Topic: HELP: Replacing SMD Capacitors on a Radeon 7970 - page 2. (Read 9052 times)

Because the card has 2 sides, one of which you can't see and there are several other ways components can be damaged besides visually burnt out. Your approach of trying to replace them could work, but don't get your hopes up too much...

ELECTRICMUCUS,

Why do you say you doubt that is the only problem? I see no physical damage on the card otherwise. The VRMs look fine. From what I understand... the actual integrated circuit on the board is not likely to fail. Maybe you could enlighten me to what the failure of other components like VRMs would look like or whether you could tell by physical inspection.


Anyway, I do plan on replacing the caps myself. Like I said I feel comfortable with the larger ones but the smaller ones maybe not as much.

My real question is how to tell what type of caps to replace them with? Can I just go by size of caps and use caps from a previous generation of card? The color of the caps are different ont he 7970(black/dark gray vs the pale brown of previous generations)...

Or, am I going to have to pop a couple of caps off and test them with a meter?

Thanks,

^http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en/capacitors/ceramic/131083?k=surface%20mount%20capacitor

my little brother does game console mods and uses a tiny hot tipped screw driver to remove and replace caps.....


I would get him to fix my 5850 but I can't find the damn parts anywhere.... Someone told me where to look but I got lost and gave up

I doubt that the only issues the card has are the few caps on the underside of it. You can actually replace these caps by hand with a loupe, a fine tip soldering iron,  desolder wick, glue, solder paste and tweezers. You can also can do spot reflow using a hot air gun.
Putting the whole card in a reflow oven is no option.

yeah sapphire sucks for RMA IMO, They do not handle their own RMA's.... they have an outside source take care of it..... BUT they do take care of their stuff if you make a big enough stink about it.

Sapphire is pretty hardcore. I also don't feel comfortable lieing and on their webpage they specifically state that RMAs have to be sent through the original seller(ie newegg or whatever) and only the original purchaser is covered.

I would call them and talk it out but the only number I find is for their Hong Kong department.

Those caps look identical to the one ones burnt out on my 5850....


This card is very new,, can't you talk your way in to an RMA?  My son smashed a logitech mouse all over the place and they gladly replaced it

So, I bought a broken 7970 off of here in the hope to repair it. It is sometimes picked up in RBE (I cannot load bios but the card shows up)... Also Windows detects the card and trys to install default drivers but CCC will not.

***This card cannot be RMA'd due to it being bought from a second party... Plus the block has been off and I've replaced thermal grease... etc***

So upon inspection of the PCB I have found what looks like an area that is less than the size of a dime has most of its capacitors burnt.

These are the small SMD Capacitors that you can see in the picture and the larger ones are labled 2018, 2019, and 2028. The smaller smd Capacitors are not labeled from what I can tell.

So I have tried to contact Sapphire to get the  specs on these capacitors in order to replace them but they will not respond.

I have replaced a SMD capacitor or a 5870 with good results (it works now).

My options are... use some SMDs that I have laying around on spare broken cards: 5870, 6870... etc. I have been told that I can replace the capacitor with higher voltage, ulr, and same or higher capacitance, but not knowing the specs on any of the capacitors I'd have to just desolder a few of the other capacitors of the same size and check them with a meter at school then test some extra capacitors on the spare parts cards I have.


Another problem I have is that I feel comfortable doing this with the larger caps (i'd be using a heat gun or maybe just a small soldering Iron I have)... But I do not know how I would do it with the small caps as they are really tiny. I am going to ask around and see if anyone on campus has a nice soldering/reflow station but it may be a long shot.



Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks guys!
Andrew