Snapped-Off Capacitor, Am I screwed?

To all,

I'm the Jar-Jar Binks of humans... I'm inherently clumsy. While adding a RAID card to my Alienware, my hand slipped and peeled off one of the capacitors to my ATI Radeon x800 Pro. Can you say, "@#$%^!!!!"

I contacted Alienware and sent them a JPG of the leftovers. They replied that the damage fell under the misuse and abuse clause of the warranty. So my ATI Radeon x800 Pro is now a $350 useless piece of crap.

Is there any place to send it to have the same capacitor soldered back on?

One footnote: my friend backed over her laptop. Yes, BACKED OVER her brand new Dell latop. She called their support and they sent her a new one without flinching. What did I learn from this? 1) A car backing over a laptop is not misuse or abuse; or more precisely: don't buy Alienware when you can spend a little less and get a tricked out Dell with a Dell warranty!

Thanks in advance,

-A.

 

Is the capacitor still intact? Can you post a picture of both the broken spot on the card and the capacitor that has broken off? If you post that, I'll tell you how your card can be fixed.


And welcome to Guru3D Forums!!!

 

I remember a thread like a month ago where a guy said he snapped one off as well, and that it functioned normally.

There's also an arguement currently going somewhere here, and one of the points made was that, when a pin or capacitor is broken off, its functions are diverted elsewhere.

Bottom line, have you tried wokring it?

 

honestly..... you MIGHT be able to take it to some electronics repair store.... see if they could solder it back on. someplace MIGHT be able to do it, if they're good at soldering, and can solder in very small spots. Not making any promises.... but that's probably the first thing i'd try to do.

 

if u still got the capacitor jus solder it, mr "clumbsy" as u say

 

Wow - you guys are good. That was four replies in an hour (less?). I've tried soldering it four times... no avail. I used to think I was a geek until this (it's relative, apparently). I haven't reattached it, post-accident. After reading the replies, I'll give it a shot. After even more research, it looks like the one thing Alienware does right is use retail box ATI cards and I can circumvent them and go straight to ATI. That's a big sigh of relief as the warranty appears to be a generous 3 years. But I'm still gonna plug the sucker back in a report to the crew here. Thanks again!

-Ansel

 

For the gentleman who wanted a photo, how about this:

It's silver, 1/4" diameter, 7/16" tall and the printing on top says:

A 45Q
470
6.3v

Does that help?

 

thats why i hate buying pcs from companies.

 

Well, when in doubt, LIE LIE LIE. Man, I'd just send the card back to Alienware saying that it stopped working. I doubt they'd notice anyways. If ATI won't accept it then that's what you should do. That's me, though. They got money to spare anyways.

 

So I plugged the thing in and just played a round of CounterStrike:Source. Like I needed an excuse to waste more time with that game, lol. The FPS seem to be in the same range I'm used to... but I would never have plugged it in, were it not for you guys. Thanks!

Why does it work? Do they have backup resistors/capacitors/etc? Or is it fault tolerant enough to come up with its own workaround? Very cool stuff, regardless.

-A.

Guru3D Forums Crew: 1
Alienware: 0

 

"Lie, Lie, Lie," lol

I'm Mr. Full Disclosure when it comes to business and yes, it does bite me in the binghole sometimes. lol

 

no it depend what that capacitor is for...Capacitors are usually used for filter circuitry to take out the wrong signal or help zoom in on the right ones...non technical explanation......could just be part of your power circuitry..and now that it's gone you still have power BUT it's not as clean ..does that make sense?....that's why it works...

 

Got it. I'm learning a lot today... Basically that I know less about things than I used to think. ;O)

 

Yea, ROBSCIX got it right. Capacitors usually aren't in series with anything, so they just form some connection from a line to ground. If you eliminate this, that doesn't mean that it will stop working. It is hard to explain, but a picture will do it a lot better. Anyway, gotta run. Glad your card works.


Also, regarding soldering it. If the pads are still intact, then soldering it is pretty easy. I do stuff like that all the time. But the pads have to be intact for this to be possible.

 

Pads are good... it's the pins from the capacitor that are gone. They left the earth during what I will call soldering attempt #1.

 

actually..... i think the easiest way of putting into terms what a capacitor seems to do...... is that it seems to basically work like an air or water filter? allows what it needs to pass through (air or water), but filters out the crap that it doesn't need (little too much voltage, tones down voltage ripples, etc...). that sound about right to you guys?

 

Yea, I guess that is one way to describe it. You can use capacitors in several different ways. I used a potentiometer, capacitor, and mosfet to create a time delay switch. I used the capacitor strictly to store charge, the potentiometer to run that current to ground, and the mosfet to do the switching

 

Sounds like its a surface mount capacitor, are the legs bent underneath coming to the edges of a black piece of plastic at the bottom?
You'll have to be careful with these, too much heat from the soldering iron can cause damage, also be sure to solder it in the right round or it will pop as soon as any voltage goes to it.
If the legs are missing,broken off you can order replacements from RS or Farnell

 

I would say too just leave it alone....it still working so either return it for a new one or use it the way it is....don't fool yourself though that cap was for something just not something you can notice right now..but down the road the card might just up and blow because that cap wasn't there....Quit the soldering attempts...before you do damage ..

 

Depends where abouts in the circuit they are, probably local decoupling for one of the I/C's, if theres other decoupling caps on the same line then it may be ok.
If its still working I'd check the picture to make sure theres no ripple etc