Are those stains normal on a gpu's back?

[mrbeanladen]

my gpu came with these... stains on the back, it works flawlessly though. Are they normal or should I send it back and ask for a replacement?
http://i.imgur.com/XNSGL.jpg
or is that some kind of grease that gets on during production?
or was it used and some idiot spilled water on its back?
please tell me so I can get over it, my OCD is killing me, and I also have to return it today or tomorow's the last days I can.

 

[paddys09]

I can't see any... where abouts are they on the card? just to give me a better idea of where I should be looking.

 

[daswilhelm]

thats residue from the wash that the cards go through before being assembled. all pcbs have that on it.

 

[gregck]

no idea what OP is talking about, that card looks fine! no need to return.

 

[El Tigre]

That's normal as daswilhelm said, as long as your card performs well, there is no need to fear the worst.

 

[Sakkura]

It's got three OK stickers almost piled on top of each other, so clearly it's OK.

 

[Maxx_Power]

Exactly, residue. Some manufacturers like ASUS usually washes the residue (flux, coatings) after the final product is done, some manufacturers like Gigabyte are notorious for large blobs of flux still present in the final product (don't know about their current crops).

 

[Kari]

looks like flux residue from wave soldering process, the whole underside of the board gets sprayed with flux and looks like the flux they are using isn't one of the cleaniest... It still might be so called 'no-clean' flux though, so a washing might not be needed (and obviously hasn't been done).
yeah so it's not pretty but nothing to worry about either...

 

[nukemaster]

A little flux never hurt anyone .


On that topic(and off this topic). I always clean my flux with alcohol and a tooth brush(or syringe of alcohol to get under those damn caps ).

Some flux is conductive(my stuff), but cards are made with no clean stuff that should not NEED to be cleaned, but its nice to clean it(when you do your own work). You should not try to clean it as the alcohol used to clean it is bad for thermal pads/paste should it find its way to the other side of the board.

I have seem exactly what you see inside of laptops when open for repair.

Ohh and once it gets dusty, you wont even notice it any more

 

[mrbeanladen]

Exactly, residue. Some manufacturers like ASUS usually washes the residue (flux, coatings) after the final product is done, some manufacturers like Gigabyte are notorious for large blobs of flux still present in the final product (don't know about their current crops).

yeah I had an asus gts450 before and that's why I noticed this, the asus was extremely clean even with a bit of dust on it but this one I thought someone ate spaghetti with sauce and while they put the gpu in the box they slobbered all over it

oh another thing, should I peel off those stickers on its back? I keep thinking that glue and paper on something hot isn't such a good idea

 

[dish_moose]

Quote"looks like flux residue from wave soldering process" Kari - not much wave soldering these days. Mostly solder paste and into the oven. When I do SMT work I clean my boards at least once some times as many as three times for boards that use higher frequencies. As mentioned above a tiny bit of residue will do nothing to the performance of your board.
-Bruce

 

[El Tigre]

You do that and you might as well kiss your warranty goodbye, I would not bother those stickers.

 

[paddys09]

Yea you have to leave the stickers on, its in most of the Terms and Conditions of the manufacturers warranties.

 

[Kari]

Quote"looks like flux residue from wave soldering process" Kari - not much wave soldering these days.
-Bruce

I haven't seen a process so far that can solder through-hole components by just printing paste...

 

[Maxx_Power]

yeah I had an asus gts450 before and that's why I noticed this, the asus was extremely clean even with a bit of dust on it but this one I thought someone ate spaghetti with sauce and while they put the gpu in the box they slobbered all over it

oh another thing, should I peel off those stickers on its back? I keep thinking that glue and paper on something hot isn't such a good idea

Other than ASUS, I don't know who else consistently cleans their boards before packaging and retail. A lot of little things like this I've picked up over the years, like the use of PWM fans across brands....

 

[mrbeanladen]

It's got three OK stickers almost piled on top of each other, so clearly it's OK.

what do they even mean is it some kind of test they have to pass to get an OK or what

 

[nukemaster]

what do they even mean is it some kind of test they have to pass to get an OK or what

YES

 

[Kari]

what do they even mean is it some kind of test they have to pass to get an OK or what

yeah, and there is three different stages for it as well...

edit lol this thread is busy

 

[mrbeanladen]

yeah, and there is three different stages for it as well...

edit lol this thread is busy

yay guess I'm always lucky when buying pc components, never had a bad one
except a PC that had a failed HDD, burned out GPU, error-full ram sticks and a shitty psu but that was because I paid 100$ for it... (bought it for my mom lol)
thank you all

 

[Anubhab Chakraborty]

I know i have pulled a dead thread out of grave...but just for helping the readers of this thread.....

I too have a MSI card(R9 270) and it does have sticky, wet'ish' looking material on the PCB..which i looked up in the internet and found out it was leftover flux from manufacturing process.

I haven't tried out yet...but it looks like it won't be a problem.