hilarious repair video

[Simmed]

TLDR/ TLDW summary

shop got sent a card for repair
description, (maybe newbie bought a used) old PC did not use for 3 years, power on no joy
tech opens it up and finds a GPU with no GPU n no memory 

buying a used PC n getting scammed ?

wonderful   

[Ranayna]

There are rumors that GPU chips get desoldered and imported or smuggled into china, where they are added to AI or cryptomining accellerators.

This is the first indicator i saw that this is more than just a rumor.

[Haenk]

This is just fraud - an emptied donor board sold to some "stupid" buyer, probably for cash on a parking lot.
There is no chinese conspiration behind this.

[AVGresponding]

This is just fraud - an emptied donor board sold to some "stupid" buyer, probably for cash on a parking lot.
There is no chinese conspiration behind this.

Yes, it would be wildly impractical to do it this way, when they have far simpler ways of obtaining such GPUs

[MadTux]

Still weird, how many no GPU core, repair cards are out there, on ebay, especially from china
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=rtx+4090+core+chip&_sacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1311&_odkw=rtx+4090+core&_osacat=0
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266880475505
https://www.ebay.com/itm/387619674745

I would expect maybe 30/70 ratio, between GPU meltdown/short vs unrecoverable PCBs due to ripped pads or cracked PCI-E connector.
So rather a surplus on working cores with a destroyed PCB beyond repair, market on ebay is the other way.

I.e. there has the be another sinkhole, where those cores go to, from otherwise nicely looking cards

[Haenk]

Still weird, how many no GPU core, repair cards are out there, on ebay, especially from china

No. The card manufacturers have their own repair techs doing nothing else than repairing the cards - if the core is considered "good", the easiest repair is to transplant it onto a fresh PCB (after reballing), same probably goes for the 2nd most expensive parts: the RAM chips.
So I would imagine the RAMs are used for replacing defective RAM chips on RMA'd cards. If there are too many defective RAM chips (rumors of complete batches with failed chips do exist...), transplanting the core to a fresh PCB might be easier/cheaper.

[Simmed]

china recycling market is huge, they buy so much electronic waste
this below is a chinese repair video
where the tech found re-used parts from probably "waste"



in this video, the tech explains there are scam repair shops that also send empty cards
the real shops have to open the packages under cctv to prove they did not scam the user 

[Analog Kid]

I like the guy in that 2nd video. Seems helpful and honest.

[Simmed]

wow not even 1 month
and they get another scam card seller
the user drove from san francisco to the shop (over 300mi)
and open sesame, empty card 

the 3rd card with empty gpu in their week at work   

[wraper]

Sometimes they have some old GPU and RAM glued to PCB to look more legit and not easily noticeable when looking on the graphics card sideways.

[pcprogrammer]

Considering the source of the videos, it might also just be a scam to get more views.

[tszaboo]

Considering the source of the videos, it might also just be a scam to get more views.

I don't understand what's the appeal of these laptop repair videos. It's just a tech complaining about the engineers work because they have selection bias. All they see is bad ie Asus laptops, therefore all Asus laptops are bad. Meanwhile they might have sold millions and had maybe 0.1% failure rate. Conclusion-> engineers are idiots.
Same was going on with the Luois Rossmann videos.
Also the complete lack of understanding how difficult it is to design a product down to price, and how difficult it is to spot very small failure rates. Which BTW most of the time are caused by something entirely out of the designer's control, like there was a speck of dust on the paste stencil, leaving 5% more solder paste on some footprints. Or the MOSFETs characteristics was too optimistic. What are the designer supposed to do, launch the product after years of testing? When the lifecycle of a laptop part is like 6 months. And if you don't launch on day 1 a video card, you loose half your sales?

[wraper]

Considering the source of the videos, it might also just be a scam to get more views.

I know that it's a very common scam in Russia with GPUs sold through Avito (something in between of eBay and Craigslist). So regardless if he faked it or not, it's very much real scam.

[ME]

I heard tales of russians buying secondhand macs in the 70's and using the chips for icbm guidence systems.

[MrMobodies]

Looking at this seller selling them:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/zhousstore


* Notice
https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/zhousstore?_tab=about

* Location: United States
Member since: 11 Feb, 2014
Seller: zhou_pc

An option in this listing with box shows Gigabyte so that'd be the PCB's with the cracks around the round edges on the PCI'e connector.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266786646194

With box (Most popular WHY?): $182.40 or £144.92
Without box: $179.99 or £143.01
16 sold and 13 available.

* Located in: HongKong, Hong Kong
Isn't that naughty?

What to do with it:
** We recommend using whatever parts you need from the GPU, don't think about bringing it back to life.
Use it for your office/gaming room decoration 
Video recording

Joke: Send it in to a repair shop.

What to expect:
The core chip and vrams are removed.
Radiator, PCB board, fans, backplate and bracket are included.
** Some components on the board might  be missing (Such as capacitors, switches, plugs, screws).
There might be chips displacement, stripped screws, bent bracket/backplate
RGB might or might not be working (Most likely it will)
Fans might or might not be working (Most likely they will)
There might be scratches, dents, ripped cables, ripped thermal pads

Might as well put "Pre-salvaged dumpster scrap" in there.
**So they GUT the whole thing out of any part that works then sell it on.

