GPU shortage? Let's repair an Nvidia GTX 770

[@necro_ware]

Hi guys, since the question/statement about a THERMAL CAM came about 1786642 times. Sorry, but I'm just tired to answer the same questions over and over again. So I'd like to answer all of the questions regarding this topic once for all: - Yes, I know, that thermal cams exist - No, I don't have a thermal cam - No, I don't really need it. It looks fancy for a video, but I prefer to show, that you don't always need an expensive equipment to repair stuff - Yes, equipment is expensive and if you want to spend some money on this channel, there is a Paypal and Patreon accounts - Yes there are tricks how to make this without a thermal cam, just use your fingers, or if you have no fingers use the alcohol and icespray* trick. *) Spray some alcohol on the PCB and then use Icespray to freeze it. Your PCB will turn white in a second and in the place, where it is hot, the ice will melt and you will see the spot.

[@lexpox329]

Sorry about my comment. I have seen thermal cameras used in other videos but I have never looked how expensive they are. You showing how you can do stuff without extra expensive equipment is actually a service to the community. Keep up the good work, I hope your channel grows.

[@SerrInThaMix]

I'd rather say donate instead of spend sounds more accurate.

[@jfbeam]

You could've said that in the video, or put a card there. "Normally, you'd use a thermal camera for this, but I don't have one..."

[@Marc83Aus]

Oh i know you don't want to hear someone else nagging about infrared cameras, but as a vintage hardware hacker perhaps you might at some point be interested in hacking an old obsolete phone into a thermal camera. In general as long as it's not an epoxyfilled mess like an iphone it should be easy to pop the case open, remove the old infrared filter, add a new visible light filter (IR pass filter )which can cost $10 on ebay).

[@Starborn3000]

oh thats alot like my gtx 770 except mine came with 3 cooling fans, when those fans kick in it sounds like a jet engine, i love it lol

[@bigal115]

This was really interesting. I wish you could do more of these newer hardware videos from time to time.

[@bigal115]

@Teusky true but it sells for £140.

[@Byynx]

@Teusky But it plays Battlelfield 1 over 100fps with no problem, so newer for me.

[@petarpetrov725]

Fun fact- After the restoration the GPU is worth more than when it was new.

[@GHOSTY3DITS]

Ahhah ya 😂

[@alexpastler2886]

cant even like this, cause its too sad really

[@rajatdani619]

Ys, price has increased dramatically.:'(

[@Merescat]

and I have 1 gathering dust....

[@mahfhoo]

Buying a 2nd hand for about $150, is it good price ?

[@creopard]

What a cool trick - kind of defibrillating hardware back to life (the Frankenstein way). This video totally fits to your intro: injecting power to a necro card.

[@illtrigger85]

i had a friend from few years back that uses this voltage injection technique to repair sound amplifiers and other electronics.never thought voltage injection can also be done for a graphic card. great job there Necroware.

[@TC_here]

That was great to watch. Saving a 100+ euro GPU from e-waste with a couple of replaced caps.

[@Ludak021]

his work as a service costs more than already working used gtx 770. No repair shop would do all this under 50eur, 100eur is more likely. So you either know how to do this yourself, or it's e-waste.

[@lorenzocampolucci4464]

@@Ludak021 but you could do it on your own (or ask a friend), trying cost nothing

[@uc9584]

@@Ludak021 what ? in my country they fix that with the price around 10eur or a bit more

[@ddognine]

Exactly, that is why teaching yourself board level repair is essential in our economy. Boards fail all the time in all sorts of devices from computers, electronics, appliances, etc. In the best case, replacement boards are available, but when not it may mean throwing out an entire appliance for a single failed cap. That alone justifies the cost of investing in a proper solder station.

[@chrisoverton2759]

For anyone that doesn't have a 6+2 pin PCI-e power cable on hand, the 2 free pins just need to be shorted. One of those pins is either NC, or ground, and the other is a ground cable that shorts out a signal on the card to let it know that a 6+2 pins pci-e cable is connected. Otherwise, you will get that same warning that Necroware got when he booted up the card with the first PSU.

[@Vermilicious]

That's a nice and easy fix. Thanks for sharing your process. So many cards are just tossed when they fail, even if the fault could be very minor like in this case. I now have a better idea of what to start looking for if I ever have the need :) I've had success with a heatgun on a gpu before, but the symptoms were "obviously" very different from this.

