Repair of a ATI 7970m graphics card

[Curler]

Hello,
I have taken out the graphics card from my laptop to check why it's not working. It is a "ATI HD 7970m".

I immediately found the reason I guess.

There are six identical parts that look like they have leaked. (see the picture attached) - if you don't spot it right away, I am talking about the parts with "470 24nob d" written on them.

Can someone please tell me what kind of part this is? And where I can buy it?

Big thanks in advance for helping me.
Best regards from Austria,
Kris

 

[kellys_eye]

Rather than 'leaking' they look to be parts that have been retrofitted i.e they aren't the original parts.....

The stuff you see seems to be flux residue from their fitting (soldering) - done badly and not cleaned off properly afterwards.

Can you post a closer view? They are 47μF capacitors.

 

[Curler]

Rather than 'leaking' they look to be parts that have been retrofitted i.e they aren't the original parts.....

The stuff you see seems to be flux residue from their fitting (soldering) - done badly and not cleaned off properly afterwards.

Can you post a closer view? They are 47μF capacitors.

Thank you very much for the quick answer.

I will post better pictures in a few hours.

I don't know if these parts really have been retrofitted because I got the notebook as new several years ago when the card just came out from a clevo dealer, and it's the clevo model. Is that possible?

 

[kellys_eye]

It could be that the capacitors were fitted retrospectively to cure a problem - likely the original capacitors were to low in value so a 'mod' was made to fit larger values (??? guessing).

That aside, if they were fitted correctly it's not really an issue but the fact that they appear to have been fitted 'incompetently' doesn't fill one with confidence.

Still, if the flux residue hasn't caused any damage then you may simply now have a dud graphics card - they do fail occasionally - and the capacitors may not be the cause. If changing them gets it going all well and good. You've not a lot to lose here.

 

[Curler]

Do you think that this retrofitting took place even though I bought it as new from a legit source?

I took more pictures of it - I hope u can see more.

Where would I get to buy these components? I googled the specs but did not find anything.

Best regards from Austria,
Kris

 

[kellys_eye]

Yup, definitely retrofitted - and poorly at that although I doubt their fitting is the cause of your current problem as the card seems to have worked ever since you had it.

Does your laptop have a separate VGA connector that allows an external display to connect and run without (i.e. bypassing) the current video card being installed?

 

[Curler]

Yup, definitely retrofitted - and poorly at that although I doubt their fitting is the cause of your current problem as the card seems to have worked ever since you had it.

Does your laptop have a separate VGA connector that allows an external display to connect and run without (i.e. bypassing) the current video card being installed?

Yes I can run the laptop without the card - it has switchable graphics. With Intel HD 4000
But when I run it without the card it beeps constantly and the cpu fan is running on 110%...

 

[kellys_eye]

But when I run it without the card it beeps constantly and the cpu fan is running on 110%...

Something obviously wrong with the laptop then.

Have you checked for suspicious viruses, cleaned the HDD? If you can eliminate software as the 110% CPU issue then we can start to look for problems in the hardware.

Use alt-ctrl-del to list the running processes (assuming you're using Windows) and see which process - if any - are overloading it.