Re: New Members - please post your introductions here
Hello to all. I am Denis, from Albania, living in China. I own a small business in both countries, and recently took on repairing electronics as a hobby due to an "accident" with my daughter's graphic card..well i basically poked around the gpu with a paper clip because...that's what fathers do
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The story goes something like this. I decided to build a computer for my daughter. Build it i did, and it was gorgeous, nothing too fancy a budget Phanteks P360 because of the RGB and airflow, a Phanteks PSU, a second hand MB and Ryzen5 2600 16GB of ram overkill, GSkill Trident because again..the RGB, and a Sapphire R9 270x 4gb. A modest but good looking computer. After a few days running Windoze 10 i decided to upgrade to Windoze 11, little did i know that my graphics card didn't support UEFI and Microsoft had decided it was necessary to run that disgusting system. What is a father to do? Decided to flash a new bios that supports UEFI found one on TechPower and flashed it. The screen went black, panic in the room disappointed faces around a sinking feeling all around me, what can one say. I searched and found some people that teach you to repair a bad bios by shorting the pins and without giving any context safety tips and explanation. So like a desperate person i fell for it as any desperate person falls for miracle cures and fast money schemes, and with a paper clip shorted it a couple of hundred times. Suddenly the computer violently shut down, everything went dark and nothing would power on anymore. I went from disappointment to horror and shock, in a heart beat. after a long sleepI bought another GPU, and promised my self i would fix the one i broke. So i learned what i could, bought soldering equipment multimeter flux and soldering wire, downloaded datasheets for every chip opened the card and tested it for days and days. Found out i had a 12v short to ground, searched around the mosfets finally found one with a short on GH gate. Bought another mosfet, and as i was trying to remove the old one, a electrolytic capacitor blew up and hit me right in between the eyes. Bought another capacitor, removed the mosfet and to my surprise and delight the short disappeared. Went on to remove the remains of the capacitor that blew up and broke it's pins with the remaining ones stuck in the holes. Went for the needle hot air method and finally managed it. However i found out the capacitors i bought though the correct values where slightly taller, desoldered it bought new one soldered it back and lo and behold the card was fixed...or so i thought. Sunday morning i decided i would try the card out, plugged it in with high expectations that where turned into disappointment the moment i powered the computer on... it wouldn't work. There was no voltage anywhere. Checked power mosfets all the power rails and found out the 5v coil was getting 1v only, while three of the power mosfets where giving short at the source. Little did i know that they are supposed to as they are low side mosfets whose source goes to ground, i learned about it too late i had already removed and tested each of them, and with them a couple of cermaic capacitors had flown away into the unknown a transistor had lost one of it's legs and another one had lost it's will to live. And so here the story ends, but not the "adventure" or nightmare depending on mine or the wife's point of view. What i do know for sure though, is that it's money well spent even if i don't fix it, i learned a lot of things about which i had no knowledge of, or interest for that matter, met a few nice people along the way online, found this forum, and overall the experience has been worthwhile and i hope to make it even better here.
Hello to all. I am Denis, from Albania, living in China. I own a small business in both countries, and recently took on repairing electronics as a hobby due to an "accident" with my daughter's graphic card..well i basically poked around the gpu with a paper clip because...that's what fathers do
.The story goes something like this. I decided to build a computer for my daughter. Build it i did, and it was gorgeous, nothing too fancy a budget Phanteks P360 because of the RGB and airflow, a Phanteks PSU, a second hand MB and Ryzen5 2600 16GB of ram overkill, GSkill Trident because again..the RGB, and a Sapphire R9 270x 4gb. A modest but good looking computer. After a few days running Windoze 10 i decided to upgrade to Windoze 11, little did i know that my graphics card didn't support UEFI and Microsoft had decided it was necessary to run that disgusting system. What is a father to do? Decided to flash a new bios that supports UEFI found one on TechPower and flashed it. The screen went black, panic in the room disappointed faces around a sinking feeling all around me, what can one say. I searched and found some people that teach you to repair a bad bios by shorting the pins and without giving any context safety tips and explanation. So like a desperate person i fell for it as any desperate person falls for miracle cures and fast money schemes, and with a paper clip shorted it a couple of hundred times. Suddenly the computer violently shut down, everything went dark and nothing would power on anymore. I went from disappointment to horror and shock, in a heart beat. after a long sleepI bought another GPU, and promised my self i would fix the one i broke. So i learned what i could, bought soldering equipment multimeter flux and soldering wire, downloaded datasheets for every chip opened the card and tested it for days and days. Found out i had a 12v short to ground, searched around the mosfets finally found one with a short on GH gate. Bought another mosfet, and as i was trying to remove the old one, a electrolytic capacitor blew up and hit me right in between the eyes. Bought another capacitor, removed the mosfet and to my surprise and delight the short disappeared. Went on to remove the remains of the capacitor that blew up and broke it's pins with the remaining ones stuck in the holes. Went for the needle hot air method and finally managed it. However i found out the capacitors i bought though the correct values where slightly taller, desoldered it bought new one soldered it back and lo and behold the card was fixed...or so i thought. Sunday morning i decided i would try the card out, plugged it in with high expectations that where turned into disappointment the moment i powered the computer on... it wouldn't work. There was no voltage anywhere. Checked power mosfets all the power rails and found out the 5v coil was getting 1v only, while three of the power mosfets where giving short at the source. Little did i know that they are supposed to as they are low side mosfets whose source goes to ground, i learned about it too late i had already removed and tested each of them, and with them a couple of cermaic capacitors had flown away into the unknown a transistor had lost one of it's legs and another one had lost it's will to live. And so here the story ends, but not the "adventure" or nightmare depending on mine or the wife's point of view. What i do know for sure though, is that it's money well spent even if i don't fix it, i learned a lot of things about which i had no knowledge of, or interest for that matter, met a few nice people along the way online, found this forum, and overall the experience has been worthwhile and i hope to make it even better here.
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