[@anomaly95]

"So many cards are just tossed when they fail..." Yeah, unfortunately there's a lot of people that don't know (or care) what broken hardware is worth on ebay. :(

[@Txm_Dxr_Bxss]

Sadly most modern GPUs fail because they get too hot and start having graphical glitches. That usually can't be repaired.

[@Vermilicious]

@@Txm_Dxr_Bxss That seemed to be the (ongoing) issue with my own card. It definitely seems to be about the solder joints under the GPUs. This is a fairly modern way to solder on big dies to PCBs, and is prone to such faults. It can to a certain extent be fixed with re-melting the solder. I wish they would switch to a socket-type mounting like with CPUs. Then this problem would probably be done with. But of course, they have an interest in ensuring that people upgrade often, which might honestly happen anyway, but I don't like how stuff keeps breaking after such a short time and end up as more E-waste.

[@davideloi9176]

Easy? Not doable by the average user or "technician" aka pc assembler

[@euphoricmonk]

@@Vermilicious I recovered 3 GPU's with the heat gun /flux method. They all had error 43 and now run perfectly.

[@crispx19]

12:20 This is why we NEED right to repair, having the schematics and knowing what are the components would make so many electronics repairable....

[@TheLionAndTheLamb777]

Sadly most of the people that decided on right to repair, don't care. Apple and John Deere are just two examples of just being corporate gluttons.

[@phanominon]

That's awesome. I've never seen that trick but will have to try it when needed. Great work as always.

[@luisparada5443]

Man I loved this video. Fixed my RX580 Thanks to you

[@KingKogarasumaru]

Interesting content. I love to see and learn about hardware fix, so that it can be saved and not thrown away on a landfill. Please do more for recent hardwares.

[@necro_ware]

Thank you for watching. I'm usually more into the retro hardware, so you will not see more recent hardware on this channel very often ;)

[@SkyOctopus1]

Very impressive! May I suggest if you have to do this again, get a PCIE edge connector and solder the cable to that? Oh for a thermal camera ;)

[@necro_ware]

Yes, some viewers also suggested a pcie slot already and I had that idea as well, but I had no pcie slot at hand and I just didn't want to take it from a working board. If I'll get one I'll keep it for sure for such cases. However, I repair newer hardware realy seldom....

[@Ieatcrumbs]

@@necro_ware I know a good convenient thermal camera listing it's called the Seek. Unfortunately, it looks like it's running for around $200 on Amazon right now, but you can plug it into the bottom of your phone and get a thermal image output. If you have lightning or USB type c it lets you turn it around for both viewing angles.

[@ResonantBytes]

It's always a pleasure to watch some one who knows what they are doing! Let's all join the repairs and we will have enough semi-old working GPUs to end the shortage! ;D Keep it up and see you next time!

[@voteDC]

I really liked this video. It's always amazing to me to see people solder this tiny capacitors on and off cards.

[@dustinhipskind7665]

Great video on diagnosing faulty modern hardware. Saving a GPU in this day and age can be a lifesaver.

[@vswitchzero]

Really awesome job and very creative way to track down the problem! I have never seen ceramic surface mount capacitors short out like that before. Thanks for sharing

[@retropcdurham]

Great fix. I really need to get into soldering so I can learn how to do stuff like this. Two little capacitors and you have a perfectly functional GPU!

[@kosmosyche]

I find that the actual soldering is an easy part. Diagnostics and troubleshooting to find out what's gone wrong can be quite a bit trickier and sometimes requires a lot of knowledge and experience.

[@braidenlucky4947]

About a few months ago I’ve ordered this exact same graphics card for around $40 US dollars it was written as non-working but whenever it arrived after a few days prior I’ve happen to plug everything in plus the two pci-e connectors and cleaned it up really good I plugged it into my main computer tested some games and a Cinebench r15 and I turned out to be working out just fine except for the display port connection but I only need the dvi connection because that all I’ve ever needed for my setup! What a steal for the price! I’m also still using it as my main driver also!

[@sukmaadhiw9033]

The identifying the SMD components values is the hardest part, i'm not experienced enough with common circuits, and most of the time there won't be a schematic/diagram available online especially on less common/older hardwares. Love the video 👍

[@billysgeo]

Just for testing, you can connect the "sense" pin on the 8pin PCIe connector to ground to simulate a full 8pin connection. And if all 3 of your +12V pin are present, it should not matter at all.

[@ted-b]

Excellent work! Retro is what you want it to be, not what you are told it is!

