Chiggy Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 I was merely formating my hard drive when all of a sudden the display went blue and I could smell something rather nasty. After several swear words I hit the power switch on the wall. I then unplugged the PC to inspect the damage. The graphics card was red hot. I then allowed the PC to cool reconnected it with side off the case to establish what the problem was. As it happened the fan on the graphics card was not spinning. The only damage I could see was that the card has several sweat marks aound some the resistors, no burst capacitors. I pulled the card and reseated it and the fan began to spin when i powered the machine up. I then proceeded to test the card with a graphically intense game. The card worked perfectly. What I want to know is............potentially what damage have I done to my system ALSO as the card is still under warranty would you send it back for a replacement or live with it for a while? It is doubtful that I will get a replacement as the card works.........all the retailer is going to tell me is that I didnt seat the card correctly so its my fault.........but I swear the fan was working correctly before. So very hard to prove anything! Thanks for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TFMF Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 I'm guessing this is the card you bought recently? It's possible that on formatting the hard disk the deletion of drivers for your graphics card may have caused it to malfunction in this way. No expert though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiggy Posted November 28, 2006 Author Share Posted November 28, 2006 I was formating my spare slave drive.........the primary boot was still in tact with an XP installation. In the end I have decided to send the card back as its future was uncertain.......could of lasted another week or maybe 12 years, electronics can be very random. Everything else appears to be running fine. Damn frustrating as I had yet to even play one game on that machine! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TFMF Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 Ah damn that's unfortuanate although perhaps returning the card might not have been necissary...suppose it's best to be on the safe side :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kyran Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 I 'd have returned it too if it was smoking how old is it ? the age for smoking is 16 what card was it ? just interested incase i get a customer with one video cards work on basic drivers when their own drivers are not available, they all have to adhere to the same protocols Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiggy Posted January 10, 2007 Author Share Posted January 10, 2007 Its was a 7600GT which is a very common card..............mainly because it offers the highest performance relative to the power it consumes. You can get away with a 350 Watt PSU. It draws all its power from the MB........no connector from the PSU. The burning happened whilst I was partitioning thehn formating the hard drive using the XP Pro CD. Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S0V13T Posted January 10, 2007 Share Posted January 10, 2007 I have the exact same card, and have had a somewhat similer issue in the past. The problem is that the stock fan on that GPU is garbage. Less then a 48 hours after I installed my card, the stock fan stopped working. Thankfully, when my fan stopped working I wasn't 3d gaming, or running any benchmarks at the time, so the card suffered zero damage. Same effect, the display was filled with artifacts, and the machine had to be powered down for a while, as the GPU had to cool off. The stock fans on most GPU's generally suck, and are only reliable, so long as your comp is 100% idle. As soon as you do anything (ie. move your mouse cursor, or hit the caps lock button) then the GPU fan can't really keep up with the heat build up. From my personal experience with these sorts of things (I've replaced the stock gpu cooling on ALMOST my entire immediete family's machines), whenever you buy a new graphics adapter, you should also buy a third party heatsink / fan combo at the samt time, and install it on the card before you even put the video card in the comp for the first time. Saves yourself a ton of headaches. Water cooling is the absolute best way to keep your GPU cool, but a lot of people don't like the idea of water flowing around inside their case. Rightfully so, as I lost a mother board, and a sound card due to leaks in the past. I have a off the shelf 80mm case fan rigged up in a position in my box that will be effective in the event that the GPU fan stops working (these days, happens ALL the time) Anyway, to address your concern directelly, if you were just partitioning / formatting a hard disk, then no, the video card shouldn;t have suffered very much over heating related damage, as that sort of thing is not a video intensive thing. If you were playing Half Life 2, with all the settings maxed out then yeah, you would be WAY more screwed. At most, it probabally shaved a couple of weeks off the over all life expectancy of the card. Over all system damage is a definate non-issue. You should, however look at your existing cooling system, and decide for yourself wether or not you feel the need to add in some new fans. Hope this is helpfull :) [br]Posted on: January 10, 2007, 12:39:54 PMOh, just one more semi-important note, remember that graphics cards are generally red-hot even with the best of cooling conditions. Take a look inside your box sometime and make sure that there are no cables or wires (ESPECIALLY electrical wires from fans, or want-not) anywhere near the video card. The heat generated from it WILL melt through the plastic insulating, and if a bare wire touches anything inside your case, will result in severe electrical damage to all your components. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TetsuoShima Posted January 11, 2007 Share Posted January 11, 2007 Yup, the 7600gt has a horrible default cooler. The same cooler is used on the 7900gt series btw, where it performs equally bad (noisy and hot). Some manufacturers have started rolling out custom coolers for their nv cards, but most of those are not much better. If you're not very much into heavy customising, the easiest things to do, is to order a Zalman vf900 heatsink and replace the original heatsink with that one. Its cooling capacity is a lot better, it is reasonably quiet and installation is a breeze. It can be had for as little as $25. It will take up an extra slot next to the graphics card, but most people don't use that slot for something else anyway... btw, did anybody else notice that the e4300 proc to be released to retail next week has a 90% overclocking potential with the default cooler. Put some watercooler or high end air cooler on it and I bet it goes past 100% overclock. For a $160 processor that is quite the feat imo. Nice one to experiment with. :D I wish it were summer allready, so I can get started on it. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vektram Posted January 11, 2007 Share Posted January 11, 2007 I have a 7600GT and i've been running fairly instensive games on it all summer, no problems. After reading this, however, I will keep a close eye on it. Will have to hope nothing happens when my little brother is uing the PC, as he won't notice it and it'll probably get ruined. Damn. So paranoid now :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TFMF Posted January 11, 2007 Share Posted January 11, 2007 I have a 7600GT and i've been running fairly instensive games on it all summer' date=' no problems. After reading this, however, I will keep a close eye on it.[/quote'] Indeed. I use the same card and haven't had any problems....yet... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ulysses Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 im glad i dont ave one of theses.....i will stick to my trusty ATI Radieon x800GTO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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