Repaired my Emtek GT220 Video Card

Just sharing a badcap story..

Late last year I got my mitts on an Emtek GT220 512mb ddr3 64bit.  As you can see below, its a very nice card.  All the capacitors on this card are the new ultra low ESR solid caps.  I got it for a very nice price as well!  But it took me a while to put it into my pc and, I found out too late that the card would hang (and have characters) after around half an hour of use.. And I could no longer have it replaced by the seller..  Urk.



Initially, I thought that a driver update would solve my problems.  But it actually made the card hang up sooner..  I tried replacing the thermal paste but to no avail.  So I decided that that I would be replacing the capacitors on the card as a last ditch effort.  What the heck right?

I replaced the 4 solid capacitors with regular ones.  Mind you, the caps had ULR (Ultra Low Resistance) markings on them so it was safe to assume that I would need higher capacitance capacitors as replacements.  If you've read the guide in badcaps.net, you know what I mean by this.
6.3v 560uF  >>> 6.3v 1000uF (3 pieces)
16v 270uF >>> 16v 470uF (1 piece)

There was 1 capacitor that I declined to replace.  It was rated at 16v 100uF and I didn't have any 16v 270uF capacitors on hand so I decided not to replace it.  After recapping my card, I promptly put it into my rig and put it through its paces.

Thankfully its been 3 hours of playing Super Street Fighter 4 at 1440x900 and I have yet to encounter any hiccups from my repaired video card.  Hallelujah!!  Hope this inspires others out there!

Update:

The next day it hangs up again!  Grr.. So I decide to go off and buy some 16v 270uF capacitors.  They only had 16v 220uF caps so I got that instead.  When I get home, I promptly replace the last remaining solid cap and put the card through its paces again.

Ehehehehehehe.  It has yet to hang up.  Success!

[u][b]Moral Lesson[/b][/u]

Don't believe all the hype with those solid caps.  There will still be defective ones like the ones that ended up on my card.  I replaced them with ordinary ones and they work just fine. =)