[@mattmckean3599]

This was a great demonstration of how to actually repair a card. I've got an rx580 that appears dead to the world but if it's as simple as replacing a couple of fuses it'll save me about £400 on my planned pc build. Great video buddy! Edit - the entire board is completely burned out, the card is officially goosed. Buuuut at least I know how to fix future cards. Was disappointing as fuck throwing a GPU in the trash though

[@wayneholzer4694]

Another great video I have seen numerous stupid videos of people trying to put graphics cards in ovens or blasting GPU dies with heat guns only failing some videos of people reflowing or reballing the GPU working but I often had thought there was something like a capacitor or even a broken trace. You have confirmed what i suspected and furthermore you taught me how to try and repair using voltage injection. I am going to try this on a couple of dead graphics cards I was given. Thanks for another great video.

[@warrax111]

nope dude, heat gun method is for complete other problem, no shorts. It will never help with shorts. It's only for one problem, when traces and micro contacts under a chip gets weakened, heat can help to melt them for a while, and after they cool, traces can be renewed. Voltage injection will never help with that, you need actualy to bring temperatures around 180-230 Celsious to fix that problem. But it's true, you have no control over what will happen, it can work, and it also dont have to. I don't considered it for "repair". The card after heatgun threat is not repaired or fixed. It can stop to work anytime soon, and sometimes, even when it's not used. The oven method is even more risky, as it can melt lots of other stuff. Heatgun is basicaly more sophisticated oven method, where you try to target only only GPU chip.

[@Blackrhyme7]

Great video, wish there were more people like you that try to fix things. Keep up the good work

[@cokegen]

I smiled when you got the cooler fans running again ... dude you rock !

[@Turco949]

Liked and subscribed because you are doing the troubleshooting in such a "manual" way that someone who is new to the electronics, like myself can still follow along, understand and learn!

[@oddlessTV]

That please connect power cable message is lovely, my old GPU would just scream at me

[@therealjammit]

Old video but I'll throw in : If you have a power supply that keeps shutting down on shorts or doesn't have a constant current option, you can add a car headlight bulb in series with the positive power supply. A car headlight bulb will limit the current to around 2 amps. The power supply will keep sending out 3.3 volts (in this example) but most of that voltage will be dropped across the bulb. If you need to crank the current up more, put two car headlight bulbs in parallel to limit the current to around 4 amps. You can obviously go crazy with the bulbs and really get the current cranked way up there. The filament in an incandescent bulb is a non linear resistance. At low currents it has a low resistance and at high currents it has a higher resistance, so it sort of regulates the current.

[@dintyshideaway9505]

One of the more useful videos I have seen in a while. We all have a pile of cards and motherboards somewhere. These are very helpful videos because you may just demonstrate the thing that could save them.

[@kotomononaruto3633]

i apreciate it so much, with you making extra effort to animate and ilustrate how thing works

[@arthurmann578]

Great video! I have the ASUS GTX 780 ti version of your card. The only difference is is that it has two eight pin connectors instead of one eight and one six like yours and other than that it is missing its fan shroud. It runs flawlessly! It actually was part of an entire system that someone dumped on my front lawn back in July of last year. The whole system was in sorry and VERY dirty shape and did not run at first. After some needed love and care I was thrilled when the whole system sprang to life! It came just in time before the "great graphics card apocalypse" of 2020 went full swing. A gift from "the gods" maybe? It plays just about everything I throw at it and as a bonus it will help keep my house warm this winter as the 780 ti gobbles power at 250 watts! Bad for my air conditioner in the summer though.....😁

[@torjusaanderaa3749]

:O this is just spooky beyond google oracle algorithm. I have that EXCACT graphicscard laying around that died on me last year. since the gpu crisis still doesn't seam to fully resolve it self any time soon, and i have now 3 otherwise fully functional computers without gpus after i bought some upgrades for black friday. so was just thinking that maaaaybe that is actually possible to fix some how, it's gotta be worth a shot when it's broken anyways. and BOOOOM this video pops up! Thanks a lot, I will definitely try this, and i hope your videos help bring more gpus back to life!

[@pc-sound-legacy]

In your videos it looks so easy🤔 I know if I'll try it I will struggle pretty soon for sure😄 But thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and helping others to repair their own retro hardware🙏

[@petertorda5487]

This was very interesting, please keep going with your videos, also with new HW if possible. Apart of another youtubers, which are "repairing" XBOX/ PS5 you are able to do diag and identify real faulty part/s even in "home" conditions.

