EEZ... which I highly suspect is the same company as Sacon. I posted my findings in the "List of Bad Cap Manufacturers" thread below:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...919#post521919

So brace yourselves! More hardware with bad FZ caps (now labeled EEZ) are likely to come.

[c_hegge]

Re: Evga 7300gs

Here's my take on FZ :
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1322029921

Hahahahaha. That's hillarious