I've just aquired an 8800GTX which is not working properly.

It has been showing lines and those funky symbols instead of the correct text.

I pulled it and swapped it for a newer model and my mate said donated the 8800 to science(me).

I've stripped the mahoosive heat pipe and fan housing off it and its bogging with dust and the heat transfer paste was looking in a bad state.

So my question is ................Do you think with a clean up it will work ????

Or do the errors mean something more technical, I can't see any external damage eg. burst caps or owt.

Or am I ****ing in the wind

Just a little tinker really so no worries if its dead.

Worth a shot, does the memory get cooled by the heatsink as that sounds like a memory corruption issue on first pass.

Does said mate like to "overclock" the boar and if so, do you think you could get a system with another GFX card and then flash a new bios image on the old card to take it to stock?

It's probably something to do with the jigglenugget, it's a small black bit just below the RAM, what you need to do is remove the heat sink, then wash it under a hot tap. Get the dog to lick it dry and bolt it back into the computer. Put some tin foil on top of the GPU and crack an egg in it, this will serve as a removable heat sink and a light snack for late night COD sessions ........ if it does not fry the egg, it's definately something to do with that jigglenugget I mentioned earlier. have a look at www.badgersinsexystockings.com all the info is in there.

The stock heatsink on these does cool the RAM... the thermal compoundy stuff on these is absolutely rubbish... I noticed a difference in temps just by changing this.

The overclock settings shouldn't be stored in the BIOS of the card should they? Thought it was just software based?

Worth a shot though... these are pretty fast cards still and will cope with all new games still coming out (for now!!)

Phil

Depends, I've seen people do silly things like try and flash the bios from a faster card based on the same chip to a slower card and cause similar issues.

It's probably something to do with the jigglenugget, it's a small black bit just below the RAM, what you need to do is remove the heat sink, then wash it under a hot tap. Get the dog to lick it dry and bolt it back into the computer. Put some tin foil on top of the GPU and crack an egg in it, this will serve as a removable heat sink and a light snack for late night COD sessions ........ if it does not fry the egg, it's definately something to do with that jigglenugget I mentioned earlier. have a look at www.badgersinsexystockings.com all the info is in there.

You tit

You tit

I'm only here to keep the morale up What Mark says is a definate possibility, there was a rash of people flashing the bios on GTX's to the same bios as GTX ultra's and getting exactly the same symptom's you are seeing mate. Clean it up, flash the bios and give it a whirl mate, you may well be surprised.

I can just imagine getting a kick in the happy sacks when I am down next week off your mrs on behalf of the dog

Tony ................I havn't told her what you said yet, but the dog ain't happy lol.

Heres the beast striped down, now i know what the ram and gpu chips are but what are the pieces which I've dotted red as these are cooled by the heatsink as well??? Some sort of IC (???) I guess.

As for if my mate overclocked it :rofl::rofl: The man can't even wire a plug and struggles to drive even lol. He's a barrister so therefore has no idea how too do anything practical unless it involes paying someone else to do it . Although if you need someone too explain with you just so happened to have 10 kilos of finest colombian nosebag and and shooter in your at 5am on sunday morning, then he's your man

They are the MOSFET thingamies! lol

Think they are something to do with power... there are two more groups of them underneath the ones you have highlited.

When I changed the cooler on mine it came with some little heatsinks to install on to them so they must kick out some heat.

Phil

there are two more groups of them underneath the ones you have highlited.

Phil

I know thats why I left blank so you could see them.:)

I guessed they were power and know you mention it I think your right

Same as you find on a motherboard (usually at the side of the CPU and covered in a big heatsink these days).

Why were you asking about them? Is there some damage to them?

Phil

Transistors, they are probably part of the voltage regulation circuit and yes they will get hot.

Most have a heatsink built into the back which is soldered to the board along with a board heatsink or are screwed a heatsink.

I'd suggest putting a bit of thermal gunk on the top of them when you connect the heatsink back up.

Every thing is getting a good glob of thermal grease as we speak, those bits look fine I was just curious that's all

What is it with hieroglyphics, I fired his machine and was faced with these symbols rather than text, I've seen Word do it as well before know ????

They are usually ASCII characters, that are not represented as numbers or letters.

Memory corruption means you get this as as when the item to display is read from memory it is reading a character code that represents a symbol as opposed to a letter/number.

FWIW don't put too much gunk on, just enough to give a thin layer over the contact areas.