[@86smoke]

As a retro enthusiast with no technical education whatsoever, I really admire your knowledge on subject matter. I mean I am familiar with the demonstrated technique (which is called 'burning of shorts' in my native language), but It's more to know 'when' to use it and 'where' rather than 'how'. It it also useful to spray some isopropyl alcohol on the process on the PCB in order to find warming components more easily. Regarding graphics cards, I find it most accurate to test those under windows installing latest drivers. If it shows no errors in device manager, I stress test the card for 30 mins. Anyway, congratulations on reviving this card.

[@necro_ware]

Yes I sprayed some IPA off camera to find the place, but the parts were so tiny, that it didn't make an effect worth to show it in the final footage. I always search the spots with my fingers like that and the IPA helps only if the short is in some IC, where the surface is bigger. You also can then burn your fingers by the way :D

[@Progression_]

This was actually really insightful. About a year ago I had an old desktop case from like 2008 and to help with temps I always kept the side panel off, and little did I realise that one sleep-deprived night & an *almost* empty cup later it would be my undoing. My RTX 2060 bit the dust whilst also taking my motherboard with it (maybe 5ml-10ml of liquid had splashed onto the GPU's PCB near the power connectors), since I was in too much of a panic to think to unplug it directly from the power outlet like a dipshit. Had a pretty nice paperweight sitting in a box behind me since I never had the heart to throw it away, since I held onto the little hope that one day I could get it repaired. I had scoured on forums for similar scenarios to mine and everyone just said to scrap the card since it was completely dead and to just buy a new one, which wasn't possible then nor now due to the costs. I know very little about this sort of thing, so maybe there is still no hope for it being revived due to the nature of damage, but this has given me a little bit more hope that it can be saved and save me from forking out 3x the amount I paid for an equivalent card nowadays. I don't know if there are repair shops in the UK that would do this sort of thing but maybe there is one out there, or even a single person, that is capable of fixing this card. Thank you for the interesting and informative video Necroware, I hope you continue to make videos such as this since its really eye-opening to inexperienced people such as myself.

[@ZaneofAustin]

awesome job :) love seeing videos like this hardware repair is gonna be a goldmine for the next few years

[@yadiyoeee]

an Actual proper repairment, not just replacing thermal paste and shabam magic... Welldone sire!

[@thegeforce6625]

can i just say i love your intro? especially the rain sounds that i can hear throughout the whole intro, surprisingly relaxing and calms me down for the epic video that im about to watch haha

[@necro_ware]

I'll forward that to my brother, he made the intro for me. Thank you very much! ;)

[@svenjackel2531]

Thank you for an entertaining and also not yet seen (power injection tricksterness) repair video. Thumbs up for good content. Adrian ('s digital basement) was right to point me to your channel :) - big thumbs up!

[@necro_ware]

Welcome! And thank you for the kind words 🙏

[@therctutor8100]

This way of checking is a great idea. A FLIR camera would be a great way to see the heat generation.

[@doclmoreno]

I love when the YT algorythm suggests obscure yet awesome channels like yours! great work!

[@themoondoggie1]

I have two of these, paid $400 each new some years ago. Zero problems even when I SLI the two of them. Setting in a box now because I bought a RTX 2080 replacing them.

[@Briedeeens]

Can u, send me both of em pls man or atleadt one

[@thealien_ali3382]

My first gpu was a gtx 760 and what a beautiful card it was, now am waiting for a rtx 3080

[@Saturate0806]

Never thought of doing voltage injection like that, nice technique

[@blackIce504]

nice work and good trouble shooting tricks and skill.

[@noshybabs]

I love this. This card would have gone in the bin because of 2 parts that cost practically nothing, and now it has a new life. I feel like having a ir camera would be good for this sort of fix.

[@necro_ware]

Thank you. I usually don't do such repairs that often and where it looks fancy for a youtube video, in reality you don't need that expensive camera at all. If you don't want to test it using a finger, then a bottle of alcohol and an ice spray make the job just as good.

[@jonatas464]

Very cool. Just a little tip. Instead of use your fingers to find where is the hot place and risking to burn yourself, just drip a few drops of isopropyl alcohol over board. Where componentes is hot, alcohol will evaporate. Regards from Brazil.

[@necro_ware]

Thank you! Yeah, I also do it like that, I spray some IPA and then ice spray on top. It freezes the IPA instantly and you can see the spot where it melts. Unfortunately, as I made this card I ran out of ice spray, so I made it just with IPA, but the camera didn't focus properly, so I threw that part out later during the editing.