Looks very expensive to me for a decoration that looks like it had been in a trash bin at some point before it had the valuable pieces ripped out and looking at the one from video where it had a bent PCI bracket. Who would want to buy broken presalvaged sh*t in terrible condition missing the key parts and use it as a decoration. At a school I once went to they did things with old and broken parts as decorations but not in that condition.

** If they admit to removing these parts what maybe left for you?
For the sellers or people involved in this I could see it may not worth their time going through these boards if there are so many of them to remove a single component and then test one at a time when they could have a team of people set to remove say the capacitors and test them if they are recycling the components to use on other boards.

I wonder, a seller wouldn't pay a significant amount for recycled damaged PCB's that are missing key components or where anything could be damaged on them or as a result of the cracks. So would these just be given to them or even finding them from scrap heaps and be making a huge markup on these because I think that maybe a lot of money for something in terrible condition that don't even work on it's own for like £100 to £220 a piece?

In that condition and without the GPU core and memory and other parts it looks like a absolute con to me for parts not working.
Joke: Maybe Ebay should create another category for this sort of stuff "Presalvaged/dumpster parts".

Even the dumpster at Dave Jones building was more generous than that when it comes to broken things where they don't always have the components ripped out of them.

[Analog Kid]

What to expect:
The core chip and vrams are removed.
Radiator, PCB board, fans, backplate and bracket are included.
** Some components on the board might  be missing (Such as capacitors, switches, plugs, screws).
There might be chips displacement, stripped screws, bent bracket/backplate
RGB might or might not be working (Most likely it will)
Fans might or might not be working (Most likely they will)
There might be scratches, dents, ripped cables, ripped thermal pads

Might as well put "Pre-salvaged dumpster scrap" in there.
**So they GUT the whole thing out of any part that works then sell it on.

I don't get it: why are you all up in arms over this? How are they hurting you?
Looks to me like a fairly honest seller who's willing to admit the condition of their items for sale.
Which is somewhat rare on eBay.
Therefore, it's up to the buyer to decide to buy it or not.
How is that any skin off your back?
Or even unethical or unscrupulous?

BTW, back in the 2000s when I was selling a lot of stuff on eBay, I sold things that I got out of the trash. Everything I put up for sale sold, at pretty good prices (auction, not "buy it now").
I was diligent about posting photos showing the worst aspects of all my items, so buyers would know what they were getting. Every ding, dent, scratch, etc.

[MrMobodies]

Sorry, I am just surprised with the price for that scrap and the condition they are in.
and that you may get one missing other components.

I use to go to and pull out scrap from skips that were in better condition and to see it selling for hundreds of pounds missing the pieces.

Yes the seller is honest about the terms but seeing it and a demand for it too.

Good to show the worst aspects.

[wraper]

If they admit to removing these parts what maybe left for you?

You have PCB. If you have graphics card with PCB damage such as torn off bga pads (due to PCB warping with unsupported card backside, shipping within PC) or PCB crack near PCI-E slot (shipping within PC) which are common on heavy graphics cards, burn through PCB layers, you may want to just move expensive GPU and RAM to another board.

[MrMobodies]

You have PCB... you may want to just move expensive GPU and RAM to another board.

So put a cheaper lower series GPU and memory in there with light heatsink and see if it works? if broken pads, damaged/cracked tracers on a particular scrap PCB are not required for a cheaper GPU and RAM to work.

Well thanks now that makes sense to me even though the seller did say "don't think about bringing it back to life." maybe they mean to it's original form and specification.

PCB warping... heavy graphics cards... shipping...

I use to have a graphics card like that RMA'd many many times that use to gradually bend and artifacts would start showing up on the screen. The slight movement would influence it. It was a Leadtek A380 ultra 20 years ago. They also use to package them inadequately so many of the replacements came smashed up in the post until the last one where they did it properly.

[wraper]

I use to have a graphics card like that RMA'd many many times that use to gradually bend and artifacts would start showing up on the screen. The slight movement would influence it. It was a Leadtek A380 ultra 20 years ago. They also use to package them inadequately so many of the replacements came smashed up in the post until the last one where they did it properly.

Now you literally get rear end support afterthought thingy supplied with graphics cards. Heck, I needed to remove HDD bay from a large PC case for GPU to fit. My RTX 4080 came with a shitty support that sucked due to irregulary shaped GPU heatsink cover. It could easily fall out if I moved the case a little bit. So I 3D printed my own. The problem is that ginormous GPUs of today have the same mounting system as tiny passively cooled ones from 30 years ago. Now imagine this beast hanging just on the connector plate and miserable PCI-E slot.

[MrMobodies]

So I 3D printed my own. The problem is that ginormous GPUs of today have the same mounting system as tiny passively cooled ones from 30 years ago. Now imagine this beast hanging just on the connector plate and miserable PCI-E slot.

Some of the large ones use to have holes on the end.

So what I use to do is mount them with these things to try and add support on the other end. I found those when I scrapped a load of Mirage? CCTV multiplexors given to me where they were holding up boards that were interconnected to the ones below.

They seem larger than a vga bolt or motherboard support bolt but I still don't know what they're called.

After a quick search and now I see they are called standoffs.
https://www.temu.com/uk/336pcs--motherboard-standoffs-screws-nuts-kit-hex-male-female-brass-spacer-standoffs-laptop-screws-for-diy-computer-build-electronic-projects-raspberry-pi-circuit-board-etc-g-601099530629005.html