Sudden 6 Series Deaths: All 6 Series Owners, Please Look In Here!

[LoneWolf121188]

Thread suggested by dataman.

As some of you may know, there have recently been quite a few 6 series deaths caused by capacitors melting, popping, or literally exploding. I started this to see if we can figure out:

-If its limited to all brands or just certain ones,
-If its only one type of card in the 6 series (6600, 6800),
-If the problem is limited to PCIe cards only, AGP only, or both,
-And most importantly, why its happening.

So, if you have experienced this, please post ALL info about your card, including your OC, temps, and what HSF you were using, in addition to the brand, type, connector (PCIe or AGP), and if it was in SLI, plus whatever else you want to add. Pics would be VERY nice too, as well as a description of the damage and what you were doing at the time.

Thank You!

Further reading: Similar thread at XFX (http://www.xfxforce.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=281&start=0&tstart=0)

[waiownsyou]

Odd. I never heard/seen this happen before.

[xTrEmEoVrClOcKr]

Ive heard of capacitors exploding and stuff, my old 6800GT (EVGA) didn't do anything when I had it (6 months)

[Matarael]

Oh crap.

[Sentential]

RIP one 6800GT. My first one on the reference PCB unexplainibly died :(

[BaconTheory]

I haven't heard of this before, but my 6 series card died a little while ago.

Model: GeForce 6600GT AGP/128mb GDDR3
Manufacurer: Chaintech USA

[Avg]

I actually hope that mine would die, lifetime warranty, and it's not overclocked. So I would probably just have another change at getting a card that unlocks the pipes. Anyway I have never heard of this happening to video cards. There was a time where many mobo were having problems with defective caps, and it effected a lot of companies the one that I remenber was Abit that until a while ago were replacing the caps for free on some mobos. Do you have a link to someone that had this happen to them?

[LoneWolf121188]

Sen and Bacon: Could you post pics, if you have em? Also, more info would be nice. ie, what part exactly on the card, your OC, etc. Also, Sen, what brand was that?

Info, people, we need info!

[Sentential]

Sen and Bacon: Could you post pics, if you have em? Also, more info would be nice. ie, what part exactly on the card, your OC, etc. Also, Sen, what brand was that?

Info, people, we need info!
The cause is poor FETs and Caps on certian boards. There is already a thread about the "black screen / freezing" issue over at XS. They go hand in hand.

[JTanczos]

This should be a sticky for the time being similar to the P4 thread!

I have been posting the link to this thread in off-topic sections of several forums hoping to warn people about it and bring em here if they have had problems.

JT

[y2jed_2000]

did it go bad on stock cards or overclocked cards? Damn, I dont wanta buy another one if mine goes.

[dataman]

The problems with XFX 6600GT PCIE on fire is not from the capacitor, but from the Q9 component:

Ok so I'm an engineer professionally, I looked up what Q9 was. If you care, here's the part:
http://home.earthlink.net/~motofanatic/xfx/irf7821.pdf

For you non-techies, this is basically a very high power solid state relay. Based on what I see on the board, I'm inclined to believe it's part of a switching DC-DC converter on the board to either step-up or step-down +12VDC to something the CPU or other support circuitry uses. This MOSFET basically switches on/off/on/off very quickly to generate a high frequency AC signal which is then fed to the onboard inductor, rectified back to DC, then split off into different 2-3 voltage buses with their respective filter capacitors to provide a regulated voltages to the board.

Original message: http://www.xfxforce.com/forums/post!reply.jspa?messageID=4527

[SpoonMaN]

one dead leadtek 6800gt AGP card
only lasted 4 months then took a nose dive into an empty pool
the F'ed up thing is that i cant RMA due to a dead fan i replaced

[Quailane]

RIP one 6800GT. My first one on the reference PCB unexplainibly died :(

What brand? They are all reference pcb.