P106-100 SMD cap replacement/repair

[Bitterr]

So I bought a used not working P106-100 that almost works. Windows and Linux both see the device, GPU-Z reports the model and device correctly but shows 0mhz for memory and core clocks (uh oh) and once the drivers are installed Windows Device Manager throws an Error 10 Insufficient System Resources Exist to Complete the API which is a fairly generic 'your thing is broken' error message. I took a 2nd much closer look at the card and found this one SMD cap is absent, having been yeeted off into the wild green yonder. It's hard to see in the photo (sorry, didn't have a phone macro lens handy but I'll get one if it helps) but one side has solder and pad but the other side is almost bare PCB. There's a tiny bit of copper on the through hole via (I think that's what that's called) and a little bit over on the left lower edge of the box.

I have two questions, I was told this was the best place to get more in depth technical expertise. I think the left side of the cap should connect to the round hole on the top left of the box NOT the bottom. Can anyone turn my guess into a more solid answer? I can make either work, probably, with a little messy solder work or some conductive pen trace work and some glue. It doesn't need to be pretty it just needs to work. 2nd question, can I jump this connection without killing anything just to see if the card is alive or is that likely to damage it? Right now it's broke but it almost works, it just doesn't work. I can get a higher quality photo of the whole PCB front and back with a full frame 50MP Nikon if that would help, I just have to ask my partner kindly.

I really appreciate any help with this, I'm pretty new to doing these kinds of repairs. Most of my soldering experience is through hole (recently re-capped an old P4 board and have made a couple small projects for fun/practice) but I have a tiny bit of SMD experience overdriving LED light bars by changing the driver sense resistor.

 

[joemama]

You know that component is there for a reason, otherwise the manufacturer would have removed it to lower cost, so jumping this connection isn't recommended.
You'll probably have to find out what component it is and find a substitute with at least similar electrical properties to make it work.

 

[Ferd]

I have two questions

I think the left side of the cap should connect to the round hole on the top left of the box NOT the bottom

Yes

2nd question, can I jump this connection

if you mean connect or short the pads where the Cap was meant to go that’s mad , you can’t replace a capacitor by a 0 Homs resistor , better leave it alone.

There's a tiny bit of copper on the through hole via

scratch it carefully with a needle or tweezers if you have a pair, remember that’s probably your last hope to recover the track so scratch gently, clean with IPA , use some flux and solder ...

and a little bit over on the left lower edge of the box.

that’s most likely ground plane , don’t solder anything there , and if you place a capacitor there make sure it doesn’t touch that exposed bit , cover it with Uv mask or ladies nail polish and let it dry .

That capacitor is slightly bigger than the C737 next to it , so replace with a proper one , good luck

 

[Bitterr]

Yes

if you mean connect or short the pads where the Cap was meant to go that’s mad , you can’t replace a capacitor by a 0 Homs resistor , better leave it alone.

scratch it carefully with a needle or tweezers if you have a pair, remember that’s probably your last hope to recover the track so scratch gently, clean with IPA , use some flux and solder ...

that’s most likely ground plane , don’t solder anything there , and if you place a capacitor there make sure it doesn’t touch that exposed bit , cover it with Uv mask or ladies nail polish and let it dry .

That capacitor is slightly bigger than the C737 next to it , so replace with a proper one , good luck

Awesome, just the kind of reassurance I was looking for. You're right, it does look bigger than 737 and I hadn't caught that looking at the card in person vs the picture so well. As for value...without the original to measure do you think the other caps of the same size will be the same value or close enough value if it's from a similar place on the board? 708 is right under the edge of a memory chip, being this is a P106-100 it's 6GB but I think it's the same board they use for another product with more memory. Here's why I think that, there's two empty memory spots on the other side of the GPU with a similar circuit layout. I think I might be able to infer the equivalent cap from that side of the board to take one to measure for the value of the missing one. Otherwise I can try similar inference to take one from the 4 memory modules across the top edge. There's also a bunch on power phase area that are the same size as my missing cap but those filtering caps are less likely to be of the same value, right? Sadly this P106-100 is a totally different layout than my other working P106-100 so I can't just cheat and look at that one.

