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I knocked a capacitor off of my video card

Z

zogg

Senior member
I knocked a capacitor off of my geforce TI 200 video card. It still works but I can't stop from wondering what the cap was for???
ITs on the very end of the card at the top corner if you are looking at it installed in the mobo, it's the right hand side top cap.

I get about 78-80 frames a second when I enable the fps in the game settings. so game isnt bad but I have read that these boards can get 200 or more FPS. Do you think the cap has something to do with my lower frame rate?
 
I have seen the same card as mine but from a different manufacturer and that particular cap was missing from the board. So I think it might be a cap for the digital output. Mine only has an analog output but maybe asus left the cap on anyway.


The cap had no leads left to it! anyway I don't know where it is at the moment, I know I stowed it away somewhere.
 
lol. i'm glad i'm not the only dummy who did this. i broke mine off my TI 4600 while removing it from the AGP. it is a capacitor for sure but i cant determine the value of it. the designation on top is
330
6S
2L3
i cant find a cross reference for this. can anyone help me here?

thanks, G.O.T.
P.S. Thanks to ANANDTECH for this great sight
 
It's probably a 'decoupling' cap. It doesn't actually play a role in the actual operation of the device, instead it helps keep the power to a nearby chip clean.

They're there for reliability - as you've found removing them doesn't always do terrible things. I built a circuit recently based around a simple microprocessor - if I had followed the instructions my circuit would have needed about 20 caps - I didn't use a single one on my prototype, it seemed to work OK.
 
Mark R,
Thanks for the response, but wouldn't the cap being gone create an open circuit on the board?
It's been a while since i did this and i removed the card from my computer. It seems to me i did so because the screen, during gaming ,was very dark. Right now i'm using an old voodoo 5 PCI slot card and my screen is fine but my games will not play at all. When i try to start a game, my computer locks up. Bios is set for PCI video card right now and the correct drivers are installed for the voodoo 5.
I reinstalled the TI 4600 yesterday to try it without the cap and my computer locks up right after windows 98 se loads, or it starts in safe mode. i uninstalled all the drivers for the voodoo 5 and set the BIOS to AGP video before i booted the first time. the computer booted in safe mode. then i installed the TI 4600 drivers that were stored on my hard drive and it locked up on reboot right after windows loaded. i think there may have been something left from the voodoo 5 that conflicts with the TI 4600. so i reinstalled the voodoo 5 and everything except the games is fine again.
maybe you or someone else can help me here.
Thanks,
G O T
P.S. Mark, Very nice pics in your gallery.
 
IF ITS A COUPLING CAP IT JUST FILTERS DC AND LETS AC THRU
IF ITS A BYPASS CAP IT SHUNTS AC TO GROUND IT SHOULD NO EFECT ON A CIRCUIT EXCEPT THAT IT COULD CAUSE SOME UNSTABILITY .....I THINK
 
Thanks for the response, but wouldn't the cap being gone create an open circuit on the board?
Click to expand...

Not if it's part of a bank of them in parallel. You'd reduce the capcitance of that part of the circuit, but it would still be connected. As was mentioned, it's probably just something that's part of the power system. Be glad your card still works at all!
 
It's a testament to video card companies that they design their cards well enough that the loss of a capacitor (or two) still leaves you with a usable card.
 
not really true that once a capacitor of mine, FX-5800 dropped off while taking it out of the box, my fren tried soldering it back and it does work but however, after some time, due to removing and accidentally knock it off again, this time, the board really fails to work like before although it can boot into windows, but it will cause system to restart, etc...
 
Originally posted by: ticktack
not really true that once a capacitor of mine, FX-5800 dropped off while taking it out of the box, my fren tried soldering it back and it does work but however, after some time, due to removing and accidentally knock it off again, this time, the board really fails to work like before although it can boot into windows, but it will cause system to restart, etc...
Click to expand...

Are you sure it's not the board? 😉

Seriously though did you run the FX5800 before the cap fell off, and if so was it fine? Either way you should look into an RMA of that card!
 
If the cap was mounted in parallel -ie. just a filter- then it won't do anything to stop the card from running; although obviously you may loose some signal quality ... which who knows what effect that will have, perhaps in your case not any.

It will however still function, as all filters are installed in parallel 🙂
 
Originally posted by: zogg
I knocked a capacitor off of my geforce TI 200 video card. It still works but I can't stop from wondering what the cap was for???
ITs on the very end of the card at the top corner if you are looking at it installed in the mobo, it's the right hand side top cap.

I get about 78-80 frames a second when I enable the fps in the game settings. so game isnt bad but I have read that these boards can get 200 or more FPS. Do you think the cap has something to do with my lower frame rate?
Click to expand...


i cant recall playing any recent game and getting 200fps with my gf3 ti200
emulating super mario bros? 😛
 
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