[@CPUGalaxy]

awesome!! thanks for this very interesting video!

[@JVHShack]

This video totally fits the channel name! Keep it up!

[@Lordosvk]

Great explanation great music great camera great sound. Over all amazing video. Sub inmediatly.

[@hazardsoftech]

Would a thermal camera work help avoid having to raise the amperage?

[@necro_ware]

Yes, but I have none and a finger does it just as good and helps to save some money. However for the YT video it probably would look nicer...

[@necro_ware]

@@ruben_balea True :D But fortunately it's to small to feel so hot....

[@anomaly95]

Yeah, a thermal camera is the more professional way to do it. However, they are expensive to the point where it is not really worth it unless you do these kinds of repairs all the time.

[@basshuntet6128]

Wow, this is really helpful for beginners like me... But just a question though, in 5:32 when you detect the short in 3.3v terminal you inject 3.3v voltage. But what if the short is in the 12v rail, should you inject 12v or just use 3volt and just play around with the current? You really deserves a lot of subs btw :)

[@necro_ware]

Yes, you should go with 3V and slowly raise the current. At 12V you could easily damage the card if there's a short

[@Ieatcrumbs]

GREAT WORK! YOU'RE CAPABLE OF SOME PRETTY INCREDIBLE THINGS, DUDE!

[@Arti9m]

When I read "voltage injection", I thought you're going to burn out a defective circuit part in the main GPU crystal with some, well, voltage injection. I watched such a video recently, it's nuts and borders on magic. Apparently, such technique was popular for ressurecting certain chipsets by burning out defective USB controllers integrated into a chipset. o_O

[@necro_ware]

:D No, in this case no magic sorry. But this method to search for shorts is really called voltage injection, you can google for it.

[@nickwallette6201]

Haha.. I thought that too. :-)

[@djdjukic]

That chipset repair technique sounds interesting, could you share a link?

[@Arti9m]

@@djdjukic I could not find any articles in English. You can find some info in Russian by googling "Отжиг ICH4 ICH5". In short: back in 2007 on ICH4/ICH5 chipsets USB ports died and USB data lines were shorted to ground. People sent back 3.3V into USB lines, and it burned out the shortings internally. Obviously, a burned out USB port will never work, but the chipset was not shorted and was working again. Here's the link to the video on the GPU I mentioned (in Russian): /watch?v=ey4eGAyApXs The guy does not say what exactly he's doing (because he himself does not have a reliable method at this time).

[@necro_ware]

@@Arti9m Thank you, just watched that video you linked, but unfortunately they don't provide any information. The story of the USB in the chipset is not as complicated, as to burn out a part of a GPU, but if it helps, why not?

[@SailorLoonie]

Watching you repair that card with voltage injection makes me wanna try out the same thing on a dead card I have here :D

[@necro_ware]

All my videos are made to encourage people to try the same, so I guess it was a success. And if you are sure, that your card has a short go on, it is already broken, so what can go wrong?

[@SailorLoonie]

@@necro_ware exactly! I got into hardware work like this from making repro game carts, and this kind of rework is very relaxing to me, as long as nothing super valuable is on the line haha

[@nikkratos9948]

good video dude!. you did a good job, even without the necessary or recommended equipment

[@angelgrig72]

Εxcellent work!We need more videos and you deserve more subscribers!

[@GabrielZ666]

This is amazing, first the Logic Probe and now the Power Supply! I will have to buy them for myself and stop borrowing the tools from my workplace! 😂

[@AizenJoestar42]

This was really entertaining video ! Thanks for this. However I saw you soldered directly to the GPU for the voltage injection, you could just remove a PCIe slot from a dead motherboard with hot air and solder it directly on that instead of the GPU itself, just to avoid the mark from the soldering on it. Anyway great video, you just earned a sub ;)

[@necro_ware]

Thank you, as I already said in the other comments, I had this in mind as well, but I had no dead PCIe mainboard, where I could take a slot from.

[@AizenJoestar42]

@@necro_ware Oh my bad, I didn't read the other comments

[@necro_ware]

@@AizenJoestar42 No problem ;)

[@chaosminecraft3399]

I'm really happy that you where able to bring it back. 🙂

[@StefanDim]

At 15:12 if anyone want to know how to "cheat" the VGA with 6 pin connector, just make a bridge between the both free pins. One of them is GND and the other one is VGA bios test pin, which looks for the proper rated PCU with 8 pins.

