Bitcoin Forum

   I've noticed in my travels that it's often a card will go through ebay that's marked as damaged/As-Is/Defective.  It would seem that on average the symptoms are that the card will not display output but the fans operate automatically somewhere in the 60-100% range as soon as powered up.

   Now, has anyone done any investigative work with a card exhibiting these issues?  I've the skills to troubleshoot and repair electronic circuitry, but obviously this is only useful if what's plaguing these cards is something serviceable on the board (IE: Not a processor).

   My question is: has anyone found these to be repairable, and have repairs proven fruitful enough for someone like myself to start buying dead boards and replacing VRMs, Capacitors and Diodes? Or is one to assume that the repair success rate over time will make this a losing endeavour?

A lot of the time the problem is just the solder on the GPUs cracks and doesn't make a decent connection/doesn't make a connection at all. (Lead free solder is terrible for this)

Quite often you can do a simple solder reflow with an SMD rework station (or an oven if you really want to)

We have rescued many graphics cards at working using the oven method. Also useful for nforce chipset motherboards that do the same thing quite often. (also good for PS3 and XBOX 360) We have a small oven in the office at work... Reflow a motherboard and cook a pizza. Work AND food :D

I may have a few cards in this condition I'd let go for a few BTC.

what type of cards and how much is a few btc?

PM Sent.

Since you're both interested, I have:
ASUS 5830, electronics are fine, plastic fan holder snapped off
XFX 5870, boots but flakes out when mining
Vapor-X 5780, boots but flakes out when mining, has been reflowed in oven once already, worked temporarily

Best offer, include you zip with the bid so I can estimate shipping.

my zip is 08088 southamton nj plz let me know how much shipping is so i can calculate that into my offer 

Postal Code is V8X 5H4 (Canada) Shipping through USPS tends to be the easiest and cheapest.  I suppose I'll request a shipping quote as well, but your cards seem to be in better shape than I'm considering working on, so I expect you're going to want more than I'd like to offer, but I suppose there's no harm in inquiring..

dmcurser: 4.5 BTC shipping
dropt: 6.25 BTC shipping

im guesing your shipping from outside of the us

Nope, WV, USA.  I may be slightly overestimating the weight (10 lbs for 3 cards), but I'm willing to refund any excess shipping charges after I send them out.

oo only reason i asked is bc i just rmaed t=4 5970 to ca and insured them for  1600 and it only costed me 23.62 and 13 of it was insurance

hmmm i think my offer is going to be to low and your going to laugh but ill go for it anyways i just recently bought 3 5970 that were defective from nelisky for 225 including shipping https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=54018.0 so i would probably offer like 100 bucks for the lot which i do believe you will say is to low but let me know.

I'd like to give dropt 24 hours to respond, then I'll accept the best offer.  If he's not interested, I can do $100 + shipping.

Thanks for being an awesome person notme.  I'll let dmcurser have the grabs at it as I'd like to wait until my current operation builds some capital.  If he bails, I'll be looking to start buying things up in a month or so and will shoot you a message around then.

hey drop i didnt mean to jump in on you but lol sorry i think i might have a card your intrested in its a 6990 i think one of the resisters blow im a try to rma it but if it dont work out i will let you know if i knew the size of the resister i might even try to fix it my self if not it would be somthing your looking for i think

Just so it's on the public record, dmcurser has sent me 10 BTC downpayment and I will be shipping out the cards tomorrow.  Once his USD funds make it to MtGox, he will settle the remainder ($43.75 + shipping costs).

notme where do you live in WV? I live in WV too around Fairmont.... lol I'm always surprised to see anyone from WV around a tech forum since everyone around is a bunch of uneducated rednecks

I'm in Morgantown, we should grab a beer sometime.

Not to worry!  I hadn't hoped for actual offers in the thread, was more just looking for input/feedback re the thread topic.  Glad the thread was able to connect you with some cheap gear that should be workable with some effort!  If your RMA doesn't go through, please do let me know!

Shipped out, tracking number PM'd, $62.08 remaining to be paid once the slow ass banks get their shit together ;).

recived all items as stated

I have received payment in full.  Thanks dmcurser!

There is someone on ebay selling the gpu chips.
Brand New ATI 216-0769010 HD5850M BGA IC Chipset graphic chip
$34.99 free shipping
Hong Kong

i have a Powercolor 6970 whose board works fine but i broke the fan blades if anyone is interested. >:(  pm me.

what is your asking price?

Probably $350 and half a finger?   ;D

This is from a mobile (laptop) version.

yha i saw that as well but i looked up the guy on ebay selling these and hes selling all the chips on his store

Thank you for pointing that out. If he can acquire those he might also have access to other versions. Didn't check, just sayin. ;)