i had some 9700/9800 cards where gpu was disattached from pcb, cards were thrown or it is an aftermatch of cooler removal ( yellow glue attached).
had to reflow a gpu to pcb. sometimes it was also accompanied with memory ic reflow/reball.

This post made me gain courage to try and tackle my dead 9550 and my 9600 which I've used as parts donor for the 9550.
9550 had an missing cap on the core which I've needed to resolder, although it looks like one end of it is disconnected (I made sure to reflow that side multiple times). Sadly it's artifacting badly ☹️ Now armed with R3MEMID and VMT I can diagnose which chips are bad. I'm pretty sure it'll say all are bad 😅...

You'd be surprised. One memory IC or missing series resistor to one can make the card look broken as hell.

tehsiggi wrote on 2025-09-01, 16:07:

You'd be surprised. One memory IC or missing series resistor to one can make the card look broken as hell.

Huh, well that makes this repair far more complicated as I had already replaced the resistor arrays (those darn things don't wanna solder on!). At least I have a pad repair kit which actually works (unlike the relife ones).

kotel wrote on 2025-09-01, 16:23:

tehsiggi wrote on 2025-09-01, 16:07:

You'd be surprised. One memory IC or missing series resistor to one can make the card look broken as hell.

Huh, well that makes this repair far more complicated as I had already replaced the resistor arrays (those darn things don't wanna solder on!). At least I have a pad repair kit which actually works (unlike the relife ones).

Go with running R3MEMID. You may have to run it "blind" if the screen is too corrupted. So make sure to use the -LOG flag, it'll create a R3MEMID.LOG with the results.

Just make sure to exit the application properly to get the log file written. If you can, try running it with a known good card, so you "recognize" the menu items 😁

Welp, I just remembered what piece of work the small TSOP-48 pads were to replace. I don't think those cards will ever work again...

Ripped pads are a tough one, I usually run away from those too. Fingers crossed!

If I may ask, what was that AGP data lines tester tool you've used in the first post? How does it work? (if you know this)