What to do with a dead X850XT?

[supraman]

I bought an AGP X850XT from another forum member a while ago. Anyway, it was DOA and he refused to offer a refund saying that it was functional when he posted it. The postal service refused to honour any insurance because the box wasn’t damaged. Long story short: I’m stuck with a dead X850XT and I was wondering if there's anything I could do with it.

Here’s a shot of it in windows.

It enters a restart loop as soon as I install any drivers. I've now tried it in 2 motherboard with 3 power supplies, all with the same result so it’s definitely the card.

I was wondering if part of the power circuitry had failed and if so, which bit. I know there are a lot of people on this forum with godlike knowledge of this card… suggestions??

Here's a shot of the back of the card

PS if you’re wondering what the green stuff is, it's ink! The previous owner tried painting it. Me thinks this could be the cause….

 

[sneekypeet]

I say there is a real good chance that when he attempted to clean the paint, it got liguified and bridged something , causing a short!

 

[erocker]

I would suggest cleaning the heck out of the card with some alcohol. Who in the heck would paint VRM's?!

 

[sneekypeet]

this part looks the worst to me....sorta looks like those 3 pins got blackened somehow. Also is that rubber cement on the regs(top right)?

you can see the shadow of it looks like some sort of pooling as well!

 

[jbunch07]

who the hell did that and what the hell were they thinking!!!...get some rubbing alcohol and clean the mess out of that thing!

 

[supraman]

Sneekypeet, thanks for pointing out those three pins! I'd not noticed that blackening, looks like something got singed!! I'll take a look tonight to see what's on the other side. BTW, the stuff that looks like rubber cement is "neon gel pen" ....

I've got 1/4 litre of 99.9% isopropyl, i'll give the card a good cleaning when I have time, which will probably be weekend.

Thanks guys!

 

[Lionheart]

And go do what jay and silent bob did at the end their movie, find the bastard who ripped you off, lol

 

[craigwhiteside]

you should have asked him/her to take some pics of the card's pcb, make sure nothing was wrong in the first place.

but still, whoever sold you it, is completely wrong and shouldnt have done it...

 

[dolf]

Clean the GPU/Memory volt regulators with lot of alcohol and tern special attention of the memory chips. A paint in the memory pins (legs) which are 144 could cause that. You can also use special cleaner for electronic boards (with ether, alcohol and many other things). It is offered in pressurised container ready to use.

 

[intel igent]

yup give it a GOOD cleaning and re-apply/re-seat the TIM/heatsink

 

[supraman]

I've given it a thorough clean with my 99.9% isopropyl. As dolf suggested, I paid particular attention to the memory chips. Unfortunately it didn't work, nothing changed.

sneekypeet, it turns out those three pins are for the fan. The black stuff cleaned right off and the fan works (it definitely works... LOUD).

I got ATI tool installed and dumped the BIOS to see if the previous owner had tried flashing it with clocks/timings it couldn't handle. But opened up in RaBiT it showed everything as being identical to a couple of other X850XT BIOSes I found in the database here on this site. Anyway, I downclocked the BIOS to 460/460 and re-flashed... also no difference. Although I guess it's a good sign that the card actually accepted the new BIOS.

I'm going to break out my voltmeter now and see what that says

 

[oli_ramsay]

I really hope u get it going again

 

[Exeodus]

what vendor is the card from???? If it is a Visiontek, it has a lifetime warranty.

 

[jbunch07]

what vendor is the card from???? If it is a Visiontek, it has a lifetime warranty.

im thinking that the previous owner may have voided that warranty

 

[supraman]

I thought of that. It's an ASUS, so 3-year warranty and I think that's probably over now. I wouldn't feel right returning it anyway. Not just because of the ethical issues, but I can't shift all the green stuff from the ICs and I've got a mental image of some guy in the returns department opening it up and dieing of laughter

 

[ghost101]

I bought an AGP X850XT from another forum member a while ago. Anyway, it was DOA and he refused to offer a refund saying that it was functional when he posted it. The postal service refused to honour any insurance because the box wasn’t damaged. Long story short: I’m stuck with a dead X850XT and I was wondering if there's anything I could do with it.

Should have claimed it wasnt advertised properly. Ridiculous that the seller didnt mention what he had done to the card or given photos of the back of the card.

 

[DrPepper]

Holy crap why would anyone paint their GPU if any colour why green the PCB is red and its just wierd looking.

 

[Squirrely]

Never tried this on a full PCB card, but you could try taking everything off (cooler, slot panel, etc) and putting it in a pan of alcohol (if you have enough), and see if that works. Let it sit a while to displace any water in the card, as the paint may of been water based and got into some little crannys causing shorts.

I do this on flash drives sometimes, as some of my friends are notorious for leaving their flash drives in their pant pockets, then they get thrown in the washer for a good cleaning, lol.

Still, that's pretty low for someone to sell you that card.

 

[tkpenalty]

Um what that guy did to the card, I wouldn't be surprised if it was damaged by that "neon pen" or whatever. Keep pushing for a refund...

Then again I have known several cases where hardware in transit mysteriously dies, without any box damage.

 

[p_o_s_pc]

I think he was trying for something like in the link below with the pen http://www.overclock.net/faqs/28304-how-make-my-motherboard-glow-uv.html

 

[JC316]

Cleaning is going to be your best hope, but from the looks of it, he intentionally fuc*ed you. I would push HARD for a refund. I would blacken his name and give a negative to any feedback that he might have if he didn't refund.

There are always two sides to every story, but from the looks of it, he is to blame here.

 

[Rebo&Zooty]

yeah, as to alch, that may clean it off, if not try starter fluid.

as to to it being an asus, my x800xt pe was still under warr begining of this year, asus didnt give me any trouble getting it rma'd infact the email the rep i deal with sent me reminded me to put he stock cooler back on(i had put a zalman heatpipe on it )

u would be suprised but asus is still referbing and reselling those cards in some areas of the world....

 

[microtrash]

Look here, near the bottom. There's paint on a couple of resistance. If alcohol don't work, maybe you can try lacquer thinner on a soft cloth and gently clean the paint.

 

[Mutilator]

Static

Yeah may be worth some thinner, but be careful, rubbing generates static charge.

Actually, it may have been that previous guy painted his circuitry without paying atttnetion to static..

Finally, you can bet that stuff was UV reactive so may be worth putting under a UV light to make sure all stuff came off

Good luck

 

[Mutilator]

Timing circuit and Gunk

Hey man, any luck?
Hope i didn't put you off with the static issue. On the positive side , there's also a good chance he's shorted a circuit or two with all that gunk in the picture so it may be a simple issue of getting it cleaned.
Tip: i've thought about the screen grab you posted. The black lines seem to recur regularly accross the screen horizontally. IMHO this is valuable info since it points to possibly a timing circuit or even simply a video out circuit.
Have yuou checked the DVI's to make sure they're clean?

best of luck