Help?! Did I brick my 8800GT?

[cyclometric]

I recently bought a used PNY 8800GT 512MB which the seller told me had been factory overclocked to 700core/1000mem/1700shader, even though I can't seem to find any models PNY shipped with those specs, or any bios with those settings, so I'm a bit suspicious to begin with about the truth of his statement. Other reasons, too, like how the card arrived, with no fans at all, and a heatsink that was mounted askew, because the specialized ram/mosfet sinks on the card (iandh's) prevented the big processor heatsink from mounting flush. So I fixed that by cutting a small corner of the ramsink off, and temps improved (with the card in its state as shipped, within 5 minutes it would overheat and shut down).



Then, to further improve temps, I used an MSI sink/fan combo from an old 8400GS, which I attached with thermal tape to part of the ramsinks which were not covered by the main heatsink with fins.

Bonehead act #1: Here's where I may have messed up the card: wasn't sure which was the fan connector, so I ended up plugging the two-pin connector from the MSI fan into the SPDIF header. This was a couple weeks ago, and the card was running fine, actually, until today, when I did two more things which might have been the cause.

Bonehead act #2: If #1 didn't cause the problem, this one may have. I bought 2 Dyantron 60mm x 10mm 23 CFM fans to push air through the fins and exhaust out the back. Instead of using zip ties (doh!!) I thought I would make fan clips, using plastic coated thick copper wire. Well, as I was adjusting the fans today, without my noticing, a bit of the wire had become wedged underneath one of the ramsinks, and I booted the machine with exposed copper wire lying on the board

Bonehead act #3: If #1 or #2 wasn't enough, I wanted to adjust the little wire from the MSI fan and may have plugged it in still to the SPDIF header, but turned around, (not sure if I did this but I do remember not paying attention to how it was plugged in before, even if it was wrong, the card was working fine for a couple of weeks plugged in as it was, for whatever reason.

The results this morning were that after about 5 minutes of being booted and in Windows, the screen attached to that card saw terrible corruption, unexpected/odd characters, and wavy jittering lines. I shut it down, rebooted and now anytime the card is attached to a display, even the BIOS screen shows that type of corruption and random characters.

My other card boots fine, and I tried switching to a different PCIE 6 pin power cable, which makes no difference.

At this point I was going to try flashing the bios, and seeing if that has any effect.

Any suggestions, or should I just start shopping for a new (or new used) card and chalk this one up to "live and learn, bonehead" !?

PS -- thank goodness I do have a GTX260, which I had been using just for folding, which is why I wanted to add a secondary card in the first place, to serve up both displays, and let the GTX260 fold and do nothing else... If I have to replace the 8800GT I just need something cheap and that can power 2 monitors.. not much of a gamer, very light-duty stuff.

Thank you for any advice/suggestions/admonishments.

 

[DirectorC]

Yeah you probably fried it if you did all that to/with it and it won't work anymore.

Good job buddy

Thank god it's just an 8800 eh?

 

[angelkiller]

Plugging a fan in the SPDIF shouldn't affect anything. The fan isn't supplying voltage or anything, nor would it be shorting anything. So I don't think that's your issue.

However, exposed copper wire on a graphics card can most definitely short something. However, I would think that if your shorted something, you would find out immediately by sparks, loud noises and/or your machine shutting down.

The graphical corruption you described, unfortunately, means that your card is dead dead. I once forgot to plug the fan of a heatsink in and got similar results.

The state that the card arrived in seems odd. I suspect the BIOS has been tampered with. I wonder if there's a way to tell if the Bios has been modified. I know that RBE (Radeon Bios Editor) can tell if the bios has previously been modified. Could the heatsink have possibly been reshifted during shipping?

 

[cyclometric]

Yeah you probably fried it if you did all that to/with it and it won't work anymore.

Good job buddy

Thank god it's just an 8800 eh?

Yeah, I guess, still, $65 bucks down the drain... but I learned that when buying something from a forum's marketplace, to be fearless in asking questions *before* buying, not after! I shouldn't even bother with flashing bios, right? I mean, if the hardware is kaput, there's nothing any a stellar bios can do about that. . .

 

[cyclometric]

However, exposed copper wire on a graphics card can most definitely short something. However, I would think that if your shorted something, you would find out immediately by sparks, loud noises and/or your machine shutting down.

Yeah, I wonder if perhaps it was a stray piece of wire that wasn't a problem at boot, but maybe the fans blew it over to its final resting place, on a couple of textured areas & lying against a mosfet. (Yikes, that's a picture I hope no one ever has to see... 22 gauge copper wire lying there).

The state that the card arrived in seems odd. I suspect the BIOS has been tampered with. I wonder if there's a way to tell if the Bios has been modified. I know that RBE (Radeon Bios Editor) can tell if the bios has previously been modified. Could the heatsink have possibly been reshifted during shipping?

No, the ramsinks were physically preventing the card from sitting flush. Seller suggested the same thing, but there was no way the heatsink would sit flush, and he was claiming temps of 70 with passive cooling only -- I can't imagine that could be true with that half-flush-mounted sink.

At this point unforutnately though I have no recourse. I contacted the seller when I received the card, unhappy about the state of the heatsink, and the lack of fans, and he said he told me what I was getting (not really true, though, since for a model number, he said, "PNY 8800GT 512MB" which describes many different models) and the only time he described the card he said, "I have an 8800GT I am trying to sell, it has custom cooling along with iandh ramsinks on it.".

So it's my bad for not asking more, but I think his "custom cooling" statement was misleading, ya know? Still, now that I've bricked the card, I can't exactly get my $ back. . .

