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The Filthy, Rotten, Nasty, Helpdesk-Nightmare picture clubhouse

This one should be better than my last attempt :)

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Thermal-wronged
 
Sitting on a full coverage floor carpet, running 24/7 for a year or two. But yes, the more Cubic Feet per minute (CFM) goes through the case, the worse it gets.
 
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I don't know why I still bother with these examples of yuk, but it's satisfying when they come up all shiny. Mask required for this one!
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(Not my pic)
 
Frick said:
What case is that? I'm pretty sure I was looking at buying it many years ago...
Click to expand...
From what little writing was left on the case, I identified its as an SFX which I managed to sell on.
 
Fungus per second
 
Sorry for being a lazy slacker. Got a bit caught up in work lately, but still managed to pick up bits and pieces for this thread.
1) "I already cleaned it" he said, "just needs quick repasting" he said... Poor little Acer nearly choked on cat hair and dust.
Once again more gross stuff from my very-very incompetent partner

IMG_20230602_191916.jpg
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2) Same story, just a few months earlier. basically he blasted the intake with a compressor without even disassembling a laptop and called it a day, but told me that he did the full shebang incl. repasting.
IMG_20230513_162123.jpg

3) A very nice "refurbished" HP-15 motherboard in "excellent condition". Didn't even get a refund for it.
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IMG_20230219_165735.jpg

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4) Next is a sob story from one of my customers. Not sure where his brains were, but he decided to buy an RX5700 off aliexpress.
Normally he is a smart, competent guy, but I guess it was one of those days with severe solar storms or a lunar eclipse... :D
Anyways, the card was working fine but had an issue - fan was spinning erratically with random RPMs, regardless of afterburner settings.
So, after disassembly I found the culprit, but that was probably the least of his problems....
The fan header wasn't soldered, just dangling inside its vias, barely making enough contact to keep those fans spinning.
IMG_20230326_180357.jpg

... but that was the least of his problems.... :banghead:
On this pic you can easily see all the dirt and rust, but there was also lots of unleaned flux(near VRAM and VRM controller), and few random suspicious jumpers(not visible on this photo), some PCB damage and also lots and lots of corrosion all over the components. You can all guess where it came from and what it was doing all these years.
IMG_20230326_180347.jpg
 
silentbogo said:
Sorry for being a lazy slacker. Got a bit caught up in work lately, but still managed to pick up bits and pieces for this thread.
1) "I already cleaned it" he said, "just needs quick repasting" he said... Poor little Acer nearly choked on cat hair and dust.
Once again more gross stuff from my very-very incompetent partner

View attachment 300261
View attachment 300262

2) Same story, just a few months earlier. basically he blasted the intake with a compressor without even disassembling a laptop and called it a day, but told me that he did the full shebang incl. repasting.
View attachment 300263

3) A very nice "refurbished" HP-15 motherboard in "excellent condition". Didn't even get a refund for it.
View attachment 300264

View attachment 300265

View attachment 300266
4) Next is a sob story from one of my customers. Not sure where his brains were, but he decided to buy an RX5700 off aliexpress.
Normally he is a smart, competent guy, but I guess it was one of those days with severe solar storms or a lunar eclipse... :D
Anyways, the card was working fine but had an issue - fan was spinning erratically with random RPMs, regardless of afterburner settings.
So, after disassembly I found the culprit, but that was probably the least of his problems....
The fan header wasn't soldered, just dangling inside its vias, barely making enough contact to keep those fans spinning.
View attachment 300268

... but that was the least of his problems.... :banghead:
On this pic you can easily see all the dirt and rust, but there was also lots of unleaned flux(near VRAM and VRM controller), and few random suspicious jumpers(not visible on this photo), some PCB damage and also lots and lots of corrosion all over the components. You can all guess where it came from and what it was doing all these years.
View attachment 300267
Click to expand...

290084-3b0f4cc14e457aecfe1540f5810aeaca.jpg


Looks like someone took snips to the pins. What'd the solder pads for the fan header look like on the back?

I'm assuming that these were mined on, in a forced-air setup; so, the fans and shroud were superfluous.

