Expensive video card repair - worth it?

[Shock]

Was given a non working ASUS Radeon R9 280 (R9280-DC2T-3GD5). These were selling a couple of years ago for $300 to $400 in Australia. A middle range card with 3GB RAM.

The former owner dismantled it (not a major job) and said he thought it had leaking capacitors. I'm not 100% sure but I can see some grease on the top of the (VRM?) heatsink between the two rows of capacitors. The right hand row of capacitors have slightly faded printing. I also see some greasy mark on a rear sticker (I marked in red as it did not come out well in photos).

Cannot see any sign of capacitor leakage on the front anyway, and aside from some thermal compound that I will clean, looks in good condition.

Any ideas of how these cards are likely to fail?

[Shock]

...more pcb shots

[Shock]

... last pcb shot

[ataradov]

Is there anything specific we are expected to see on those pictures?

You may want to at least name a card, and tell what is wrong with it.

[abraxa]

What happens if it's plugged into the system and the system is turned on? Black screen? Garbled output? POST beeps from the BIOS? Do any of the outputs work or none at all? etc...
Also, in which way did it fail? Was it continous degradation or a sudden failure?
There are a lot of things that could have gone wrong here, for example a bad power supply in the case, frying the graphics card on-board power supply.

The thermal grease is non-conductive, they wouldn't have used conductive grease right next to a row of supply caps

The first thing I'd do would be to check supply voltages with a scope. Anything beyond that may be difficult / impossible to diagnose and repair due to the sheer complexity of the device.

[wraper]

There are no electrolytic caps there, no electrolyte to leak. You did not say what the fault is. If it's completely dead, you should check voltages on power rails.

[Armadillo]

Any ideas of how these cards are likely to fail?

At such price, Worth a try, won't you agree?
Lucky try, all the in circuit fuses.

[Shock]

I haven't looked at it until I just took those photos. Previous owner was a bit vague on details and aside from mentioning caps leaking, just said not working.

I looked at it in some good light, if the pcb has contamination at all, it's very minor. The only mark on the pcb looks to be a very slight discoloration near the sticker on the back. The whole caps area is clean aside from some fading on the right side row. So I'm wondering what he was talking about as well.

I don't have spare motherboards to test it in at the moment, at least until I know it powers up then I'll take one out of a working system and test it out further.

So worth a crack, could be power related? Is there any good ways to power it up on the bench or from a PC power supply?

[wraper]

So worth a crack, could be power related? Is there any good ways to power it up on the bench or from a PC power supply?

What the point doing this? Why don't you just put it into PC you have and check if it works or not.

at least until I know it powers up

What do you mean by that? There is 95+% chance that it at least would spin a fan.

[Shock]

What the point doing this? Why don't you just put it into PC you have and check if it works or not.

If I can power it from the bench I might try working on a few others I have laying around as well. Powering random cards OR working on them in my PC is not really an option at this time. Thanks though you actually reminded me I have an additional video card sitting on a shelf I need to look up as well.

I can probably scrape up a motherboard but I want to hear from someone who powers them up externally to work on them etc, or do most people use a spare motherboard and a PCIE riser, put on a temporary heatsink?

[rancor]

If you don't have the orginal heatsink I don't think the card is worth trying to fix.

You need a motherboard to start the card as it will need power from the PCIe connector along with the 8+6 pin to start. At that point you could check voltage rails even if the card won't boot. Without the PCIe power the card/VRMs should not start or you could damage it. I have no idea what the heat output from a booting GPU could be but might be in the tens of watts so have a good heatsink on the core.

Seems more likely the core, memory, or one of the BGA solder joints failed and none of those thing are really fixable. That being said if you have the orginal heatsink clean the card and core then put new thermal paste on it and try it.

[wraper]

I have no idea what the heat output from a booting GPU could be but might be in the tens of watts so have a good heatsink on the core.

If you have some small heatsink it may be good for 10 seconds. If something like CPU box cooler without fan attached, for a few minutes. VRMs don't heat that much to have any problems running without any heatsink for prolonged time unless under heavy 3D load.

[Shock]

Had a poke around and tested most of the easy stuff - fuses, inductors, power rails from the power connectors, the 7805, couldn't find any obvious shorts.

Looked on youtube to see if any videos showing faults with similar models, pity most of the GPU repair videos are rubbish.

If you don't have the original heatsink I don't think the card is worth trying to fix.

Yeah got everything including all the screws etc to throw it back together.

[metrologist]

There are no electrolytic caps there, no electrolyte to leak. You did not say what the fault is. If it's completely dead, you should check voltages on power rails.

Aren't all the metal cans electrolytic caps?

I would just put it back together and install it into a PC. Some kind of software combo could cause it to fail too, IME...

[sphinx]

on the picture "rear left" up top in the middle under PR514  there it looks like the pcb is not like every where else looks a bit like burnt, it could also
be some dirt check that out. if it is burnt i do not think is repairable.

[wraper]

on the picture "rear left" up top in the middle under PR514  there it looks like the pcb is not like every where else looks a bit like burnt, it could also
be some dirt check that out. if it is burnt i do not think is repairable.

There is nothing but dirt.

[Shock]

Surface grease and dirt, good spot though.

Found the other video card I forgot about on the shelf, which is a Nvidia GT630 with 2GB ram. This one was pulled from some random scrapped PC I was given so the card is good. Not much by todays standards but always an eye opener when someone throws out a PC loaded with a 3D card and performance memory. The motherboard on that one was warped due to mounting issues so is good for parts only.

Should be able to find a motherboard and at least confirm it works properly now I have a spare card. I'll clean the PCB and try and sort something out this weekend.

[WastelandTek]

[puts on flame suit]

you tried baking it?

[runs to far corner of internet]

[Shock]

There is good news and bad news.

The good news is I cleaned the whole card down with IPA, paying attention to greasy spots, the gpu/heatsink and the edge connectors. Found my thermal compound again and put it back together perfectly. Ran it up in my main PC and proceeded to play the nicest games I could find on max settings.

Of course it had to work perfectly, the bad news is I wasted two hours gaming.