[@inkrpen]

Great troubleshooting and repair video! I'd love to see more.

[@electronash]

I like using the constant-current thing for diag. Especially since I don't own a fancy multimeter or "leak tester" which can pinpoint very low Ohms readings. Another nice trick, for helping find if BGA chips are soldered properly, is to measure the diode drop on each signal with the meter (assuming you can get access to most of the signals on a via or something). That does depend on how many other devices are connected to each node, though. But if you have a schematic for something, or the connections are more obvious, it can give some good clues as to whether a solder ball is maybe not connected. ie. if the average voltage drop of a specific signal is higher than most of the others (in a similar group of signals, like RAM address pins), then it's probable that there's a cracked solder ball on that pin. Flexing the board slightly *might* help to confirm that. I like vids like this, that show that you don't always need the most advanced tools to do diag on complex boards. ;) btw, there is one way around the PCIe power connector thing on most cards - you can often fool them into powering up by connecting all of the Gnd pins together. Many cards use one of the Gnd pins simply to detect whether the plug is connected or not. Obviously you need to be confident the card won't draw too much power from one PCIe cable for that, but for short-term testing it's probably OK on the lower-end boards. Just keep an eye on the power connector, making sure the plug and wires aren't getting too warm.

[@necro_ware]

Thank you very much for all the great tips, really appreciate it and will try to apply next time.

[@electronash]

I should add a standard disclaimer about the PCIe power connector thing... This would only be for very short-term testing, and if you have the whole first 8-pin connector plugged in, and just want to see if the card lives or not. It should *never* be used like that long-term, or it could cause melted wires, or worse.

[@necro_ware]

@@electronash Yeah, I absolutely would sign this :)

[@electronash]

@@necro_ware I suddenly thought of another one... If you have a short on a PCB, and use the bench PSU to pass a limited current through it, you can use a multimeter to check the millivolts drop between the input point and other parts of the board. Which can help narrow down where the short might be. But I can't remember exactly how that would work, because the current of course goes in a circuit back to the PSU. lol

[@ferrari2k]

That are two tough little buggers that suck up 4 Amps :D

[@Mark-th1gn]

Good job! i have the same exact card! still running it to this day!

[@MMM_MADness]

Very interesting video, cool to see skills that i haven't got explained in a way i can understand easily. Just a shame that my GTX 770 probably suffer a bigger problem than a short

[@djluminol]

I have a GTX 770 in my computer now. It's what I use everyday. Works great for me. I'm not a gamer so I don't need the newest tech. I usually buy someones old card. The last two I've had I bought that way. Much cheaper than new and when gamers want a new card they're old ones are typically perfect for what I need. I thought this card was causing a latency issue. If I could only figure out where that latency issues are coming from I'd be a happy dude. I thought it was an Nvidia driver for a while but no. It just represents looking that way. The card and it's drivers are fine. It is a hardware issue for sure though. I setup a dual boot and got the issue to present. Then switched OS's and still had the problem. So unlikely that's a windows thing. Gonna test the SSD tomorrow. I'm sure my various searches for solutions or technical info is what led to yt suggesting this video but I'm glad it did. It was interesting.

[@SireSquish]

Get this man a FLIR.

[@necro_ware]

Did you see the number of subscribers on this channel? It's the number where you have to feel the temperature with your fingers ;) Jokes aside, I actually like to show, that you not always need an expensive equipment to be able to repair something. A finger is sometimes all you need.

[@SireSquish]

@@necro_ware Thank you for giving us the finger :)

[@adamw.8579]

I had bunch of early Niobium capacitors shorted in Asus and Dell laptops, it was really epidemic because they not like higher temperature and fail quickly. Inserting limited current into main power bus on mainboard and locate hot area with remote infrared termometer (much cheaper than IR camera). Very quick and cheap repair of dead laptop. Good brands always use bigger but more reliable Tantalum capacitors parallel with 100nF ceramics for lower ESR. Packing more parts in small area with cost of reliability. Nowadays crap electronics is designed to endure warranty period and no more.

[@Sidneivsj]

Congrats! Amazing show about graphics card repair!

[@tomaszkoszela8433]

Thank you for your work. You've made a great educational video for hobbyists like me. It helps me a lot. I've been trying to repair the motherboard from power macintosh 6100/66 for some time. The computer started the first time and it made a melody, unfortunately after the next start, only the HDD starts and ther is no starting melody and image, I replaced the battery, capacitors and still nothing.

