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Unstable Display - Missing Component

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First post, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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Rank l33t
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l33t

Was checking out a few old stored cards today and noticed one of my S3 models - a Stealth64 VRAM PCI 2MB has lost a backside component at some time. When I stick it in a system to check, the image quality is very poor (jagged & shimmering) both in VGA text and in Windows. The component is pictured here

Stealth64_VRAM_PCI_2MB.jpg
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Stealth64_VRAM_PCI_2MB.jpg
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Fair use/fair dealing exception

with a shot of the VGA text here

S3 Jaggies.JPG
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S3 Jaggies.JPG
File size
900.01 KiB
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290 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

As it's backside of the IBM RAMDAC, could this be the cause?, and fixable or is something else at fault?

I'm not good with small components (whatever the missing part is) so any help is appreciated.

Reply 1 of 4, by evasive

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That looks like a filtering capacitor, I expect the value to be between 10 and 100 nF. Ceramic. Your best bet is someone with the exact same card that can measure the actual value.

Reply 2 of 4, by pentiumspeed

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This is mirror image of another capacitor next to it. The IBM ramdac use two sets of compoments in that location.

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 3 of 4, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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Thanks for the info.

Finally got round to fixing this , though it was a bit more involved than I thought. A closer look showed damaged between one of the pads and its via so I had to patch it first with some wire and then added a replacement SM cap I robbed from an dead IDE drive controller board. Image is now rock solid and the jaggies are no more 😀

I have other S3 968 cards, but it would've been a shame to bin it just for this.

Reply 4 of 4, by pentiumspeed

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Great!

Test all resolutions just to be sure due to unknown value compared to other capacitor next to it.

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

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