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cap fell off "new" PNY 8800GTS 320mb

A

amheck

Golden Member
I mentioned to my BIL that I was thinking about upgrading the system in my sig. My sister was coming over anyway this weekend to celebrate the holidays, and she brought over a nice care package of some of his older stuff.

One of those items was a very nice looking PNY Performance Edition 8800GTS 320MB card. I take it out of the cardboard box (packaged with some other computer parts all in 1 box) and notice one of the capacitors is loose - the lowermost right one. So I pick it up to look closer, tip the card a litle bit, and it falls off. Ugh.

We're gonna be pretty busy this weekend doing stuff. I don't know if I'm gonna have time to stick this in my system to test it out, but this can't be good. What should I do? I'm guessing PNY isn't going to let me send this thing in, and I'm guessing something like this isn't even going to be covered right?

Kinda bummed.

Aaron
 
I guess I could try...I don't have any experience with soldering and don't have any equipment. I'm hoping that would be a last resort, but may not have much choice huh.
 
If it doesn't work with the PNY warranty (do you have the bill of sale...?), just get a cheap soldering gun, or take it to an electronic's repair shop.

Hope that they won't charge you an "arm and a leg" though...

They might also refuse to do it, so they won't take the responsibility if it doesn't work.
 
Just reading around PNYs site and they make it pretty clear that original proof of purchase is required. Are they pretty strict about that? yeah, I don't have it. I know BIL's pretty busy, but I guess it can't hurt to see if he has it laying around.
 
if they say original proof of perchase is required then flat out they dont WANT to provide warranty and use any excuse they can to get out of providing it... no chance in hell they will fix it, DESPITE the fact that it SHOULD be covered (since its original construction fault, it wasn't broken off, it FELL off)...

I would call them just to make sure, but I wouldn't expect anything... companies you can trust give you support without proof of purchase (for example, western digital will replace your hard drive if it breaks without ever mentioning proof of purchase... I had friends give me a broken WD hard drive they were about to toss which I RMA's successfully...)

I would be weary of soldering it though, it would be very easy to short out the board... Aren't some capacitors extra to begin with? I remember the case with burnt out capacitors on the 7800GTX (or something like that) found in gateway machines... due to inadequate case cooling people will get burned capcitors, if you completely remove the burned capacitor the board will start working again, there was an array of 12 and...
Ok you know what that was a MOSFET not a capacitor, and it was meant to regulate the voltage (so as long as you had a good enough PSU it was ok to have only 11 instead of 12 of those filtering out your voltage). In retrospect without a capacitor I think it wouldn't work...

Would anyone who knows more chime and say how risky it is to try to run it without the capacitor to test if it works? would the card explode? or is there a chance it would work?
 
Originally posted by: taltamir
if they say original proof of perchase is required then flat out they dont WANT to provide warranty and use any excuse they can to get out of providing it... no chance in hell they will fix it, DESPITE the fact that it SHOULD be covered (since its original construction fault, it wasn't broken off, it FELL off)...

I would call them just to make sure, but I wouldn't expect anything... companies you can trust give you support without proof of purchase (for example, western digital will replace your hard drive if it breaks without ever mentioning proof of purchase... I had friends give me a broken WD hard drive they were about to toss which I RMA's successfully...)

I would be weary of soldering it though, it would be very easy to short out the board... Aren't some capacitors extra to begin with? I remember the case with burnt out capacitors on the 7800GTX (or something like that) found in gateway machines... due to inadequate case cooling people will get burned capcitors, if you completely remove the burned capacitor the board will start working again, there was an array of 12 and...
Ok you know what that was a MOSFET not a capacitor, and it was meant to regulate the voltage (so as long as you had a good enough PSU it was ok to have only 11 instead of 12 of those filtering out your voltage). In retrospect without a capacitor I think it wouldn't work...

Would anyone who knows more chime and say how risky it is to try to run it without the capacitor to test if it works? would the card explode? or is there a chance it would work?
Click to expand...


Can you confirm this again that WD digital does not need any proof of purchase to do an RMA? I have 4 boxes with receipts in them laying in my closet. I'd like to toss em but I want to make sure that I don't screw myself over by doing that. Say a Raptor was made in July 10 2004, and it has a warranty of 5 years. If you don't have the reciept to verify date of purchase, is the 5 years counted from the date the drive was manufactured?
 
I have successfully RMAed 5 drives with WD and not once did I provide a proof of purchase.. in fact 2 of them weren't even mine (well they were since I was given them as a gift). The 5 years ARE counted from the date of manufacturing...

If you do decide to toss the receipts, the I would recommend you scan the receipts and save as jpg file, most receipts I had kept have COMPLETELY faded within 1 to 2 years (a totally blank peice of paper except for a blue ballpen writing I added noting what I bought)... besides, how many hard drive receipts are you keeping anyways? And for all you know they might start requiring proof of purchase 1 year from now and your raptor with its 5 year warranty might break 2 monthes after that. But I would not consider it likely.

I personally don't have a receipt for any of my 9 WD drives... (raptor, 2x500GB caviar raid1, 2x750 caviar raid1 in one computer... two 320 and two 160 drives sitting in a pile on the floor with me "planning" to ebay them... for the past 4 months. 😛)

http://support.wdc.com/warrant...ction.asp?custtype=end
This page can be reached by typing westerndigital.com
Selecting support>warranty & service> end user

In that page you can choose product warranty check... just enter your serial number and it tells you when the proof-ess warranty ends.
 