[@CyroTheSpider]

Excellent video, plus you're also a fellow Arch user!

[@ArifKamaruzaman]

With voltage injection, using rosin flux smoke will make detection so much easier and quicker. You watch video people revived dead phone with this technique.

[@OpreanMircea]

I loved your video, how you use the: "when all you have is a hammer" approach

[@necro_ware]

I don't know if you mean it sarcastic, but in German it is actually something bad. The full expression is "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail", and means, that you ineffectively misuse a tool you know for the wrong tasks, because you don't know anything else. This will be often said to the people, which refuse to learn new things :)

[@OpreanMircea]

@@necro_ware no man, I'm sorry I ment it in a good way, far too often I see people repairing electronics using equipment that is worth thousands of usd, I liked your, "well I have a lab bench power supply, I'll make this work somehow" approach

[@atheatos]

I am using this too, usually on retro M/Bs with sorted rails and many tantalum caps. Once I repaired a sorted GPU too. I was a sorted MOSFET.

[@necro_ware]

Yes this trick is quite handy also for old hardware, if you have a lot of parts to test. That's why I didn't mind to show it on my channel as well, even if is not retro at all :D May be it's nice to make a short trip into some newer time as well, especially if the repair technique is the same.

[@cocusar]

For the next time, place the card into the motherboard but solder that cable directly into the motherboard pins! That's not going to cause any problems, neither will interfere in the voltage injection test!

[@fellipemelo9287]

That's not a good idea because you can damage the pin on the socket due to the heat caused by the short circuit.

[@cocusar]

@@fellipemelo9287 uh technically no, I mean, if you solder directly into the pcb pin strip, you'll have a limited current capability, which should match the one of the connector. In any case, a connector can be easily replaced, but the gold plated pins on a board, can't.

[@necro_ware]

The best way is to find a spot on the card itself, where you can solder your wire, so you don't touch the gold plated edge connector anyway. Unfortunately, it was not possible on this card, but usually, it's not a problem. I also could polish some solder mask from the trace and solder the cable there. Eventually, I don't mind if one pin is now slightly leaded....

[@ClayWheeler]

This guy is like Necromancer of GPU

[@ProjectPhysX]

Light the card with a UV lamp. If a trace on the PCB gets hot, it will look much darker than the surrounding traces (hot material fluoresces less). This is a sort of infrared camera for the poor ;)

[@boriskender]

Great work saving a nice card.

[@watchmakerful]

An EXTREMELY common problem with these capacitors. Manufacturers install these caps rated for too low voltage (usually 10 V on a 12 V line) and they break within a year and fry the PCB.

[@lovedeathhatepoison8737]

As a person who has some experience in repairing GPUS I would recommend Not in your right mind ever use voltage injection on a gpu until its necessary He was lucky this time let's say that The short was coming through the cpu to the caps then those 3v would have killed the gpu instantly And you should check for shorts on both sides of the fuses if there are or the coils for 12v pcie 6pin and 8pin Since the fuse can blow and there is still a short but you will not see the short on pins itself It is recommended to remove all the memory and vcore coils and then inject voltage if the short Is on 6pin pcie pins or 8pin

[@necro_ware]

If you use a notebook PSU to make a voltage injection, probably it would kill it. But if you have a proper workbench PSU where you can limit the current, it will not kill the GPU. It might look like that, but let's say, this was not the first one I repaired ;)

[@lovedeathhatepoison8737]

@@necro_ware you are right But voltage is more important then current If you set max voltage of .8v Let's say At a max of 5 amps or even 6.5 amps Then you are still good because if you were to inject .8v through the core The core would still survive And because this is lower then any voltage rails present on the gpu I am saying this because you applied 3v through it The max you should go is 1v With higher current Since we know that power is the product of voltage and current And you should give disclaimer for not attempting this at home Since most of the viewers don't have a bench psu By the way love your content Keep it up!!!

