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Unusually Damaged Graphics Card - Opinions?

I

imported_Nicko

Junior Member
Hi

These pictures show my MSI 6600GT, and the small IC on the back which has "blown". It is about 1 year and 4 months old.

http://www.imagesharing.net/images/ZimboNick/card1.jpg
http://www.imagesharing.net/images/ZimboNick/card2.jpg
http://www.imagesharing.net/images/ZimboNick/card3.jpg

My PC consists of the following:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Chaintech VNF4 Ultra
1 Gb Kingston DDR400
250Gb Western Digital SATA2 Drive
LiteOn DVD-RW
Creative Audigy ZS
Antec Smartpower 350W

Now, it has worked fine since I got it, absolutely no problems, and I have played many games 100% with it, including FEAR, Half-Life 2, Black and White 2 etc, with no problem at all. It is not and was not ever overclocked, and neither is anything else in my system. The card consistently idled around the 40 degrees celsius mark.

The, a few days ago, I was playing Far Cry, which I have not played before. I had been playing for probably about an hour when suddenly my system turned off. I thought my power supply had gone - I opened the case up and had a look and smell, and couldn't see anything or smell any burn marks. But my system kept on refusing to turn on. So I borrowed another Antec PSU from a friend (TruePower 430W) and plugged it into my system, and pushed the on button. My PC turned on for a fraction of a second, before emitting a small wisp of smoke from the above IC on the back of my graphics card, and turned off. I replaced my own power supply, removed the graphics card, and then the system turned on fine - the hard drive spun, the fans worked, the lights turned on, so as far as I can tell (without plugging in another card and blowing that too!)the rest of my system is fine and the graphics card was causing the short.

So does anybody have any ideas of the cause of this? I contacted my dealer, and they said because there is physical damage to the card, MSI won't even look at it. The rest of the card appears fine, only the one small IC is burnt. I experienced no graphical glitches or anything like that while playing, the shutdown was very sudden, so I doubt it could have been overheating. Has anybody had a similar experience? Maybe a power surge caused it, although the rest of my system seems fine and the Antec power supply is fairly decent and should absorb most small surges.

Any help would be greatly appreaciated as:

1) I spent a lot of money on that card, and now I have lost it just over a year later. MSI have 3 year warranties on the product, but because there is "physical" damage, they immediately blame you and the warranty is voided. Could not a faulty IC have caused it?

2) I don't want to buy a new card, plug it in, and blow it as well. Could the motherboard, power supply or something else have caused this?

Thanks for your help.
 
My guess, would be that your power supply broke, and it damaged your graphics card, probably causing an internal short in that component. When you used your friends working supply, that short was still there, but now it had a good power supply to supply current through that short, and the next thing you know, smoke and burn.

Ive seen it plenty of times with various circuits Ive built, something breaks and I replace it, but something else was damaged, so the very next time I turn the circuit on, that damaged component starts smoking, because it was broken and I couldnt tell. Not everything breaks at the same speeds.
 
Change your PSU to something higher.
350W seems to be minimum for your video card.
If it was a Seasonic, I wouldn't have mentioned it.
 
item 1 - do not buy Antec PSU
item 2 - you do not have "physical damage" - you have component failure. RMA it.
item 3 - your PCI-e slot may be dirty/shorted, or case will not allow card to fully seat in slot
item 4 - your HSF has a sheet metal strap at reverse of card that I find very chancy. See if anything touching.
item 5 - change your cables
item 6 - do not buy Antec PSU.

I assume this PCI-e card does NOT have extra 12V plug. AGP cards had probs with weak contact 12V molex pins
 
What have you got against Antec power supplies? Antec, Enermax, and now PCP&C are the industry leaders IMHO.

What do you suggest?

~MiSfit
 
Antec are not a leader in PSUs by any means, they are a budget brand. The only antec PSU i'd consider is the NeoHe line. Fortron, enermax, OCZ, PCP&C, Seasonic, silverstone are the good brands around.

One of the main issues with antec is that they do not age well, they tend to let the internal temperature get higher than optimum to let them use a quieter/slower fan, which puts more physical stress on the capacitors and other components. This will happen to all PSUs eventually but antec has a bad reputation for it.

Does anyone know what that chip is? It's a 6600GT? In which case anyone with a simliar board will be able to find out the chip's number off it. The Graphics card has it's own power regulators (normally located at the rear of the card?). If there was a power surge or other such fun occurance then they'd be the most likely thing to go.

Anyways: Bozo Galora is right, it's a component failure, RMA time.
 
Antec makes good PSU's, I'd take an Antec over an OCZ any day. the Truepowers are really nice for the price. Not the best, but better for the price then an OCZ. Now Enermax I'll take one 😀
 
so RMA the video card? forget about your dealer

and antec PSU's are fine. i wouldn't even consider OCZ to be a good brand. at best it's just a brand with some spiffy logo and fancy packaging. antec would be similar to forton and sparkle.
 
Originally posted by: sniperruff
so RMA the video card? forget about your dealer

and antec PSU's are fine. i wouldn't even consider OCZ to be a good brand. at best it's just a brand with some spiffy logo and fancy packaging. antec would be similar to forton and sparkle.
Click to expand...

OCZ makes some good power supplies. I have had one for a few years and it is built like a tank and received excellent reviews.

Most name brand power supplies are good choices, just avoid the no name cheapos. Every manufactuer makes a dud product at some point however.

 
Yes, ignore your dealer, he just wants to make another sale. Contact MSI directly and get an RMA. You didn't willingly damage it through misuse, so your warranty is still intact.
 
Sorry, can't read what's left on the IC, so not sure what it does?

So, you reckon I have a good case in claiming my warranty, even though my dealer says I have chance?
 
It's labeled Q17 on the circuit board. I forget what Q means, but I believe C is capacitor, D is diode, R is resistor, etc.
 
Originally posted by: Nicko
Sorry, can't read what's left on the IC, so not sure what it does?

So, you reckon I have a good case in claiming my warranty, even though my dealer says I have chance?
Click to expand...

Yes. You didn't overclock, you didn't hit it on anything, it was sitting there happily and then it died. Your dealer is talking rubbish.

Sounds like it might be the voltage regulators, it's in the right region of the board and would be one of the parts that would be more vulnerable.
 
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