eVGA GeForce 8600 GTS

[pmcdaniel]

I bought this card back in December of 2007 and it has worked great until recently. Over the last week or two it has become increasingly troublesome, locking up the PC randomly with a nv4_disp.dll error or BSOD. The last day or two, it has gotten to the point when the PC will slow to a crawl and video artifacts can be seen, even while at idle looking at the desktop, or even on boot-up.

The heatsink and fan are clean and Rivatuner reports it to be running at around 55C when this is occuring, so heat doesn't appear to be an issue. I also sped the fan up to 100% just to be sure.

Upon removal and inspection of the board, there is one capacitor sitting taller than the rest, and I can visibly see that the end plug is poking out of the bottom. The cap has a little wiggle to it and makes a faint clicking noise as it is moved from side to side as if the pins are loose.

All symptoms point to this cap going bad in my experience, but of course a second opinion never hurts. The capacitor in question is a full metal jacket with the following stamped on the top in blue:

7C
OCR
330
16V

There are three of these caps on the board. Unfortunately, I ignored the requirements that you register the card within 30 days, so I'm not eligible for the lifetime warranty. I wouldn't mind recapping this thing as I really have nothing to lose at this point and it's time for an upgrade anyway.

The full part number of the card is: 256-P2-N761-AR and serial is: 7067612500629 if that is any help. Thanks in advance!

[shadow]

Re: eVGA GeForce 8600 GTS

Well you have nothing to lose...and replacing a few capacitors is quiet cheap and easy.
Since heat is not the problem...the capacitors should be suspected next. Judging from what you have described..there is a strong possibility that the capacitors have failed.

It seems like your original capacitors are rated for 330uF and 16V. Getting any low ESR capacitor should do the trick. It may be worthwhile to replace them with polymer capacitors rather than electrolytic capacitors. They cost more, however you only have a few to replace and can have far superior specifications.

By the way..pictures do help. So if you post a picture of the video card, we probably can help you out more.

[pmcdaniel]

Re: eVGA GeForce 8600 GTS

Will these work?

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/Dk...me=565-3042-ND

[Colt45ws]

Re: eVGA GeForce 8600 GTS

Heres a good one.
https://www.badcaps.net/store/produc...products_id=78
Costs $1.20 less than that one from digikey, too. :P

[jcall]

Re: eVGA GeForce 8600 GTS

I too ended up with blown caps on my EVGA GeForce 8600 GTS card. I removed the bad caps (and will probably remove all of them, based on what I have read on this and other forums...), but I am having trouble locating the correct capacitors to replace them.

I've done some solder repair in the past, but I am by no means overly experienced in properly identifying replacement caps. They all seem to have their own coding based upon who manufactured them. If anyone could provide an "idiot's" list of what I should get, I would greatly appreciate it.

I have provided a pic of the caps in question. There are two types and they have "FZ77, 1500, 6.3V" and "FZ77, 470, 16V" stamped on them, respectively.

Thanks to anyone who can help me out!

[ratdude747]

Re: eVGA GeForce 8600 GTS

Sacon FZs of doom.

they all need to go. they are among the worst of the worst.

you will need to replace every cap with the "K" mark, blown or not. if it isn't blown now, it will be soon.

the two blown ones are:

6.3v 1500uf
16v 470uf

The site's store has those values in stock... as for the others, the pattern should be obvious.

for extra fun (advanced recapping):

Poly Mod the card

what you do is you halve the capacitance (uf) of the caps you are replacing (GPUs and Mainboard VRMs only). Poly caps generally can take much more heat and have a much longer lifespan.

the reason you halve the capacitance is that in this particular usage, the ESR is more important that the capacitance, in which case the poly caps have less ESR than a 'lytic; halving the capacitance gets the ESR within design tolerances.

[mariushm]

Re: eVGA GeForce 8600 GTS

Uhm no... there's no standard saying you have to halve the capacitance, and it might be dangerous to do so.

The "half of capacitance rule" was just something that was mentioned in some Intel datasheets related to their processors or chipsets - it's not something that would appl to newer designs or other companies' designs.

Do change the FZ labeled capacitors, they're crap. But try to stick as close as possible to the uF value.
If you don't buy the capacitors from this site, let us know and we'll suggest "compatible" capacitors - you can't just buy any kind, you need to buy the ones with high ripple and low esr (impedance).

[ratdude747]

Re: eVGA GeForce 8600 GTS

Uhm no... there's no standard saying you have to halve the capacitance, and it might be dangerous to do so.

The "half of capacitance rule" was just something that was mentioned in some Intel datasheets related to their processors or chipsets - it's not something that would appl to newer designs or other companies' designs.

well, I have a polymodded EVGA 7600 GT and last I checked the values were not the same as the lytic values. The ESR, however is the same:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8679

does not matter if its a video card vrm or a cpu.
general rule is half but where the polys were still lower esr than the 3300's in a vrm i subbed 820's.bulk capacitance is not needed in these vrm's.
always works just fine.always cleaner than it would be with the best lytics.
now i dont blindly experiment on customers boards.i will test a poly mod thoroughly before i offer it to my customers.
i have subbed polys on many video cards and never an issue.
those 7600gt's will likely overclock well now as a side benefit.

(I bought a poly card off topcat)

the ESR matching rule only applies to GPUs and VRMs, as per my former post... as for why, it all goes back to the principle of the VRM (also what the GPU caps do), where ESR is that matters, not capacitance. It's just how VRMs work. So, Yes, for certain uses it is a hard and fast rule/ guideline.

[brethin]

Re: eVGA GeForce 8600 GTS

well, I have a polymodded EVGA 7600 GT and last I checked the values were not the same as the lytic values. The ESR, however is the same:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8679




(I bought a poly card off topcat)

the ESR matching rule only applies to GPUs and VRMs, as per my former post... as for why, it all goes back to the principle of the VRM (also what the GPU caps do), where ESR is that matters, not capacitance. It's just how VRMs work. So, Yes, for certain uses it is a hard and fast rule/ guideline.

Wrong ESR should always be = to or less all the time not just in GPU's and VRM's.
Capacitance can be changed depending on how they are placed / used (parallel total capacitance) such as in a VRM. The half rule came from VRM's where the total capacitance of the orginal caps were greater than that required for the circuit but within operating range. This was done to get the required ESR and Ripple. The half rule is not and never will be a hard and fast rule for any circuit including VRM's. Best thing to do is just stop calling it a rule and only do it if you know the requirements for the circuit.