Thanks guys. I emailed PNY yesterday using their online form. I checked the box that said I do not have proof of insurance. So we'll see what they say.......
 
Reminds me of the 6800NU/GT days when people were buying PNY's and after opening their boxes, finding capacitors rolling around inside.
 
Originally posted by: Avalon
Reminds me of the 6800NU/GT days when people were buying PNY's and after opening their boxes, finding capacitors rolling around inside.
Click to expand...

I remember that! But didn't realize it was PNY, too. Maybe they'll be cool in this instance, considering what they went thru with that.

 
Originally posted by: Avalon
Reminds me of the 6800NU/GT days when people were buying PNY's and after opening their boxes, finding capacitors rolling around inside.
Click to expand...

So they have a history of falling capacitors eh?

I know I worked with companies that knowingly sold products that were prone to breakage... we always just sent people whatever they asked for.. because we knew it was our fault, and even with warranty replacements the money saved on manufacturing it right outweighed the money wasted on support...

So maybe they will do you right and replace the board under warranty.
 
Anyone ever dealt with PNY support before? Just kinda curious how long it takes them to issue an RMA from the online request form.
 
Here's what I received back from PNY. Bummer. Oh well.........

"As per the warranty agreement an sales slip or invoice is required, if you do not have this substitutions are accept such as, credit card/bank statement, rebate receipts, reprints from the store, one of these will be accepted as some sort of purchase proof is required otherwise the product can not be warrantied."
 
Originally posted by: amheck
One of those items was a very nice looking PNY Performance Edition 8800GTS 320MB card. I take it out of the cardboard box (packaged with some other computer parts all in 1 box) and notice one of the capacitors is loose - the lowermost right one. So I pick it up to look closer, tip the card a litle bit, and it falls off.
Click to expand...

I also had a PNY 320MB 8800GTS and the exact same capacitor was loose (closest to the PCI-E slot clip). It is one of those surface mount types and one leg wasn't soldered on, so it was hanging by the other leg - meaning it wasn't doing anything useful.

The card worked fine. Go figure. It's still working fine to this day. System isn't unstable and no visual glitches. As a precaution the card was never overclocked from shipped speeds.

I've noticed that the 8800GT cards use the same PCB as the "new" 512MB 8800GTS cards, but with one set of mosfets and a capacitor missing. Now, these cards seem like monster overclockers, so likely these things are designed with a surplus of power.
 
apparently BIL does not save receipts of any kind. So no go on that route.

Zap, that's actually good news. I had thought about just putting it in, but I also thought, well, if we're missing electrical parts already, I didn't want to fry anything. I'll have a go at it today.

If that doesn't work, I don't think it'd be TOO difficult to have someone do the soldering. Just gotta find someone who's done it before. What kind of shops do that sort of thing? computer/electrical repair shops?
 
Originally posted by: amheck
If that doesn't work, I don't think it'd be TOO difficult to have someone do the soldering. Just gotta find someone who's done it before. What kind of shops do that sort of thing? computer/electrical repair shops?
Click to expand...

I've actually fixed a Voodoo 3 that way. It had a tiny surface mount solid cap on it that broke off. I couldn't get it directly soldered on because the plastic base was in the way, so I created and soldered little wire "legs" to it and then soldered it on, so it was laying sideways on the card. Don't know if it made a difference because we didn't test the card before doing the work.

I'd try to find an electrical repair shop as most computer repair shops just replace components and don't do soldering work.

That being said, we were a computer repair shop that did soldering. 😛

BTW, I just thought of it and looked... Hometown Computers was my business, though it was called Computer GURU when I owned it (sold it 2+ years ago).
 
Okay, here's some pics of the Voodoo 3 in question... it was still residing in my garage! 😱

The card was owned by a friend of mine. He accidentally broke off the capacitor (PSU cable hooked it as he pulled) and gave me the card.

First pic is the backside. The sticker was probably stuck on there by the vendor. The gold heatsink was stuck on there by me using Frag Tape, as an attempt for higher clocks.

pic 1

Second pic shows the business side. Look on the upper right corner of the card to see the odd "laying down" capacitor.

pic 2

Third and last pic is a closeup of the capacitor. Making those "legs" was the only way I could figure out how to get it reattached. Used a normal soldering station to do the work. "Legs" made from a paperclip. Card worked fine for a couple years after that (been sitting in a cardboard box since, so I don't know now). Never did test it w/o the cap attached, so don't know if it would have worked.

pic 3
 
Originally posted by: amheck
Here's what I received back from PNY. Bummer. Oh well.........

"As per the warranty agreement an sales slip or invoice is required, if you do not have this substitutions are accept such as, credit card/bank statement, rebate receipts, reprints from the store, one of these will be accepted as some sort of purchase proof is required otherwise the product can not be warrantied."
Click to expand...

They accept bank slips? thats pretty odd. I mean all it says on the bank slip is "Frys electronics ###$" or newegg.com, etc...

So yea, no proof of purchase than? that has to suck... where did you buy? If it was recently enough it might still be in the system... a company like frys can pull it from your credit card and reprint receipt... a company like newegg will have it on file
 
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