just fried my 9800gt

[ekuest]

i was measuring dimensions in my computer because i plan on making building a custom case and i didnt think to turn it off. i was using a plastic ruler but for this one part i was using a (metal...) tape measure. i just touched a couple leads on the back of my video card (9800gt) and it smoked and then my screen turned off. i quickly hard powered down my computer and unplugged it immediately. do you think i can turn it on? did i mess it up for good or just for a second? any help would be great.

 

[bryanW1995]

take a small amount of solder and melt it onto the contacts that were shorted. Then, take a multimeter and measure the resistance between the two contacts. If it is .01 ohm or less then you're safe. If it's over that then you probably need a new card.

I don't actually know if that stuff will work, and I don't totally remember what an ohm is, but I did stay at a holiday express last night so ymmv.

 

[ekuest]

i dont know what it shorted. i was looking elsewhere at the time and then the puff of smoke ccauht my eye. it could be any 2 of a dozen or more little soldered ends. will powering it back on now to test it make things worse in any way?

 

[bryanW1995]

no. however, just to be on the safe side, where do you live? Are you near a fire station, hospital, nuclear reactor, or jacob zuma? If you said yes to any of these then you're probably ok to try it.

 

[Schmide]

I would think if you shorted it on the back of the card, you most likely starved the card of power rather than pushed power to where it shouldn't be. My money is on it works again.

 

[ekuest]

phew. i hope so!

the large hadron collider is actually under my back yard, does that affect anything?

 

[speedfreak]

have you tried powering it on again? just be sure you have a fire extinguisher besides you. lol

 

[error8]

I shorted my 8800 GT when I was reading vgpu with my multimeter. It sparkled something there and the screen became pink. I thought it was dead and buried, but on reboot, it was perfectly fine. It might still work.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

RMA or no?

 

[kmmatney]

I would take out any other PCI cards in the system (if you have any others) and reboot and see what happens. My guess is that it still might work.

 

[ekuest]

it still works fine. i just had to work up the courage to push the button. as far as i can tell nothing has been affected. thanks for the help guys! im sticking to my plastic ruler from now on.

 

[error8]

Nvidia cards are so tough!

I remember I also had a 7600 GT, that I blindly volt modded, without using any means of reading the voltage. I just penciled the damn transistor until it became black. When I got into windows, I jumped on the temperature monitor and I had 92 C in idle with an aftermarket cooler!!! That was from a 30 C idle at stock and it had no OVP. The card didn't suffered any damage, it was still functional for an entire extra year, with the volt mod ( but a better one this time )

You have to give Nvidia credit for the toughness of their cards. I guess their cards are damaged only if you use a hammer .

 

[SlowSpyder]

I spilled some water on my card/motherboard while I had the side panel open and the case laying on it's side. I got some wierd screen artifacts, and shut down asap. I dried it out, used a blow dryer, and tried the computer again... there must have been some water still on the motherboard somewhere because soemthing happened with timings/clocks. For everything seconds would move very quickly, like file transferring the counter would move very abnormally. I shut down, continued drying, and now everything works fine... this was a few months ago. It's funny what little itty bitty things could kill hardware in some cases, and how tough they can be in others.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: ekuest
it still works fine. i just had to work up the courage to push the button. as far as i can tell nothing has been affected. thanks for the help guys! im sticking to my plastic ruler from now on.

I'm not sure what exactly you were measuring, but if you're building an ATX case there may be an easier way to obtain the desired measurements.

ATX Specification Version 2.2:

http://www.formfactors.org/dev...r%5Cspecs%5Catx2_2.pdf

 

[Leyawiin]

Glad yours survived. I had a GTX 260 fried a couple months ago by a failing power supply (hot electrical smell pouring out of the PC and a black screen). I let it cool and it still had a black screen, popped in my old 8800 GTX and it was fine. Ended up selling the RMA replacement since there wasn't much difference on my low/mid-range system.

 

[God Mode]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
RMA or no?

Anyone that tries to rma something that is their fault deserves to be hurt with rusted utensils.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

just asking. dont be so mad

 

[ekuest]

i was measuring my vid card and psu and finding heat sink heights etc to design a custom case. stuff thats not online as far as i know, and if it is its much harder to get than just sticking a ruler in there.

 

[Modular]

Originally posted by: God Mode

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
RMA or no?

Anyone that tries to rma something that is their fault deserves to be hurt with rusted utensils.

There are much more productive ways to channel your anger.