Guy Unintentionally Destroyed His $1,000 Graphic Card By Making A Dumb Mistake

[Paul2]

This Guy Accidentally Destroyed His $1000 Graphics Card in the Dumbest Way Imaginable



There are some things that you just shouldn't do to your brand new $1000 graphics card, drilling a hole into the PCB being one of them. However, that didn't stop user Zanderlinde on the LinusTechTips forum from taking his GeForce 980Ti to a drill press in an effort to fit a water cooler bracket on the PCB. The result wasn't pretty.
 
Let's let Zanderlinde explain the sequence of events this in his own words:
 
Recently bought a Zotac 980ti Amp GPU.  It worked fine. Gamed on it for a few days before realizing my processor sucked. So i switched my mobo to a z170 and i7 skylake. 
 
So here's what I did wrong. The heatsink for the Zotac card is huge, and doesnt fit in my custom case I made out of steel. So I bought a Corsair bracket to utilize a Corsair Hydro water cooler.

One of the holes on the card didn't line up with the hole on the bracket. (Design flaw I think.) And the screw needs to be there, or else the card bends when you screw down the water pump to the card.

So I masked off the card, and put it in my drill press and moved the hole just a tiny bit in. From what I can tell, I didnt drill through any circuits on the card. But now when I use the card on my brand new motherboard, The monitor won't boot. (keyboard and mouse both stay lit up, and the gpu fan is getting power) I know the board is fine, because I tested another gpu on it, and tested the 980ti on my friends board. (same problem).

I realize that I probly broke it, Just looking for other possible scenarios.  You can all mock me if you wish. Thanks!

It didn't take long for Zanderlinde to find out that putting a hole in a graphics card, even if it doesn't pierce any visible components, is a death sentence. Forum moderator Godlygamer23 shared:
 
Even if you didn't hit any circuits on the surface(visible to the eye), you may have drilled through circuits that are within the PCB itself, which often times are layered.

And thus Zanderlinde came to find out that his card was dead after only days of ownership.

Sadly, there is no happy ending to this story. Instead of picking apart the board for parts, he decided that it'd be better to break the card in half out of frustration, as seen below.



It wasn't just the hole in the card that pushed him over the edge, though. Before giving up he tried one more method, as he explained:
 
You were right about the layers. I booted the pc while holding a metal screwdriver in the hole to simulate soldering the hole shut. But it just started smoking. The card is F**ked

This begs the question: why in the world would you punch a hole in your $1000 graphics card without consulting a manual or the opinion of experts? Well, Zanderlinde would argue that he prefers to do things himself, and in this case he got carried away:
 
I'm of a d.i.y. nature. Usually I'm able to fix shit. Obviously this is a level above any rational person to try. But you live and you learn. Emphasis on the learn. Thanks for the mockery guys, keep it up

As one forum poster would remark, the cost of this lesson was disproportionate to the loss.

For reference, the card in question was a ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980Ti, which Zanderlinde would state was $1000 in his home country of Canada (roughly $750 U.S.). It is currently the most powerful consumer grade card on the planet, capable of achieving a 11,000+ G3D Mark score.

And with that, we would like to bid farewell to this beautiful 980Ti. We will never forget you.

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That is sad and funny at the same time.  Reminds me of the time back in early 2000 where i bought a composite video converter which converts composite video to VGA RGB for PC monitor so i can hook up my VHS player to the PC monitor in hoping of getting a better picture.  Instead of getting better picture, the video looks worst on pc monitor than on tv.  There is color cross talk, i can see weaving interlace lines if i remember correctly, and the picture looks softer.

So, what did i do?  I switch A/C power adapter cord and i fried the circuit inside the composite to VGA converter box.  I think because the watts and amps on this adapter is different than the other adapter that is why the adapter got fry.  At least i only spent like $50 to $60 on this converter.  I learned my lesson not to use different power cord, especially if the plug is different size and the amps and watts are also different too.

This guy probably learned his lesson but he loss up to $750 USD which is over 10 times more than what i loss.

[§ôµÏG®ïñD]

  What a dumb shit, all pcbs on pcs or any high level component product is multi-layered.  So he basically cut tracks in god only knows how many of the layers.

Then the dumb shit decided to "dead short" all those tracks together by putting a screw driver through the hole. Which could have damaged other parts of his pc, being that he may have put voltage on pins that have none on his pci-e slot. Which no doubt he did since he said it smoked.
This is why DIY requires research and basically basic level knowledge of what your doing.


thanks for the laugh Paul.



as for what you did. 2 possible answers, you put DC on a AC unit, AC on a DC unit (which can sometimes be ok if they use a bridge rectifier on the pwr input and you have the ac pack close do the dc value) or you put higher voltage then the unit required.
Examples would be..
24V DC on a 12V DC unit etc
or
24V AC on a 12V AC unit etc.

live and learn. Match Current types and Voltages. Keep current values higher or on whats required
example.
12V DC 2amp device could use a 12V DC 5amp plug pack etc.

[Paul2]

honestly, i don't know much or anything about electric power like watts, amp, volt, hz, etc.

maybe like you said, i probably put something like 12V DC 5 amp on a 12V DC 2 amp plug which fried my converter box.

btw, that's a funny gif video of your new avatar.  what does it means?

[§ôµÏG®ïñD]

12V DC 5A on a 12V DC 2A unit won't damage it. A 24V DC 2A on a 12V DC 2A will

avatar doesn't mean anything. I just like it.

watts, amp, volt, hz,

quick lesson.
Voltage = V
Current = I
Watts = P

watts = power = Voltage times Current. 
amps is amount of current pushed through a circuit.
voltage is the force behind the current.
watts is the multiplication of both together.
Quick example would be a river. The water is the current and the force behind the water moving is the voltage.

hz = frequency of something happening per second.
For example a monitor. If it is 100hz. That simple means it refreshes (or draws) a screen 100 times per second.

[Paul2]

wow, very cool.  i learned something new there.  when i read it for the first time, i didn't get it.  reading it the 2nd time, i finally get it.  then i read it again for the 3rd time and i understand even better.  thanks for the education.

So, basically the voltage or the force of the current is the one that fried my converter box.

[Cerberus]

he's got the same card as me, only mine has one less hole in it and it still works.

what a fucking tool.