Your wording suggests this is some kind of design flaw or something. Glued RAM heatsinks generally aren't meant to be pulled at...

Unless you can find someone with skills and tools for BGA soldering I don't see how you could repair that card.

I'm not sure if it was a design flaw but I definitely was not suggesting that. Was just strange how it just popped straight off. I've removed dozens of heatsinks before and know not to apply much force but this has never happened to me before.

Maybe should have used a flat head screwdriver? At least this seems to be the suggested way for VSA-100 heatsinks.

Since the BGA pads are damaged I believe this card is as good as a paperweight now...

Unless you can some how fix those lines leading to the pad, say bye bye.

borgie83 wrote:

I'm not up to the task of repairing this 🙁 I wouldn't even know where to buy new ram for this. I'd really like to repair it though as I have already tried and can't find another blue pcb TI4600 anywhere.

Let me put it this way, unless this was an important component for an aerospace computer that only 100 were made, there's no way to repair this from what I see in that photo.
You have 144 pins, with various pads ripped off the IC or the PCB. Then the PCB has most of its traces ripped up. You could try a micro drill press to get back to each of the pads and PCB traces and then deadbug solder it. Which would probably add too much capacitance and mismatched path delays that would make the memory very unreliable.
A Ti 4600 didn't even need ram sinks. Next time use a heatgun to melt the adhesive. If the BGA chip comes up with it at least everything is still intact.

That sucks...

Good news is that GeForce4 cards are quite affordable. Maybe not the 4600, but the 4800 SE is not far behind and should be easy to get 😀

Are these ram chips (or equivalents) nowhere to be found? Can't somebody just buy one?

GeorgeMan wrote:

Are these ram chips (or equivalents) nowhere to be found? Can't somebody just buy one?

The ram chips are not the problem, the problem is the damaged BGA pads

Oh it seems that the chip attacted my attention and I didn't see the pcb, which is in pretty bad shape... 😒

If I were you, I'd be half a head balder. There's nothing you can do, just glue the chip back in place and put it on display... as a reminder that one should leave well enough alone.

Ok judging from all the replies I'm going to take the slap in the face, bin it and move on. In the back of my mind I had a strong feeling it was done for. Was just hoping someone had any ideas regarding repairing it. It cost me around $45 so it's not a massive loss but a loss none the less unfortunately.

I'd buy another one but the BFG TI4600 is quite rare and I haven't seen one for sale anywhere.

Thanks anyway guys 😀

A very very long and probably worthless shot, but is there a chance to run it with the reduced RAM (i.e if only the RAM got ripped off and nothing else is damaged)?

Nvidia partners slapping different amount of RAM for a particular GPU, there being no separate video bios or driver for each such variant, would it be possible to hack/program the memory controller to accept the reduction in memory?

Edit: AFAIK, the video bios is only used during initial boot and the driver completely takes over after the OS loads. I guess the video bios routines are used only by the DOS games. Earlier I used to run my system with the discrete GT520 GPU but with onboard SIS305 video bios loaded by the system BIOS. I didn't notice any problem in Windows as both are IBM compatible VGA bioses.

gandhig wrote:

A very very long and probably worthless shot, but is there a chance to run it with the reduced RAM (i.e if only the RAM got ripped off and nothing else is damaged)?

Nvidia partners slapping different amount of RAM for a particular GPU, there being no separate video bios or driver for each such variant, would it be possible to hack/program the memory controller to accept the reduction in memory?

Edit: AFAIK, the video bios is only used during initial boot and the driver completely takes over after the OS loads. I guess the video bios routines are used only by the DOS games. Earlier I used to run my system with the discrete GT520 GPU but with onboard SIS305 video bios loaded by the system BIOS. I didn't notice any problem in Windows as both are IBM compatible VGA bioses.

I don't have any clue whether this is even possible or not, but it's a great idea/possibility that I never thought of. Just felt like mentioning it 😀

if it tries to load something into that ram part it will crash. Plus it is possible that it isnt the last bank, but in the middle.

http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheets2/31/310470_1.pdf
7 chips of 1M x 32bit x 4 bank = 112MB. The addressing will very likely not work like that. The 128-bit width could be needed from 4 chips, or maybe from the 4 banks. If you removed 3 more of the correct chips it would be funny to see that work.

konc wrote:

I don't have any clue whether this is even possible or not, but it's a great idea/possibility that I never thought of. Just felt like mentioning it 😀

I suppose it is because OP's first intention was to get it repaired to its original state for which I had nothing to add. Once he decided that it may not be possible, I felt to chip in with a far-fetching alternative i.e. if he doesn't feel bad about his beloved card's usage on a sub-optimal condition.
However as other posters have mentioned, I also felt that it might not be viable at all. It was just a thought really. BTW, I'm flattered by your comment.

And this is why we don't remove BGA ramsinks on any card - generally speaking if they're installed by the manufacturer, they're sufficient for the card and/or there for a reason. Cards that use "all in one" cooling solutions (like the FX 5800 Ultra) can have sinks added if you're changing the cooler, but I wouldn't suggest doing it with permanent adhesive.

There's no hope for this card; recycle it and move on. As far as running it without the chip - I'd be surprised if it didn't release magical smoke when powered up - you've got hundreds of open (or worse, potentially shorted) contacts that aren't being dealt with or terminated. Save the heatsink if you can, but otherwise move on. I am sorry to see the card damaged, and sorry to hear about your experience here - always sucks when a device bites it.

As far as another colored PCB GeForce 4 Ti, I know that PNY tended to vacillate between purple and blue back then (there are both colored versions of GeForce FX for example), and Chaintech often used blue PCBs when they were still in business. You might also find a purple PNY or AOpen, and there's also Gainward and their glorious red cards (these two suggestions are mostly if you just wanted something different from the plain-jane green, but not necessarily blue).

obobskivich wrote:

And this is why we don't remove BGA ramsinks on any card - generally speaking if they're installed by the manufacturer, they're sufficient for the card and/or there for a reason. Cards that use "all in one" cooling solutions (like the FX 5800 Ultra) can have sinks added if you're changing the cooler, but I wouldn't suggest doing it with permanent adhesive.

There's no hope for this card; recycle it and move on. As far as running it without the chip - I'd be surprised if it didn't release magical smoke when powered up - you've got hundreds of open (or worse, potentially shorted) contacts that aren't being dealt with or terminated. Save the heatsink if you can, but otherwise move on. I am sorry to see the card damaged, and sorry to hear about your experience here - always sucks when a device bites it.

As far as another colored PCB GeForce 4 Ti, I know that PNY tended to vacillate between purple and blue back then (there are both colored versions of GeForce FX for example), and Chaintech often used blue PCBs when they were still in business. You might also find a purple PNY or AOpen, and there's also Gainward and their glorious red cards (these two suggestions are mostly if you just wanted something different from the plain-jane green, but not necessarily blue).

The heatsinks wernt manufacturer heatsinks but aftermarket thermaltake heatsinks. I wanted to remove them because for one, they were ugly and two because I wanted to replace them with copper heatsinks as opposed to aluminium heatsinks.

Regarding trying it in the computer in its current state...I wouldn't dare and you can almost guarantee there would be issues with it anyway.

I have looked at the PNY and Chaintech cards and have noticed several blue and purple ones for sale. Can't find any TI4600's in blue though unfortunately. May have to settle with a TI4200.