First post, by pentiumspeed
Other day, repaired the blown components (literally blew off and melted inductor SMDs, on this one used 5 small inductors in parallel at power input), and replaced the shorted power MOSFET, did check stuff and is not abnormal anymore, even the gate pin is good means gate driver IC is fine on a EVGA GTX 960 mini. GPU and memory shows low ohms as normal due to their silicon design. Today, took some time to test the repaired GPU and still not detected during POST and nothing blew up. Previously last year, I attempted repair by replacing mosfet and gate driver on a co-worker's GTX 970 and it worked but degraded condition that it wouldn't get to full potential.
Personally, I feel that I should give up on buying cheap modern GPU that needs repair and save up for one that is reliable. IE: GTX 980 and up.
Another reason, sellers does not show us the GPU card with heatsink removed to judge the condition of the PCB board to see is there cratered burn holes in the PCB etc.
How common is EVGA and other brands GPU prone to blowing up? Just blew. Not from liquid cooling spill or lightning strike.
Honestly, I don't think price is reasonable at any rate these days even post-etherum merge price drop. My "wall" is around 300 CDN. If pushed, I could go for 500 but that it. But to get 3080 at 600-700. Ahhh no. That exceeds total cost of a new PC parts. To double the cost of PC just because of a cost of a GPU. That made me very reluctant. Consoles like Series X or PS5 is cheaper to buy but PC is high quality resolution is main draw.
Sigh. I have long experience on repairing stuff for a living (work), and even I had to repaired several consoles that had shorted mosfets and they simply worked fine and no other damage made, thanks to high quality power supply tripping on shorts instantly. But not in this PC, power supplies have reputation to have different quality of protective circuit not tripping properly.
Cheers,
Great Northern aka Canada.