Judging by the corrosion, I'm betting this was one of those 'hosed off' cards. :laugh:
 
LabRat 891 said:
Looks like someone took snips to the pins. What'd the solder pads for the fan header look like on the back?
Click to expand...
No, it just fell out. Probably the "refurbishers" were in a hurry and forced pins at an angle wa-a-a-ay too hard and cracked the solder around pins. Pads were intact.
 
silentbogo said:
No, it just fell out. Probably the "refurbishers" were in a hurry and forced pins at an angle wa-a-a-ay too hard and cracked the solder around pins. Pads were intact.
Click to expand...

That makes sense.

No pics, but related story:
I had a BFGtech 7950GT in my AMD S939 X2 3800+ build; ran aside my Intel LGA775 e4500 build. (I actually ended up gaming on the 'secondary' AMD machine more.)

One day while investing yet more hours into my first Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic playthrough (IIRC, I'd just gotten to the Sith world w/ the Sith Academy on it.) the screen went black.
I was running the rig open-sided, and noticed a 'tick/tap' coinciding with the black screen... An aluminum cap literally 'just fell the F off'. (I'd not handled that card much, but I did get it used).
Thankfully BFGtech *was* still in business at the time and honored the warranty (I even got a chuckle out of the lady in tech support I spoke with.)

IIRC, I got a 9600GT back, and in some cases that card was meeting/beating my buddy's 8800GTS 512
(which, shouldn't have happened; G92 and G94 both were 'weird').
 
LabRat 891 said:
An aluminum cap literally 'just fell the F off'.
Click to expand...
Funny, had the exact same thing happen on my MSI NX7800GT. Poked that pesky cap with a soldering iron back in its place and stuck it back into my rig )))))
It was one of the big caps on the 12V side near the edge of the card, so it could've been mechanical damage(also bought it used ~15 years ago or so).
 
silentbogo said:
Funny, had the exact same thing happen on my MSI NX7800GT. Poked that pesky cap with a soldering iron back in its place and stuck it back into my rig )))))
It was one of the big caps on the 12V side near the edge of the card, so it could've been mechanical damage(also bought it used ~15 years ago or so).
Click to expand...
If it'd happened today, that's what I'd have done. But, back then, my previous (and recent) attempt at board-level soldering didn't work out:

I decided to 'bake' a wall-hanging X800 GTO that was damaged in shipping, years prior. Well, I wasn't paying attention, and chokes fell off in the oven. I 'resoldered' them back on, and the card worked! However, about 15mins into stress testing one fell off again, and upon inspection the choke was cracked. After re-re-soldering it back on, the card just artifacted like crazy; it went back to being a wall-hanger.

I think I was like 16yo at the time, and didn't have the best attitudes about things. In retrospect, I could've done a lot better.

Yay, learning experiences
:slap:
 
silentbogo said:
Sorry for being a lazy slacker. Got a bit caught up in work lately, but still managed to pick up bits and pieces for this thread.
1) "I already cleaned it" he said, "just needs quick repasting" he said... Poor little Acer nearly choked on cat hair and dust.
Once again more gross stuff from my very-very incompetent partner

View attachment 300261
View attachment 300262

2) Same story, just a few months earlier. basically he blasted the intake with a compressor without even disassembling a laptop and called it a day, but told me that he did the full shebang incl. repasting.
View attachment 300263

3) A very nice "refurbished" HP-15 motherboard in "excellent condition". Didn't even get a refund for it.
View attachment 300264

View attachment 300265

View attachment 300266
4) Next is a sob story from one of my customers. Not sure where his brains were, but he decided to buy an RX5700 off aliexpress.
Normally he is a smart, competent guy, but I guess it was one of those days with severe solar storms or a lunar eclipse... :D
Anyways, the card was working fine but had an issue - fan was spinning erratically with random RPMs, regardless of afterburner settings.
So, after disassembly I found the culprit, but that was probably the least of his problems....
The fan header wasn't soldered, just dangling inside its vias, barely making enough contact to keep those fans spinning.
View attachment 300268

... but that was the least of his problems.... :banghead:
On this pic you can easily see all the dirt and rust, but there was also lots of unleaned flux(near VRAM and VRM controller), and few random suspicious jumpers(not visible on this photo), some PCB damage and also lots and lots of corrosion all over the components. You can all guess where it came from and what it was doing all these years.
View attachment 300267
Click to expand...
OH yeah, hard core nasty there! I see this on a regular basis.
 
Trim your beard, sir?
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