 

[shinra_tensei]

hi guys...i also using this nVidia 8800GT 512 MB card and use maximum resolution ( 1680 x 1080 ) on my 19 inch crt monitor, is it posibble to get the maximum resolition 1920 x 200 if i buy a new 23 inch lcd?

 

[DirectorC]

hi guys...i also using this nVidia 8800GT 512 MB card and use maximum resolution ( 1680 x 1080 ) on my 19 inch crt monitor, is it posibble to get the maximum resolition 1920 x 200 if i buy a new 23 inch lcd?

8800GT specs: Maximum Digital Resolution, 2560x1600. Maximum VGA Resolution, 2048x1536.

 

[BraveSoul]

Yeah, I guess, still, $65 bucks down the drain... but I learned that when buying something from a forum's marketplace, to be fearless in asking questions *before* buying, not after! I shouldn't even bother with flashing bios, right? I mean, if the hardware is kaput, there's nothing any a stellar bios can do about that. . .

Nice card, was. seems dead =( As good as custom cooling might be, recent video cards, especially something in the 260gtx category, 8800 series seem good too, come with very good stock cooling in my opinion. And it gets better with newer generations, cards like ati 5850/5770 and afcors the 470/480gtx, i see little point modifying cards like these unless you are serious about this, like water cooling.

hi guys...i also using this nVidia 8800GT 512 MB card and use maximum resolution ( 1680 x 1080 ) on my 19 inch crt monitor, is it posibble to get the maximum resolition 1920 x 200 if i buy a new 23 inch lcd?

yeah y not, its a good card
_____________________________

Antec1200 filter project

 

[cyclometric]

Nice card, was. seems dead =( As good as custom cooling might be, recent video cards, especially something in the 260gtx category, 8800 series seem good too, come with very good stock cooling in my opinion. And it gets better with newer generations, cards like ati 5850/5770 and afcors the 470/480gtx, i see little point modifying cards like these unless you are serious about this, like water cooling.

I didn't want his stupid custom cooling solution. Stock would have more than fine by me. My GTX260 stock fan & shroud work great, well, after I modded the BIOS to adjust fan speed according to temperature, even folding it rarely goes above 71.

Any suggestions for a light duty card that can handle 2 monitors, but hopefully is cheap? I had an 8400GS a million years ago, i don't think I want anything *that* weak, but somewhere in between?

thanks,

 

[Fourstaff]

any ATI 5xxx cards can handle 3.

 

[heky]

Just a suggestion. Tray removeing the cooler once again, clean everything, new thermal paste and put it back together. Maybe it is not dead yet.

 

[Thrackan]

Yeah, I guess, still, $65 bucks down the drain... but I learned that when buying something from a forum's marketplace, to be fearless in asking questions *before* buying, not after! I shouldn't even bother with flashing bios, right? I mean, if the hardware is kaput, there's nothing any a stellar bios can do about that. . .

Turn your thought pattern around here:

You now consider the card broken. What could possible get worse if you mess with it now?

Go reseat your cooler, use some proper zip ties for the fans, flash the BIOS, do whatever! The card is dead as it is now, it can only get better

No better time to start fiddling around then after the death of a component

 

[heky]

Exactly! +1 on that.

 

[HammerON]

Time to bake the MTF!!!
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=112815&highlight=bake+gpu

 

[D007]

Ouch man..
Just ouch.
I hate to say it, but my money is on you wasted it.

Did that before with a fan wire that got exposed.
Bad times..

 

[{JNT}Raptor]

8800 series seem good too, come with very good stock cooling in my opinion.

Ummmm....No.....8800gt had one of the WORST stock coolers on any video card ever made......anyone that ever owned one could tell you the same....I'm telling you because I owned an MSI 8800GT as well and loved it but hated the loud ineffective cooler.

On topic....to bad about the fried 8800GT.....Zip ties are your friend.

 

[cyclometric]

Just a suggestion. Tray removeing the cooler once again, clean everything, new thermal paste and put it back together. Maybe it is not dead yet.

There is this area that looks like it might be "burnt", hard to say since I hadn't removed that sink before, so it might have been there already...



But still, thanks for the encouragement... you're right... it's a cheap thing to try, and what the heck?! Nothing to lose... though if I do end up replacing it, I am thinking of the newegg deal on a Gigabyte 9800GT 512MB for $75 (after rebate).

Turn your thought pattern around here:

You now consider the card broken. What could possible get worse if you mess with it now?

Go reseat your cooler, use some proper zip ties for the fans, flash the BIOS, do whatever! The card is dead as it is now, it can only get better

No better time to start fiddling around then after the death of a component

& you too, thanks for the encouragement... won't hurt try. Though honestly, there are a couple of spots that do look as if they had been "burned".

Time to bake the MTF!!!
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=112815&highlight=bake+gpu

I saw a thread with that title earlier in my searches... will definitely read up on it and check it out!

Ummmm....No.....8800gt had one of the WORST stock coolers on any video card ever made......anyone that ever owned one could tell you the same....I'm telling you because I owned an MSI 8800GT as well and loved it but hated the loud ineffective cooler.

On topic....to bad about the fried 8800GT.....Zip ties are your friend.

Yeah, and I *know* that, too, I just got the idea from reading about fan clips on some other thread and forgot about 'em... and I got the cutest lil blue Dynatron fans, too, check 'em out...



Edit/Folllow-Up:
Well, just to follow up, I bios flashed the card three times, then took the time to clean the card very well, baked it in the oven, reapplied TIM & the ram/mosfet sinks and the main heatsink, attached the fans with zip ties (yeah I finally caught on!) . . . plugged it in, and ALAS, the card is a goner. Found what looks like a killer replacement, a BFG OC 8800, for only $45, but out of stock... hopefully they'll come in soon, that sounds worth waiting for.

thanks everyone for your advice, was worth a shot!