what makes the graphic card capacitor to blow up?

[iKo]

i own an ati x1650xt for about a year now. suddenly few days ago, i heard some small exploding sound at my PC during playing kane&lynch. when i open the casing and check each component i found out that 4 of my graphic card capacitor are broken or blown up. i dont know how thats happen.. can any1 give ideas or thought how this happen.. my instinct tell me its because of my PSU. My PSU only generate 300Watt. Im using Abit AB9 Pro with C2D 6300 and 2 gigs of rams. 1 dvd burner and 180Gigs hardisk.. any1 can comfirm this or is there any other factor that can cause this to happen such as overheat? i didnt OC anything for your information...

 

[spuddyt]

i dont know why, but for the love of god, don't try and use it....

 

[iKo]

im still using it now but i didnt play any games since that happen... actually after i heard that small exploding sound.. my windows doesnt hang or blue screen appeared...i manage to shutdown safely and still can use it till now posting this reply...

 

[rgeist554]

Cheap electronics, maybe a cheap PSU (filled with cheap electronics), maybe heat could be a factor as well. I'm not too sure how much those are affected by heat though... figured I'd throw it out there anyway.

If it's still under warrant, you may want to RMA it. Sooner or later it's probably going to experience some catastrophic failure... although, 4 blown capacitors is pretty bad already... lol.

 

[Mathos]

Errrr ummm you're not suppose to let the smoke and the pop out of the electronic components!!!@ Yeah, definitely take the card out of the PC and don't use it. If you continue to use it, you're likely to fry the slot it's in.

 

[coldneutron]

The only reason a cap should blow up is it's defective or overheated (could be caused over volting or high frequency with too high ESR cap). power supplies have overvoltage protection and should shut down if the output volatge exceeds the limits set forth in the atx spec. most likely the video card had defective caps on it. there was a big problem with defective caps ~4-5 years ago with motherboards in particular.

 

[michiganteddybear]

The only reason a cap should blow up is it's defective or overheated (could be caused over volting or high frequency with too high ESR cap). power supplies have overvoltage protection and should shut down if the output volatge exceeds the limits set forth in the atx spec. most likely the video card had defective caps on it. there was a big problem with defective caps ~4-5 years ago with motherboards in particular.

yup... however, even good quality caps will fail with age. Heat (both external and internally generated) are cap killers.

 

[ZOldDude]

If your cheap/under powered PSU has started putting out wacked voltage it could cuase it and even kill everything connected to it.

I have seen 3 year old PSU's that show correct volts on a MM that took out a MB and 2 RMA replacements as well!

 

[Shadow703793]

^Agreed. The point is NEVER get a cheap PSU. (Unless you plan to replace it in a few days/weeks)

 

[iKo]

ok so i conclude that i must change my PSU and replace the GC thanks guys

 

[iKo]

ok now i change my psu to 460 watt using Gigabyte brand.. im planning to buy nvidia 8800 gt 512mb.. is the PSU give enough juice for the graphic card or i should buy different model like ati hd 2900 xt?

 

[systemlord]

ok now i change my psu to 460 watt using Gigabyte brand.. im planning to buy nvidia 8800 gt 512mb.. is the PSU give enough juice for the graphic card or i should buy different model like ati hd 2900 xt?

How many amps on the 12v rail? You can't add each 12 rail, ie rail +12 rail 1 has 16 amps and +12 volt rail 2 has 16 amps doesn't = 32 amps.

 

[iKo]

How many amps on the 12v rail? You can't add each 12 rail, ie rail +12 rail 1 has 16 amps and +12 volt rail 2 has 16 amps doesn't = 32 amps.

my psu output +12v1 rail give 14.0amps, +12v2 rail give 15.0amps, +5v give 30.0amps +3.3 give 30.0amps, +5vsb 2.0amps and -12v 0.8 amps.

 

[nukchebi0]

Look at the combined output of power beneath the 12v rails and divide by 12. That is the total number of amps. You definitely should not buy a HD2900XT, as this uses much more power than an 88800GT.

 

[iKo]

Look at the combined output of power beneath the 12v rails and divide by 12. That is the total number of amps. You definitely should not buy a HD2900XT, as this uses much more power than an 88800GT.

sorry im kinda new to this.. can give example of the calculation and how much amp the 8800gt and hd2900 xt use?

 

[mactronix]

Ok so im putting a link at the bottom this but i will explain what is happening first.
The +12 1 has 20A and the +12 2 has 18A this dosent mean you have 38A
Bellow the two numbers is a bracket which has the max combined wattage of the two rails, 360 as we are on a 12 volt rail we divide the 360 watts by 12 and get the correct max out put in Amps of 30.
You will be able to find the recomended Amps on a manufacturers site, they are also some times on reviews or a lot of time under the specifications on the NewEgg site.
http://www.hardwarelogic.com/articles/reviews/PSU/HiperType-R580W/SpecsSticker.jpg

Mactronix

 

[mactronix]

8800GT requirements taken from newegg
425W PCI Express-compliant system power supply with a combined 12V current rating of 28A or more*
One 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connector -or-
Two 4-pin Molex supplementary power connectors
*Minimum system power requirement based on a standard PC configured with an Intel Core2 Extreme X6800 processor

And here is a product page for a 2900xt
http://www.diamondmm.com/2900XT1GPE.php

 

[Heyyou27]

I think it happened because he was actually playing Kane and Lynch.

