PooF! $550.00 Video card up in Smoke and Flames!

Virtually impossible to identify the cause over the internet, but there are a couple of possibilities...

The video card could have been defective - a loose solder joint somewhere on it finally went. The sudden disconnection causes a small electrical surge that may have been enough to fry something in the components, leading to the flames, etc.

The computer might have just been too hot - with temperatures warming up around the country, people leaving their heat on a little too long, etc, it's entirely possible this was a simple case of overheating of the video card.

There may have been dust in the system. A layer of dust can, potentially, create electrical pathways that can cause circuits to fry.

There may have been something wrong with the motherboard that caused it - much like the problems listed for the video card, a problem on the motherboard could have applied the wrong voltage to the pins on the video card.


It sucks when stuff like this happens, but unfortunately there isn't really much that you can do about it. You said the board was only a couple of weeks old? you should be able to get it replaced, hopefully.

 

Your cap blew. It wasn't because the board got too hot. It was a defect.

 

Wildkow, you did not have anything to do with the damage on the card. This is a warranty issue, hands down.

If their cap blows, it isn't your fault.. it's their shoddy worksmanship.

Call back to customer service and tell them you want a warranty replacement.

That is electrical damage.. not physical damage. THey sold you a bad piece of hardware.

 

Admit it, you were overclocking your PC!!!

 

You might want to look on the other side of that card.

I had the exact same signature on my blown card.

It was in a tower, and the heat sink/fan came loose. The
metal part of the sink crossed something that shouldn't
have crossed.

It's pretty hard to smoke an IC unless you pump too much
voltage across it.

 

Suddenly, I feel better about buying the cheepo $45 Ebay vid cards. Even so ... I feel your pain.

 

damn, well I would be worried about the power supply if you were having "intermettnet" issues.

Actually... what were your issues if I can be so nosy. I'm in the middle of building/buying my new computer (got the case/powersupply and looking at what drives I want) and I have already ruled out EVGA as a supplier for the video card. I've seen nightmares with people dealing with them online and they seem like a horrible company. BFG is in the same boat for me personally, I bought my dad a 6800 series card from them, it died three months after he got it, the replacement lasted a month, and then got nuked, and.... eventually he wound up with something he couldn't use because they dropped his line, so they sent a card that was too long to fit into the old case.

The machine I'm replacing isn't that bad (P4 3.0ghz sony with an added antec phantom 500w and pny 7300gs (gt?) its got 256mb ram) but seriously, the bf's computer makes me want something a LOT better.

When I built my dads computer last year I had the idiot problem of not allowing enough voltage to the memory (my first homebuilt, why would I want to keep a problem filled machine?!) so Windows would shutdown/restart keep actting up on me. We got it figured out, with the help of someone more experienced.

Sucks though If I'm buying a card I'm looking at 512-700something mb cards. I hope you're not screwed by EVGA on this on.

 

Wow, that reminds me of the infamous Dell GX270 series of computers. The motherboards had capacitors that bulged and then eventually leaked onto the motherboard. With this series, it wasn't a case of if the capacitor would die, the question is when.

Maybe they got the capacitors from the same place that sold the bad batch to Dell.

As others have said, I don't think the issue has anything to do with our system. It just may mean that it's time for that manufacturer to change it's parts supplier.

 

I know nothing about hardware, so I cannot offer any useful advice. But I just wanted to say I'm sorry you are having these headaches over the computer.

I remember when I used to write letters with a ball-point pen, on a clipboard, while sitting in an easy chair, while the cat tried to get the pen away from me. It took a week for the letter to get delivered, and another week for the reply to get back, and life was so much simpler.

 

For everyone saying a cap blew - look at the picture. On the one side of the board, all of the caps are fine - no leaking or bulging. On the other side, it's a bit more difficult to tell, but i think they're fine too.

And wildkow, this wasn't caused by any physical damage you did to the board - this was a manufacturers defect, and should be replaced under warranty. If they give you trouble, i find that a call to the BBB tends to help move things along.

 

I've seen caps or resisters just pop and leave damage like that.

 

But there's always some evidence on the caps themselves...

 

We can't see in between the cards, now can we?

Regardless, THAT is a warranty issue - hands down. If the rep tells you it isn't then get with the supervisor...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Trevor @ Apr 16 2007, 08:52 PM) [snapback]424438[/snapback]</div>

GX270s I haven't had a problem with. Do you mean the SX270? The caps on those have been blowing up regularly. Since I started working there (Nov), I've had 9 (and counting) SX270s fail with bad capacitors. When you look on the board, most of the capacitors were bulging.