Thankfully my stakes aren't too high here, I paid $80 for this and a P106-90 that's much more deader, it doesn't even power on besides the fan and I don't see any missing parts on that one. When I get the time to diag that one it'll be more challenging. The worst case is I make it more broken-er and waste a few dollars on some caps and some time soldering and measuring things. Either way, I learn.

 

[eidairaman1]

smd+codes at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

That may help you

 

[Ferd]

Awesome, just the kind of reassurance I was looking for. You're right, it does look bigger than 737 and I hadn't caught that looking at the card in person vs the picture so well. As for value...without the original to measure do you think the other caps of the same size will be the same value or close enough value if it's from a similar place on the board? 708 is right under the edge of a memory chip, being this is a P106-100 it's 6GB but I think it's the same board they use for another product with more memory. Here's why I think that, there's two empty memory spots on the other side of the GPU with a similar circuit layout. I think I might be able to infer the equivalent cap from that side of the board to take one to measure for the value of the missing one. Otherwise I can try similar inference to take one from the 4 memory modules across the top edge. There's also a bunch on power phase area that are the same size as my missing cap but those filtering caps are less likely to be of the same value, right? Sadly this P106-100 is a totally different layout than my other working P106-100 so I can't just cheat and look at that one.

Thankfully my stakes aren't too high here, I paid $80 for this and a P106-90 that's much more deader, it doesn't even power on besides the fan and I don't see any missing parts on that one. When I get the time to diag that one it'll be more challenging. The worst case is I make it more broken-er and waste a few dollars on some caps and some time soldering and measuring things. Either way, I learn.

You’ll be fine with anything bigger than the C737 , don’t worry too much it’s not an integrated circuit, just a capacitor

you can waste sometime and you’ll probably be able to find a schematic containing values of the capacitor you’re replacing, but I wouldn’t do that just for a capacitor....but if you want to be precise that’s a possibility.

yes it’s an opportunity to learn , enjoy it , just make sure you practice on another trace In another dead pcb you might have laying around, that way you’ll do this one better and with more confidence

Good luck.

 

[eidairaman1]

You’ll be fine with anything bigger than the C737 , don’t worry too much it’s not an integrated circuit, just a capacitor

you can waste sometime and you’ll probably be able to find a schematic containing values of the capacitor you’re replacing, but I wouldn’t do that just for a capacitor....but if you want to be precise that’s a possibility.

yes it’s an opportunity to learn , enjoy it , just make sure you practice on another trace In another dead pcb you might have laying around, that way you’ll do this one better and with more confidence

Good luck.

Engineers put that specific cap there for a reason.

 

[Bitterr]

smd+codes at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

That may help you

Thank you!

You’ll be fine with anything bigger than the C737 , don’t worry too much it’s not an integrated circuit, just a capacitor

you can waste sometime and you’ll probably be able to find a schematic containing values of the capacitor you’re replacing, but I wouldn’t do that just for a capacitor....but if you want to be precise that’s a possibility.

yes it’s an opportunity to learn , enjoy it , just make sure you practice on another trace In another dead pcb you might have laying around, that way you’ll do this one better and with more confidence

Good luck.

Engineers put that specific cap there for a reason.

I'm inclined to lean toward this advice, I do plan to mine/fold with this card so stability will be important if it works.

So I'd like to get something that will let me power a PCIe card up without being connected to a PC just in case it turns into a slot killer, maybe something with some breakout to check for shorts between different pins. Suggestions? I've just been using a cheap A320+cheapest Ryzen CPU I had on hand but I don't like this solution (I'll probably swap it for a 1st gen i3 and Intel board just in case).


Here's overall photos of the card, I've had no luck ID'ing it.

 

[eidairaman1]

Is this a dedicated asic?

The card looks fake but perhaps gpu-z will say otherwise...

 

[Bitterr]

Is this a dedicated asic?

The card looks fake but perhaps gpu-z will say otherwise...

GPU-Z IDs it as a Galaxy P106-100, sticker says P106-100 as well. I don't think it's fake, it is a mining card. They're built a little cheaper with some parts missing but work fine for things that don't need a video out or Windows to run through them... generally. No Windows gaming but that's not what I got it for.

