can it be saved?

[BladeRunner]

While I'm not doubting your soldering skills I think what you are both missing is once that sink is bent back down so the ram chip is where it would need to be for re-soldering, you won't be able to solder the pins because the sink will be covering them especially where the caps are.

Also if you read through my suggestion it's a little bit more than just epoxing the ram chip and hoping it works. The first epoxying part still allows you to solder it if it didn't work so you are no worse off and looking at the pic all the pins appear to line up, I'd put money on my method working.

I might be wrong but I got the impression the ram chip is only broken away from one side, the other side acting as a hinge, so your original idea of bending one end down to solder it wont work either.

If you had another new ram chip I guess you could do it easily but with the sink on if it overhangs the chip more than 1mm you wont be able to imo.

Hi Sam, how's life?

 

[james.miller]

we need more pics, side on and directly infront to be certain.

I might be wrong but I got the impression the ram chip is only broken away from one side, the other side acting as a hinge, so your original idea of bending one end down to solder it wont work either.

why not? all it would take is to push the broken side down enough to solder two pins

if you couldn't solder it, then what happens if you epoxy it and find it doesnt work? you're well and truly up the creek without a paddle then

there is another option - freeze the card and see if you can get the h/s off - then it would be very easy to fix

 

[BladeRunner]

Like you say more pics required really, one with the sink pressed down so the ram chip is in position showing how much it covers the ram chip connections.

Once again, I didn't suggest covering the whole card with 12 tubes of araldite, just a small amount on each side, (sides without the pins). It can then be tested out and if it works more araldite can be applied to the pin edges. If it didn't work then you'd have to solder it anyway and at least it would be held in position. If you couldn't get at it or the soldering didn't work, then it's time to jump up and down on it for a few minutes and put it down to overclocking experience..... then move on.

If the pins are touching the trace points on the PCB with a little bit of "spring" (highly likely as they will have bent down a bit as they were ripped away from the card), then it will contact in a similar way as an IC socket or connector.

 

[Emericana]

i am not on my personal computer now, will be in 2 hours but what blade runner is saying is correct, the other side is acting as a hinge

 

[Emericana]

ok this is what it looks like w/ the HS pushed down...


btw, there are two heatsinks that are installed CORRECTLY on two of the back pieces of ram

 

[BuccKevin]

well it looks perfect when you hold it down. how bout about this, you hold it down, blow on it and make sure they're not touching one another then super glue it together(much easier if you cant soldier). I didn't bother to read on what kind of card it is but if it's a 64meg or more, it should still run on 32mb ram. I have a geforce2 ultra with 32mb of ram shorted from an incident with arctic silver so it's running on 32meg right now.

 

[BladeRunner]

How about some rubber bands around the sink under the card and around the good sink on the other side? just something to keep tension on the chip pins so you can try it out.

 

[Emericana]

well i just made a deal w/ rctruck guy and i sold the card to him so maybe he can fix it and use it

 

[james.miller]

im sure he can get it sorted

 

[RCtruckguy]

This is going to be a fun challange, i'll bookmark this thread and bring it back up when i repair it. i'll have to barrow my dads digi cam and take alot of pics~RCTG

 

[RCtruckguy]

Well i have it and i've started to repair it.. (hopefully it isn't really screwed now:/)

Frist I froze it to get the heatsink of the broken one off and it came off with out any problems. then a few days later i begane soldering it. (wicth is today)

after solding a few wires to pratice on i started on the ram. I'm sueing a 30watt iron. I heated up each pin individualy and made sure I held the ram down. after trying it in my computer it just had a "check signal cable" screen on the moniter(it also had some lines of color horizantaly randomly). so i took it out and looked at it with a magnafiing glass (10x magnifacation) and saw some pins that might be shorting. so i took a needle and cleaned them. after that attempt the moniter just had a blank screen and had a orange led so it ment that it was waiting for a signal or something similar to that. well just finished cleaning it again so i'm gonna go try it.

one more thing, do i need to install drivers before i put it in? because right now i just have general drivers in...~RCTG

 

[RCtruckguy]

bumpage

 

[james.miller]

no drivers are needed for it to boot up into the bios. by the sounds of it that ram-chip wasnt the only thing that was damaged. look for any other dameage.

also, use a meter to check all the pins are connect

 

[BladeRunner]

You should get it to boot into bios and windows without drivers as a standard VGA. Check all the obvious incase you've missed somthing, and try it in another PC. Unfortunately it sounds as if it's dead to me

 

[ThePunkGeek]

can u post the images again i wanna see this.

 

[Overclocker456]

I'd like to see the pic, but I can't... someone please repost it so I can see it, thanks...

 

[Emericana]

here you go this is what it was like before:

 

[Overclocker456]

sorry to see that... That happened to me once with a Geforce 1...
The problem is that the little pins are so close together it will take a soldering master to fix that, these cards are put together by machines, not people. You could try to solder it, but it's a long shot.

 

[ThePunkGeek]

damn ouch thats sucks man

 

[Namagomi]

Well, SpaceRangerJoe on this forum dropped my O/C beast of a Gf3ti200 from the hood of his car and knocked all the ramsinks off. He hasn't tested it, but if mine works, yours might, too


P.S. - someone send SpaceRangerJoe a PM telling him not to fubar my hardware in the future.