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    Smoking Graphics Card

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by weirdo81622, Dec 22, 2009.

  1. weirdo81622

    weirdo81622 Notebook Evangelist

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    Just to let you guys know, this is about a desktop specifically, but I imagine it could apply to laptops too.

    So, I was toying around with an old graphics card with a loud fan, trying to figure out how to replace it. The fan is removable (from the card) and plugs into a 2 pin port on the graphics card itself.

    Just to test if it was working, I pulled the leads out of the plastic endcap and stuck them onto the ends of a 9V battery (the fan is 5V). The fan worked for a while, and then stopped. So, I put the leads back into the plastic endcap and plugged it in. Then I put the card into my computer and plugged it in.

    As soon as I plugged it in, there was a spark on the card (near the plug, but hard to tell exactly) and a very acrid smelling and nauseating smoke started coming out. So I immediately unplugged the power cord from the computer and it stopped.

    I tried putting my old card back in, and no spark. So, to the electrical engineers out there, what caused the spark? Is my card or fan dead? I'm afraid to test it again without advice for fear of burning the card down...


    Oh, it is also worth mentioning that the wires from the fan to the card have one part exposed. It's never caused me a problem before, although I'm sure that at some point or another, they were touching at that spot. Could it have been just a short circuit?
     
    weirdo81622, Dec 22, 2009
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  2. __-_-_-__

    __-_-_-__ God

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    I suppose you known math... 9>5

    you won't risk much by testing the card or the fan. if it's faulty it's faulty already. it's not going to stop working just because you assembled everything together again. imo it was a short circuit caused by bad math skills.
     
    __-_-_-__, Dec 23, 2009
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  3. sean473

    sean473 Notebook Prophet

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    i believe that u have toasted ur fan and there was a short circuit which might have toasted your graphics card... gg..
     
    sean473, Dec 23, 2009
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  4. weirdo81622

    weirdo81622 Notebook Evangelist

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    Thanks for the help, guys.
    It turns out that neither the fan nor the card itself short circuited, but instead, the copper lead that goes from the 2 pin fan port seems to have fried/broken.

    Are there any other plugs in the computer that I could use for power? There's unfortunately only 1 fan port on the mobo and that's already for the CPU fan.
     
    weirdo81622, Dec 23, 2009
    #4
  5. tuηay

    tuηay o TuNaY o

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    "i believe that u have toasted ur fan"
    I lol'd :D
     
    tuηay, Dec 23, 2009
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  6. timesquaredesi

    timesquaredesi MagicPeople VooDooPeople

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    ^ my favorite part was 'gg...' LOL!
     
    timesquaredesi, Dec 24, 2009
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  7. sean473

    sean473 Notebook Prophet

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    very funny...
     
    sean473, Dec 24, 2009
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