 

[Bitterr]

Ok, had some time to sit and make things worse. I got a cap off that's under some other memory chip that's the same outline size on the board, does 10.35 uf sound reasonable? As for size I think it's a 0805 as it's about 2mm long by 1.25mm thick.

100 PCS 0805 10uF /25v SMD Ceramic Chip Capacitor, USA SOLD AND SHIP | eBay

Quantity 100,0805 10uF 25 volts capacitor.

www.ebay.com

Edit: Project cancelled sadly, somehow I missed another (same size) missing cap nearer the back GPU with both solder pads torn off the PCB. This is 100% beyond my skill to repair. If anyone here wants it to take a crack at it I'll send it for the cost of shipping along with the dead 3GB card and just eat my loss. It's possible the cap behind the GPU is just filtering and not 100% mission critical but I don't feel like expending the effort now.

 

[Nike_486DX]

Ok, had some time to sit and make things worse. I got a cap off that's under some other memory chip that's the same outline size on the board, does 10.35 uf sound reasonable? As for size I think it's a 0805 as it's about 2mm long by 1.25mm thick.

100 PCS 0805 10uF /25v SMD Ceramic Chip Capacitor, USA SOLD AND SHIP | eBay

Quantity 100,0805 10uF 25 volts capacitor.

www.ebay.com

Edit: Project cancelled sadly, somehow I missed another (same size) missing cap nearer the back GPU with both solder pads torn off the PCB. This is 100% beyond my skill to repair. If anyone here wants it to take a crack at it I'll send it for the cost of shipping along with the dead 3GB card and just eat my loss. It's possible the cap behind the GPU is just filtering and not 100% mission critical but I don't feel like expending the effort now.

if its torn off, you can always scratch off the pcb layer and get fresh pads. Trust me, its not as difficult to do as it may sound (compared to minuscule iphone boards). Just get a sharp knife and within 5 minutes it will be ready to go. To find the exact value of a cap/resistor the good idea would be looking at the adjacent components, as there are usually 2 or more of equal smd components placed in parallel. Once identified, the part can be easily salvaged from a donor graphics card (pretty much any pcie card which dates ~2010 onwards, cuz the gpu schematics didnt really change since then..)

 

[Bitterr]

if its torn off, you can always scratch off the pcb layer and get fresh pads. Trust me, its not as difficult to do as it may sound (compared to minuscule iphone boards). Just get a sharp knife and within 5 minutes it will be ready to go. To find the exact value of a cap/resistor the good idea would be looking at the adjacent components, as there are usually 2 or more of equal smd components placed in parallel. Once identified, the part can be easily salvaged from a donor graphics card (pretty much any pcie card which dates ~2010 onwards, cuz the gpu schematics didnt really change since

then..)

Hmm...ok I'll give it a shot I guess.

 

[Bones]

You've nothing to lose by trying.
TBH that's an easy fix if you know how to solder and have the right equipment (I do) for this repair.

Be careful when scratching to expose these traces; They are delicate and can be damaged or even severed with ease.

One tool that can be used is a fiberglass pen, it's made for such delicate work and does great for exposing traces in the PCB without hurting the trace itself.
Easily and cheaply found on fleabay with a simple search for that item.

Also don't use an excessive amount of heat, all you need is enough to melt the solder (380-400f) and really no more.

If possible I'd suggest anything but silver solder, it's junk compared to other types such as 60/40 Tin/Lead rosin core and it's also prone to micro-cracking over time, issues with a Sony PS3 and it's Red/Yellow LED's of death are directly attributed to the use of silver solder - That's why reball kits for those have 60/40 or perhaps 50/50 Tin/Lead solder balls to use instead.

If silver solder is all you've got or can get it can still be done and work for sometime to come but silver solder doesn't adhere as readily as the ones I described, in fact it can be a PITA to work with because of it.
Speaking of adhesion, be sure to have a thin film/coating of flux on both, the trace(s) and components to be soldered in, that helps it to bond and promotes a better bond too.