GTX580m Laptop Graphics card SMD capacitor blown/shorted

[JimboJet]

Hi there, I'm looking for some assistance for the repair of my GTX580M graphics card as fitted to my Alienware m17x R3. I believe this card is fairly notorious for failure after 1-2yrs and When you see the pics you will see why... The laptop does boot into windows with no corruption but the screen blanks after a minute or two.


It appears an SMD cap has failed/shorted at the C516 location. I've tried looking for a schematic online with no success, so wondering how best to go about fixing it?

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I understand that the capacitor won't have any markings denoting its rating so I was hoping to take an educated guess at it being the same as the ones positioned at C515, C514, C518, C517. That's pretty much the extent of my diagnosis. I'll be getting a new multimeter that can measure capacitance and am planning on measuring C518 and C517 to see what readings they give and will then go about sourcing the same to replace C516.

Will this work? I'm from UK so will be ordering from Farnell, what type should I go for? I only have a 35w soldering iron, some cotton buds and alchohol to clean the area, do I need anything else other than a steady hand, tweezers and solder? (do I need a special kind of solder for that matter?)

Any help, suggestions or feedback will be most welcome. I don't really want to shell out for another 580m card and getting a newer card will run to £350+


PS. Apologies if the image is too big, I'm still struggling with using the missus' fancy camera!

[JimboJet]

Re: GTX580m Laptop Graphics card SMD capacitor blown/shorted

I've done some more research and found this sizing guide for Surface mounted components and believe I'm looking for an SMT603 or SMT 805 capacitor. The caps above are just under 2mm in length.

Not sure if this helps anyone identify the caps I need, but thought it may be relevant.


http://chibi-sakura.org/images/smd_chart_v01.png

[JimboJet]

Re: GTX580m Laptop Graphics card SMD capacitor blown/shorted

Anyone able to assist please?

[GRudolf94]

Re: GTX580m Laptop Graphics card SMD capacitor blown/shorted

Perhaps a bit late, but still...

Most likely they are the same value as the caps beside. Note that 0603, 0805 denote the size of the part, I.E, it's footprint. You'll need no special equipment, what you have is just fine already, at least in my experience. Remove what's left of the fried capacitor, and also remove one of the caps beside, so you can measure it (measuring it in-circuit will misread). Check if the circuit it was attached to looks like the circuit the failed cap was attached to. If yes, they are very likely to be of the same values. I doubt you'll be able to buy those by the unit, so maybe try pulling them from junked electronics...Motherboards are usually chock-full of the same kind, and sometimes replacing them with some different value will still work. Tip: the color of SMD capacitors of this kind is an indicative of its value, the darker, more concentrated the substrate will be, therefore, it'll have a higher capacitance. In other words, try finding caps with similar tone.