Ingenious father fixes dead RTX 3070 with a jerry-rigged capacitor from an old radio — Saves worried son $120 in repair costs, GPU 'works better than before' now

This also makes me smile and appreciate the will needed to move forward. Almost anyone would have abandoned the card. Having spent more time on fixes that were probably better spent replacing, this story gives me a glimpse in what humanity may have to overcome as people are left to maintain decade old hardware. All the more convincing as companies are competing for dollars against used components by reintroducing old product into the marketplace.

Perhaps a sad reflection on how previously common electronic repair skills have been lost by many younger people. Around that age about 20-25 years ago, I would have 100% tried to replace it myself, as I had built many circuits and soldered a lot of things, so replacing a capacitor would have been no big issue. That said, for a large value item I probably would have been a bit wary and got some help/advice from my dad.

My dad was the one who taught me how to solder, amongst many other skills related to DIY electrics, decorating, even plumbing. He taught me how to solder pipes with a gas blow lamp when I was 8. I'll admit I was terrified at the time, but I did it and although I've not done any pipe soldering for years, at least I have a good idea of how. Makes me miss my Dad since he died 6 years ago, as I loved helping and learning from him. He did practically all the decorating, electrics, plumbing, gardening etc himself in our house when I was growing up so there was a lot to help with and learn from. There were only a few things that he got somebody in to do, usually because it would have been too difficult/expensive to get the necessary equipment in for a one off job or it was highly specialised.

Perhaps that was because of how we British love our DIY, but so many once common skills do seem to be being lost amongst younger generations. It probably doesn't help with how academic subjects get pushed so much in schools at the expense of technical and creative ones, plus younger adults usually don't have the benefit of owning their own home until they are much older.

s162216 said:

Perhaps a sad reflection on how previously common electronic repair skills have been lost by many younger people. Around that age about 20-25 years ago, I would have 100% tried to replace it myself, as I had built many circuits and soldered a lot of things, so replacing a capacitor would have been no big issue. That said, for a large value item I probably would have been a bit wary and got some help/advice from my dad.

My dad was the one who taught me how to solder, amongst many other skills related to DIY electrics, decorating, even plumbing. He taught me how to solder pipes with a gas blow lamp when I was 8. I'll admit I was terrified at the time, but I did it and although I've not done any pipe soldering for years, at least I have a good idea of how. Makes me miss my Dad since he died 6 years ago, as I loved helping and learning from him. He did practically all the decorating, electrics, plumbing, gardening etc himself in our house when I was growing up so there was a lot to help with and learn from. There were only a few things that he got somebody in to do, usually because it would have been too difficult/expensive to get the necessary equipment in for a one off job or it was highly specialised.

Perhaps that was because of how we British love our DIY, but so many once common skills do seem to be being lost amongst younger generations. It probably doesn't help with how academic subjects get pushed so much in schools at the expense of technical and creative ones, plus younger adults usually don't have the benefit of owning their own home until they are much older.

Really nice post. Lovely. I can picture you and your father tinkering away. Moments to remember for ever.

The younger folk, nowadays know a lot, and can, ya know, write code, and make an app from it. But they can't re wire a plug, or check a fuse! They just expect things to work, and have not much life experience to which such simple things.

"but the capacitor itself isn't suited for long-term usage because of its higher resistance, which would let the clocks run unchecked"

What is this BS? Just say nothing if you know nothing.

Based on the size of the capacitor it likely provides a bypass and local storage/smoothing capacity, and seems extremely unlikely to have any influence on any clocks.

Capacitors of this type are frequently plus or minus 10 or 20% of the stated value, so if it was used in clock generation circuits it would be a crap clock, plus at that value it would definately be a sub 1MHz clock, which doesnt sound that useful for video, or anything really.

The performance parameter of interest is likely to be ESR and the construction type, while influencing ESR, is most likely to do with physical size and longevity.

TBH, I am surprised that the loss of that single component rendered the GPU totally inoperable, that is a worryingly fragile design.

s162216 said:

Perhaps a sad reflection on how previously common electronic repair skills have been lost by many younger people. Around that age about 20-25 years ago, I would have 100% tried to replace it myself, as I had built many circuits and soldered a lot of things, so replacing a capacitor would have been no big issue. That said, for a large value item I probably would have been a bit wary and got some help/advice from my dad.

My dad was the one who taught me how to solder, amongst many other skills related to DIY electrics, decorating, even plumbing. He taught me how to solder pipes with a gas blow lamp when I was 8. I'll admit I was terrified at the time, but I did it and although I've not done any pipe soldering for years, at least I have a good idea of how. Makes me miss my Dad since he died 6 years ago, as I loved helping and learning from him. He did practically all the decorating, electrics, plumbing, gardening etc himself in our house when I was growing up so there was a lot to help with and learn from. There were only a few things that he got somebody in to do, usually because it would have been too difficult/expensive to get the necessary equipment in for a one off job or it was highly specialised.

Perhaps that was because of how we British love our DIY, but so many once common skills do seem to be being lost amongst younger generations. It probably doesn't help with how academic subjects get pushed so much in schools at the expense of technical and creative ones, plus younger adults usually don't have the benefit of owning their own home until they are much older.

A few jobs ago I was in the position of having to vet respondents for a role. The work then involved service and repair of ATM components so it involved mechanical work mostly for the note handling modules and the card readers, some minor soldering work on the core mainboards due to dry or swollen caps. I recall seeing several candidates struggle when I asked them to strip down a card reader, just to my eyes basic screwdriver work, most of the candidates we saw had IT education which had minimal transfer-ability to this work.
In a later job another guy frustrated me with laptop service, kept stripping the damn screws despite me pointing this out multiple times and sitting down with him and demonstrating how we get a feel for the right torque etc. Needless to say when I moved on I wasn't inclined to give him a recommendation.

xxyyzz666 said:

"but the capacitor itself isn't suited for long-term usage because of its higher resistance, which would let the clocks run unchecked"

What is this BS? Just say nothing if you know nothing.

Based on the size of the capacitor it likely provides a bypass and local storage/smoothing capacity, and seems extremely unlikely to have any influence on any clocks.

Capacitors of this type are frequently plus or minus 10 or 20% of the stated value, so if it was used in clock generation circuits it would be a crap clock, plus at that value it would definately be a sub 1MHz clock, which doesnt sound that useful for video, or anything really.

The performance parameter of interest is likely to be ESR and the construction type, while influencing ESR, is most likely to do with physical size and longevity.

TBH, I am surprised that the loss of that single component rendered the GPU totally inoperable, that is a worryingly fragile design.

Yes, this, it's a filter/smoothing reservoir cap, and that generally needs a high quality, low ESR cap for reliability or it will run hot and fail again soon.

As others mentioned here, the younger generations have lost the skills of being able to repair equipment, even basic repairs are beyond most of them. But, it's also pretty clear that the author knows buggerall about capacitors and electronic circuits either, not uncommon nowadays even on tech sites. The level of real tech knowledge (as opposed to knowing how to use devices and apps) has plummeted dramatically in the last 20 years across the entire population.