I May Have Broken A SUPER RARE Old Graphics Card...

This has been a rough week. Enjoy the video and my suffering.

Play some Minecraft on the Dawid Does Minecraft server courtesy of our friends at Linode!
It works on Java version 1.19.3

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[NebukadV]

To sum it up: The 7950GX2 was broken from the start - very common for those cards sadly.
The missing capacitor doesn't make any difference.

[nasko]

Watching you do microsoldering is like what I'd imagine watching a T-Rex scratch its back would look like.

[HardWhereHero]

I could give it a shot Dawid, We own a small repair shop in Kentucky and have all of the equipment needed to re-ball . . While I hate working on older GPU's they are usually easy to fix. Good lord that thing is horrendous... Keep in mind these older cards like older setups. The newer UEFI bios can get in the way of these older cards from posting. This card most likely has a bad resistor on it if it keep flashing. If the drivers are not installing and its not a compatibility issue than its a VRAM problem with the card or a BGA issue on the GPU. The fact it still works in the other system leads me to believe you are not the cause of the issue and the card has a Vram or BGA issue and it will drive you crazy if you keep trying lol. These are rare? I think we have a parts card that is only missing a few caps. Crashing on startup in a loop is a driver / vram issue 99% of the time. Stop while it still works!!

[starbomber]

13:33 Protip. Capacitors are relatively cheap, so it might have been worth it to just replace it with a known good one with the same values. (they also do die over time, but I don't think this one is old enough to have died from old age) That way you wouldn't have had to fiddle with soldering replacement leads onto it, you would have just had to fiddle with soldering it back onto the card.

[TwillDayZ]

I thought you randomly dyed a small part of your hair magenta at first

[richardw]

You have to send it off for proper repair. Please don't give up.

[MarcoGPUtuber]

3:12 There is no UEFI driver for these old cards so they often won't boot in UEFI systems.

[TainCO.]

0:35 So what you're saying is you actually broke two gpus...

[stefv]

I understand that a big part of the charm of your videos is that you are like a child trying to figure out "high technology", but... adding so many variables in the process of solving a "problem"... what can I say... you have talent. thanks for your videos.

[Stealth]

I miss multiple GPU's and SLI. Yeah, it really never worked out to be effective cost-wise or power-wise, but I still thought it was super cool. Would be nice with all the GPU shortages to be able to just buy another older GPU and boost your FPS by a decent chunk.

[dpatt]

The capacitor surgery had me laughing hard

[feeterican]

You could have googled the cap that broke off and ordered a new one and while you were at it replace all the caps. Pro Tip: I've been soldering for 17 years here at work and the trick to soldering on caps like that is to remove all the solder on both pads with solder wick or a q-tip (the q-tip is a bit more advanced but completely cleans the pad in one swipe by pushing the iron tip out of the way with the q-tip while cleaning off the pad (hard to explain while typing but easier to show IRL)) Anyhow, then just add a bit of solder to 1 pad with flux. Then solder on the one leg of the cap flat to the board. Then solder the other leg on. This way you don't have to go back and forth to each pad and warm it up, so you can push the cap down to the board. It's just easier to get the cap flush to the board if there isn't any solder in the way. I do the same thing with all SMT pars and sometimes through hole "depending". lol 128 fine pitch ICs are my favorite to solder especially if I have to run a 30awg wire mod to it.

[hillhell]

10:20 Who knew a purple haired Dawid would look noice.

[deathfroude]

The small amount of smoke while showing b-roll of the Nvidia power socket, made me chuckle lol

[Eric_Fate]

Someone needs to start up a partner channel dedicated to fixing all the hardware that Dawid manages to break.

[eightyd]

That sucks. Was probably already cooked.

[stormchaser]

Try replacing all the copastors the old ones dried out.
Also replace the thermal paste on the graphex card GPU most likely dried out as well.

[XJ]

Man, this channel never ceases to make me feel old. Seeing the thumbnail broke my heart and then the issues with the install and inevitable boot loop were exactly what I expected. Took me right back to the Firedog help desk at Circuit City.

[Fantastisch]

seeing black and white on your desk makes me feel nostalgic

[richardwoodurff]

DUDE, great video, I love older hardware, so fun to get trolled, defeated, and then figure it out in the end. The early 2000's were awesome! Thanks Dawid!