Geforce 980TI black screen :-/

[sci666]

Hello i got a defective Geforce 980Ti, if i plug it in the PC and attemt to boot theres a black screen and the graphiccard fans blow at maximum. PC seems to boot normal but no picture.

i found some interesting informations about current 1080 models they produce the same error if VRM overheats and then quit function in the same way, but only temporarely

so i think something is wrong with the VRM Power Supply in my card.

so how to find the bad component... i search the card optically and i found a small SMD tantalum capacitor - Value: 33uF 16VDC that have a very small buldge at the top .... others looks okay ...can it be that this one is brocken ? or are tantalums definitly dead if they bulge ?

it is so small you can see it only at very small angle in the light.

sorry i got no photo yte.

i ordered already a new one but it will tage some days ... is there a posibility to measure it with a normal multimeter ?

what else can it be ? the R22 power chokes ?

[momaka]

Re: Geforce 980TI black screen :-/

Tantalum caps typically incinerate themselves when they go bad. So I doubt you have a bad tantalum cap. Of course, if you have any pictures, that would be best to see what you have.

Personally, I would say most likely it's the GPU chip that is dead (that is, core to substrate BGA is probably faulty). It may or may not be possible to fix it by reflowing.

All in all, these new-gen video cards simply don't last. I've seen to many at work fail for no reason.

But if you have already purchased the SMD tantalum cap, go ahead and replace it. If it works, go play the lottery too.

As for measuring tantalum caps (or any caps for that matter) with a multimeter is rather pointless - you will only be able to determine if the cap is shorted or not.
... And on a video card, the GPU core and memory core always appear as low-resistance measurements, so there actually is no way to tell if anything is shorted or not without removing any suspect components. Oh that note, I've seen a lot of people try to measure components on the board without taking the GPU and RAM cores into account, so they think they have a shorted component. So save yourself the time to remove components by avoiding that mistake.

[socratez]

Re: Geforce 980TI black screen :-/

I've tried the oven bake trick on videocards in the past. Mine only lasted another 2 months and the same problem came back so I don't recommend it unless it's your last option.

[momaka]

Re: Geforce 980TI black screen :-/

Oven bake "trick" is just that and I don't recommend it either. Many ovens (especially electric ones) will overshoot the temperature the first time the oven is heated. Moreover, electric ovens with top heaters may produce enough IR to burn the board way before the set temperature for the oven triggers it off. So all in all, don't bake electronics in your oven.

Also, if you do successfully fix a video card by reflow, of course it won't last long! You need to take care of the issue that made the video card fail in the first place - that is, make sure it runs cool (under 60C) and isn't dissipating some insane amount of heat due to too high TDP. Personally, I like to reduce the TDP by underclocking and undervolting methods.

Considering today's GPU's and CPUs are built on... what? sub-20 nm process?... Anything over 1V is already starting to get dangerous. Yet, you see manufacturers push 1.1V and 1.2V on these GPUs to get the clock speeds higher and higher...
And then people wonder why they fail.

[mikkhh]

Re: Geforce 980TI black screen :-/

check for voltages 12v, 5v 3.3v and if there are voltages at gpu/memory throttles.