sharing repaired video card faults in photographs

[myth77]

I am having a big problem in how to recognize gpu fault or vram fault on laptops or desktops when picture is partially broken or with artifacts or....Sure, i measure resistance and trying to conclude what is a bad part but it is very time consuming so i emaganed this thread for the people to share pictures of repaired video cards... what was the bad picture before? and when they repaired it, was it a vram fault or gpu chip fault...I think that it would help other members a lot (sure would help to me).
I have found only a few threads on the internet (but very old) that are describing what exactly is gpu fault and what is vram fault....but it is very old and basic.
Also, i believe that maybe a different video cards are having the different issues so it would be very interesting to see for different video cards what was the problem before (screenshoot) and if fixed...what was bad?

Thanks everyone for sharing!

[piernov]

Re: sharing repaired video card faults in photographs

You can run a VRAM test like NVidia MATS and if there are errors, replace the affected chip and pray it was the only problem.

VRAM issues only became more common on newer graphics cards (and especially Micron memory has been unreliable on some of them).
On older graphics cards it's almost always the GPU itself.

As for what you'll get on the screen with either VRAM or GPU issue there's no general rule, both can cause various artifact patterns. If you get one or two vertical band (that are not caused by the display itself of course) it usually points to issue with a specific memory bank, but is it caused by a bad VRAM chip or by a bad memory controller inside the GPU? Who knows.

For example if you've seen the various threads that talk about VRAM vs. GPU issue on NVidia 7000/8000, they show various pictures for various issues, but turns out all of them are caused by bumpgate, ie. defective GPU not VRAM.

If one VRAM chip warms up more than the others it could be a hint though.

[myth77]

Re: sharing repaired video card faults in photographs

One year a go i had one laptop that was not posting anything on the screen, the gpu was gtx1070. I was sure the gpu was dead but i found one faulty vram.. Then i remove it only (didnt put new vram) but again it wouldnt post, it only finally posted when i soldered new vram chip. In short, the gpu gtx1070 was ok but it wouldnt post anything until i replaced the bad vram chip! why? maybe bios...vbios...i dont know.

Yes, you are right regarding vram faults at newer graphics. But there are not many people in bga replacing business, and it is very hard to get informations. On other forums i read people saying if you have random artifacts or pixelization then it is 99% gpu but if you have a mirror or simetric artifacts it could be bad vram or vrams. But again, i dont know....thats why i started this thread.
In the end, if members believe the subject is not interesting i understand...the thread will probably end in third page in a week ...and die after that.