[@necro_ware]

Thank you very much. Nobody should try what I'm doing anyways :D I don't make a disclamer in every video, but in my last video I said that and on my about page is also written, that nobody should use my work as a reference. The good thing is, that I'm in EU and luckily we don't need to make any official disclaimers here, unlike in USA. Fortunately nobody can make me responsible here for being stupid :D

[@shaneh7519]

@@lovedeathhatepoison8737 he also said because it was already dead, he didn’t care if he killed it completely

[@EgonSorensen]

"The short was coming through the cpu to the caps" - no. A short was measured on 3v3 Aux to ground - video at 5:30 A wire soldered to 3V3 Aux and connected to + on PSU. Negative output from PSU is connected to ground/frame. How do you get current to flow through the GPU? It won't - and during normal operation the voltage *IS* 3v3 - and he shows the card to be working fine in the end of the video. Sounds like you're creating a lot of extra work for yourself :ø)

[@hiiamnick1992]

I once saw a guy detecting a short by spraying a thin layer of isopropyl alcohol on the board, wherever it dried faster, there was a hot spot there. If it dried too fast to see anything, just spray some more.

[@he1go2lik3it]

This is so cool! Great work.

[@Nick-ds6oc]

Take a can of duster and spray it upside down on the board. It will frost over the board and the hot component will thaw first making it extremely easy to see where the short lies.

[@necro_ware]

This is what I did in this video. I spray some IPA and use a can of ice spray. Unfortunately the camera didn't focus it as I recorded, so I just removed that part altogether during the edit later, since it was totally blurred.

[@yunodiewtf]

There ARE relatively inexpensive thermal cams that any repair technician with some stable income can buy auch as HT-301 which costs around $700 if you bargain in the chat on official site and comes with impressive manual focus 13mm lenses, 384x288 resolution and 25fps. For cheaper option an HT-201 could also do the job but I didn't regret going for a 301. Thermal cams can also reveal minute differences that your hands simply can't tell, such as a malfunctioning memory chip with only .5 degrees temperature difference.

[@Hoffmeister84]

That is awesome. I would love to try this on my dead gpu's

[@eekpie]

a trick for hunting where traces go. make a paintbrush of copper strands from fine wire and connect to a fast response multimeter

[@1kreature]

A way to detect thermal variances more easily than fingers is using a spray bottle of isopropyl alcohol. Spraying on the card you can quickly see which components dry off immediately due to the dissipating energy.

[@necro_ware]

This was what I also used in this case, but it didn't come out well on video, so I just cut it out.

[@Ryeera]

You scared the shit out of me when you showed an 8-pin EPS-connector and said this PSU had an 8-pin PCIe-connector! O.O But very informative video, I didn't think that it actually could work like that!

[@necro_ware]

Yeah, the moment, where I turned off my brain. Just took the first 8 pin connector which looked at me, as I said that :D Certainly that was not the PCIe connector at all, but the PSU had one as well.

[@exxor9108]

You've made the world a brighter place with this video. A graphics card brought back to life this way is absolutely incredible.

[@hugotank5634]

wow i loved it, you also motivated me to try this method on a dead r9 290x thank you

[@GundulmuGaming]

I wish you are my teacher, so clear and easy to follow up 🙂

[@necro_ware]

Thank you, but please don't consider me teacher. I just share my hobby with the world, not more, nor less.

[@Momo-ei6cr]

That a really good cheap gpu for competitive game like valorant/league of legend, also nice video u nailed it

[@PiotrK2022]

You forgot mention about one important thing. Voltage injection is very good option to find shorts but in some cases can be dangerous because it may cause more damages. For example if you test main supply rail and upper switching MOSFET is shorted it will pass through the voltage and kill other things supplied by this rail. In gaming laptops for example shorted 19V rail means usually bad news like killed mosfets in GPU Vcore converter and GPU as well.

[@necro_ware]

I actually told that twice, first where I select the voltage and current and later as I found the spot. Actually I repaired a lot of mainboards and graphics card and you will not destroy anything, if you make it right. First of all, you are right and usually the MOSFETs and PWM controllers get shorted first. Also small capacitors, like in this video are quite common culprit. However, you should never go with full voltage and high current into it. If you have a short on 19V main rail, you should set 3-5V and limit your current to some very low level, like I did and then you raise it slowly step by step, without touching the voltage. If you try to set 19V and 1A from the beginning, then yes, say goodbye to your hardware :D

[@viv9labam]

as a super newbie this is GOLD sweet !!! thanks

[@bienhelado204]

I really liked the pinout graphics with explanation.

[@TechTalkTobi]

Nice work. I like those Asus cards. Everything is Alu & copper. "But why we should contact the VRAM to cool it" ... xD

[@HuntersMoon78]

I have the same Radeon HD 4870, it was first powerful card (back in it's day).

[@AlphaFox78]

What video did you watch? this is about the GTX 770

[@necro_ware]

In the beginning there are multiple cards on the table. One on the left is HD4870.