Help required with post spillage GC issue.

Dear All,

Hello and thanks in advance if you can help me. I had a small spillage maybe 1cm deep of coffee onto my pc. Most of it just impacted on the surface but a little fluid got into the case and onto the plug for the GC, god knows how but thats just my luck. Got screen flicker and failure so I turned it off. After leaving it overnight I tried it again and it worked fine until I tried to run a game where loaded, started to run the title and menus then failed giving this message -Direct X 3D driver returned code (UNKNOWN: 0x88760870) whilst locking sprite index buffer - . it failed. Streaming graphics quality has diminished but Windows say the cards working fine. GTX 280. What I really need is someone who can go through the steps to identify the problem. On rebooting after switching off using the main power button I went via onboard GC and chose system repair, then system restore which complicated things as I didnt have a restore point. Eventually after a few more starts and boots from W7 disk and almost reinstalling I got system repair up and running again and got the pc to run fine. The GC works window says it works but it cant run games. I need to establish if its a hardware or software problem. Im hoping against hope that its software but I need help. I've opened up the GC and cant see any sign of liquid incursion. The paste was fine but I recentered it anyway. If someone could help me I would be massively grateful I dont have much but perhaps I can offer some sort of token payment for any assistance given. Also the clock was reset so ive amended that manually.

This is the first thing Ive bought for myself in about 5 years and on the day I get it running i screw up. I cant express how frustrating it is! Please help.

Pathetically yours,

Scott Thrustans

 

Dear Plodr,

Thank you for reading my thread, Im new so i cant message you directly, any assistance you could offer would be greatly appreciated, sincerely, Scott

 

Hi Scott & Welcome to Major Geeks.

First of all, Direct Messaging people for assistance is not a good idea as it does not leave the answers given open for the community. Also, you get a better response by having more people looking at the thread.

Next, there is no need at all to offer payment to anyone. People provide help on this message board for free.

As for your problem, I have a few questions for you:

#1: If you have opened up the graphics card, did you apply new thermal paste? Breaking the seal with the paste could lead to higher card temperatures than normal.

#2: When the coffee got spilled & you turned the computer off, did it reboot normally? I am assuming no as you had to use system restore but I would just like to confirm.

 

Dear Major Geeks - collinsl

Thanks for the email, and your concerns raised. I will not PM anyone nor leave thread extensions to that effect, neither will I offer money in the future. Sorry Im just a bit gutted at being such a massive idiot to have put myself in this position.

In answer to your questions,

1) No I didnt apply new thermal paste, although I can do that. I did make sure that the significant paste spread around the edge which was not under the chip edge was centralised thinking that this would be a reasonable idea. I do have some thermal paste, but the card seeme to be running cooler although perhaps this is due to some short somewhere, as the fan has not, as far as I can tell been at its usual lick although to be fair it hasnt been asked to do as much. I have just had another crash and have removed the card although not before running a passmark test where it seemed to run ok at 1819 or so, though this is slightly below the average. I've put the BIOS in a similar setting, although I wasnt sure whether the GC had been running as a PEG or PCI , assuming PCI.

The order of things was, as far as I remember, spillage. turned off , looked for anything on the board etc gentle mop up using loo roll there really was around ten small spots here and there. Reboot, 5 mins ok was watching video on bbc, failure. Looked in case again, removed GC fully, found spill had got into GC socket causing problem and by contact some had got into bottom of GC by contacts.( thats why im kicking myself ...if i had just looked...)

Rebooted, i think it then didnt show anything through DVI so I took the GC out and rebooted with the OG and it said it needed to repair as it hadnt shut down normally, then went through the repair procedure whilst I put the card somewhere warm. This involved messing as I didnt put the HD power back in, and resetting the board BIOS to safest settings.

I think it was the next morning when tried the card again and got a crash when I booted a game.

I think that is about right, I did a full Passmark test and there were no reported faults which is odd but maybe the test isnt rigorous enough.

Thanks for getting back to me, love the pic, I hope you can help me with my little tank!

 

Ok I have waited 24 hours. I cannot private message anyone, so I am left with little recourse but to post another response. If people are reading this and it seems clear that my GC is broken could you tell me then I know. I have just been on the Geforce forum but havent received a reply as yet. I would really appreciate a response even if its we dont know. I would say that my PC seems to be functional although I did have a problem with a 3D driver when tryin to start a desktop card game whilst watching a video. Other than that its been fine but obviously the GC is beside me needing attention or binning.

A little advice would go a long way here, I used this forum several years ago and found it really positive and helpful, I hope theres someone out there who could offer a litttle help

Thanks

Scott

 

I would clean the whole card with residue-less electronic "contact cleaner" coffee can leave conductive residue even when its dry.

Most importantly clean the contacts on the bottom of the card and clean the inside of the pci-e slot with a cuetip or similar narrow swab soaked in contact cleaner,you can also use denatured alcohol from a chemist just don't use anything with oil,dye or perfume in.

You may also want to clean the entire area on the motherboard around the video card slot,anywherewhere you think the coffee has gone.

This is what I use,it evaporates totally and leaves no residue after cleaning.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/contact-cleaner-25340

 

Thanks Ricky, I'll try that thank you for taking the time to reply and thank you for the link ill go to my local Maplins today.

Much appreciated,

Scott