5870 slightly damaged when changing cooler (picture inside). Should it work?

[tulx]

Hello techies!

See the marked spots on the card.

Three of those "components" (rectangular metal boxes with what seems to be plastic or silicone in the middle) have been damaged (broken off).

Does anyone know the layout of these cards good enough to be able to tell what they are for? Since they're located right next to the DVI outputs, my guess is they're somehow related to that. Just a guess, though.

Any tips? Would you expect the card to work?

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Plug monitor into every single one and see if they work.

 

[Doougin]

In my opinion you never know until u try. I have a 4870 that had one of the things on the otherside of the card behind the gpu break off and i thought itd be dead but it still worked perfectly.

 

[railven]

In my opinion you never know until u try. I have a 4870 that had one of the things on the otherside of the card behind the gpu break off and i thought itd be dead but it still worked perfectly.

This, and don't start posting pics for people to analyze something...

I've found ignorance is bliss in certain situations - you won't notice something until someone points it out and then that's all you'll notice.

 

[KingFatty]

The tiny things that broke off, can you see if they have any numbers/letters stamped into them, or what the circuit board says next to them and whether it has a code or numbers etc.?

If they are just capacitors, then they may only be there to provide a smoothing effect on the voltage, and may be technically unecessary except maybe your card would generate more radio interference or something.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Try it.

 

[Cookie Monster]

They are probably resistors/capacitors. Looks like from inspection that they are part of the DVI port circuitry and seems like they aren't part of any circuitry for IC controllers that deal with the power side of things.

I think you can try it since I have a feeling that it your DVI ports might or might not be affected.

Chipping those things off the PCB is pretty hard, just wondering how you broke those off hah.

 

[exdeath]

3 identical sets corresponds to R, G, and B, so they are probably coupling capacitors or signal level matching resistors or something on the DVI pins. Should definitely be no video signal if that's the case, though the monitor may show a "green" light and say there is a signal if it's still getting the SYNC/CLOCK signals but no RGB data.

They are likely for the analog RGB lines if it's a DVI-I connector, and you won't even notice or care if you are using a purely digital DVI input on your monitor. The DVI-I "blade" and 4 analog pins ARE on that side of the connector where you highlighted those components.

 

[tulx]

Chipping those things off the PCB is pretty hard, just wondering how you broke those off hah.

Not to go in the embarrassing details, let's just say that one should only use appropriate tools to remove a broken screw when changing GPU coolers.

3 identical sets corresponds to R, G, and B, so they are probably coupling capacitors or signal level matching resistors or something on the DVI pins. Should definitely be no video signal if that's the case, though the monitor may show a "green" light and say there is a signal if it's still getting the SYNC/CLOCK signals but no RGB data.

They are likely for the analog RGB lines if it's a DVI-I connector, and you won't even notice or care if you are using a purely digital DVI input on your monitor. The DVI-I "blade" and 4 analog pins ARE on that side of the connector where you highlighted those components.

Luckily, the card is used as a secondary unit in CrossFireX, so it doesn't have to output any signal through either DVI or HDMI.
I tested the card and it does work. I haven't benchmarked its performance, but I don't think it's affected - it would probably work 100% fine of not at all.
One weird thing, though - the third (counting from the DVI ports) fan on the Accelero Xtreme cooler I installed won't spin up. All fans on the primary card are working. Not sure if it's a fault in the cooler or the card. I could swap the coolers to find out, but won't bother because the temperatures are fine.

Thank you everyone for your assistance! And remember - when solving a hardware issue and using "unconventional" tools, take three steps back and think - is what you're doing fucking stupid? Yes? Then better wait till you get proper tools and don't risk it.