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Graphics First pin on bottom is Cut?

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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Hello I recently bought a HD 7870 by Gigabyte
When I took it out of the box the first pin was kind of cut in half on the bottom
I'm not sure if this is how it is suppose to be or not.
I looked at an HD picture of it and it seems like it's not suppose to be cut..
Would it still work?>.
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Sometimes they are produced that way. The contacts are suppose to seat all the way into the slot. If enough contact surface is still there, it will make sufficient electrical contact. If, I'd say, more than half is missing, you might want to RMA it. Have you tried it? To be honest with you, I've never inspected the many cards that i've used for that particular problem, and never had an issue.

When I opened the graphics Card and attempted to insert it into the PCI-E slot , I didn't know if it came like this or happen when I inserted it and both of them happen to pop off and cut a perfect line...But It's almost been 30 days with newegg so there is no way I can RMA anymore

I do not believe there is a single PCIe video card that does not have that shortened pin. Go to Newegg and try and find one that doesn't. Mine do, every last one. This topic does show up from time to time. There is nothing wrong, that is just how cards are made.

Vernk said:
When I opened the graphics Card and attempted to insert it into the PCI-E slot , I didn't know if it came like this or happen when I inserted it and both of them happen to pop off and cut a perfect line...But It's almost been 30 days with newegg so there is no way I can RMA anymore

Even if it is the last day of Newegg's return policy, you can still RMA it. Start the process online. It's painless.

I haven't actually tried the Graphics card since my PSU is not juicy enough. But I tried a 4 tp 6 pin and the card powered on the fans were spinning but none of my screens would turn on (probably because the power supply wasn't enough) so I just took it out I thought it was broken

clutchc said:
I would say it's just a manufacturing anomoly. As I asked earlier, have you tried the card? Does it work?


Not an anomaly. It's that way by design, or there would be graphics cards that existed without a shortened pin. Every card I've ever owned or viewed on newegg has the 2nd to last pin shortened on the side of the HSF and the first one on the other side.

Vernk said:
I haven't actually tried the Graphics card since my PSU is not juicy enough. But I tried a 4 tp 6 pin and the card powered on the fans were spinning but none of my screens would turn on (probably because the power supply wasn't enough) so I just took it out I thought it was broken


That pin, and the first pin on the other side is that way by design. You should get your self a juicier PSU so you can see if the card works or not. The other issue is a non issue.

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I just went to Newegg and looked at three different brands of Radeon HD 7870 Video cards from ASUS, Sapphire and HIS. All of them have shortened contacts in the exact same place that you described. I never really paid much attention to that before but it looks like the cards are designed that way intentionally. For what reason I cannot say. However, this ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCIe ) describes the purpose of the contacts and it looks like those are the pins used to detect the presence of the X1, X4, X8, and x16 lanes on the card that is inserted in the slot.

This is normal. If you look at the PCIe pinout specification you'll notice that any PCIe card will have at least two sensing pins (PRSNT1# and PRSNT2#)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCIe#Pinout

The #1 sensing pin indicates that the card is inserted. Thus, it is shortened to ensure that all other electrical power contacts are inserted first before the card is allowed to draw power from the slot. This reduces the possibility of damage in the event that the PCIe card is hot-swapped while the machine is on.

The same is true for at least one of the #2 sensing pins which detect the largest possible lane width. Each card will have up to 4 #2 sensing pins corresponding to 1x, 4x, 8x, and 16x lane width. The largest sensing pin will usually be shortened as well.

bystander said:
Not an anomaly. It's that way by design, or there would be graphics cards that existed without a shortened pin. Every card I've ever owned or viewed on newegg has the 2nd to last pin shortened on the side of the HSF and the first one on the other side.

You're probably right. As I said, this was the first time I came across this question. And I personally, never inspected any of the cards I've built systems with as long as they worked when installed.
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