 

[ctbaars]

check to see if the capacitor was put in backwards

 

[thepinkpanther]

i once burnt my mobos capacitor, the culprit? metal! u see the i installed a cpu cooling fan and their two kind of restraints to put on the back of the mobos to snuggle it in properly, one metal on plastic. The metal looked better so i installed it, not knowing it, the mobos was touching the case metal with the cooler restraints(im not in one your fancy Americas or Englands so the electricity here is not stable, runs through the whole system metal.) I turned the computer and viola fireworks, blew up my capacitor above the cpu. So i would guess maybe that the back part of the card which is metal attached to the metal case got a surge of electricity. Better u burnt ur x1650 and not a nvidia 650i ultra. Or u can just crap on this theory and say it was a faulty capacitor!

 

[iKo]

actually the GC capacitor is just behind the copper heatsink... so maybe the card become overheat and damage the capacitor.... but strange it happen after 1 year....

Edit: heres the image of my graphic card. yellow circle is the capacitor that broke

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii235/jomopotot/Photo0334.jpg

 

[iKo]

8800GT requirements taken from newegg
425W PCI Express-compliant system power supply with a combined 12V current rating of 28A or more*
One 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connector -or-
Two 4-pin Molex supplementary power connectors
*Minimum system power requirement based on a standard PC configured with an Intel Core2 Extreme X6800 processor

And here is a product page for a 2900xt
http://www.diamondmm.com/2900XT1GPE.php

thanks for the info mactronix... (sigh... i need to change to another psu again)

 

[bobbknight]

Ha ha ha ha ha exploding capacitors, I have recently sent out a video card, that slowly committed suicide by blowing up it's caps over a period of 3 months. The last one that popped killed the video card. Right after the warranty was out, lol. I sent it back anyways to see if the card maker will fix it.
Capacitors go bad for a variety of reasons, but the ones that go in a 6 month to 18 month time frame are the cheaply made ones for the most part. The other things that will kill them are over voltage and age.
I recall a very large batch of bad caps that came out of Taiwan a few years back. Industrial espionage caused the stolen formula from a Japanese company to end up at a Taiwanese company but they missed the final ingredient that was on another page that was not stolen. So this Taiwanese company made millions of bad caps the went into all kinds of electronics, including a motherboard I used to have. These for the most part did not pop but swell and or leak. Changing the electrical properties of the circuit in which they were installed and ultimately failure.
It seems for what ever reason we may be having another period of bad caps, again.
RMA the video card they may fix it for you.

 

[evilshuriken]

i own an ati x1650xt for about a year now. suddenly few days ago, i heard some small exploding sound at my PC during playing kane&lynch. when i open the casing and check each component i found out that 4 of my graphic card capacitor are broken or blown up. i dont know how thats happen.. can any1 give ideas or thought how this happen.. my instinct tell me its because of my PSU. My PSU only generate 300Watt. Im using Abit AB9 Pro with C2D 6300 and 2 gigs of rams. 1 dvd burner and 180Gigs hardisk.. any1 can comfirm this or is there any other factor that can cause this to happen such as overheat? i didnt OC anything for your information...

It obviously needed more mayonnaise on the gold contacts to help dissipate the pcb heat build-up wich would lead to spontaneous capacitor failure.

 

[iKo]

Ha ha ha ha ha exploding capacitors, I have recently sent out a video card, that slowly committed suicide by blowing up it's caps over a period of 3 months. The last one that popped killed the video card. Right after the warranty was out, lol. I sent it back anyways to see if the card maker will fix it.
Capacitors go bad for a variety of reasons, but the ones that go in a 6 month to 18 month time frame are the cheaply made ones for the most part. The other things that will kill them are over voltage and age.
I recall a very large batch of bad caps that came out of Taiwan a few years back. Industrial espionage caused the stolen formula from a Japanese company to end up at a Taiwanese company but they missed the final ingredient that was on another page that was not stolen. So this Taiwanese company made millions of bad caps the went into all kinds of electronics, including a motherboard I used to have. These for the most part did not pop but swell and or leak. Changing the electrical properties of the circuit in which they were installed and ultimately failure.
It seems for what ever reason we may be having another period of bad caps, again.
RMA the video card they may fix it for you.

ok so now i know im not the only 1 having this type of problem... i will try to RMA it if possible.. btw..are the story about taiwanese stole the formula from japanese true?