Ruined 8500GT?

[Lee476]

Hi,
This is probably a stupid question, but here goes...

I forgot to earth myself before removing a graphics card I'm about to go and sell and recieved a static shock as I touched the top of the card. Its an Xpert Vision 8500GT and was still in the PCI-E socket, with the mains turned off but the PSU was still connected to the socket.

My question is, is the GPU ruined? (and is the motherboard still safe to use?)

Thanks in advance

[wonderlust]

the only way you're going to find out is to try it!

[Lee476]

Cheers wonderlust. Any chance of something going up in smoke?

[cleggypdc]

yep, hopefully it should still be ok, although you may have reduced its life expectancy, or yours :P

[wonderlust]

There is always the chance, next time touch the case before touching cards :D

[Lee476]

yep, hopefully it should still be ok, although you may have reduced its life expectancy, or yours :P

:-) Ah well... I can't sell it without giving it a try...

Only live once right?

I'll go give it a try and see what happens

[cleggypdc]

:D good luck

[Lee476]

It worked fine thankfully (I did push the power button from a distance)... Unplugged and disconnected all non essential stuff and it seems alright.

Cheers for the help

[wonderlust]

Have you pushed it with a 3d game?

[Lee476]

Nope, never thought to. I just let the VGA BIOS screen load up and wait for the foxconn splash screen from the MoBo. The card is overclocked in Windows. Reckon there could still be damage done that full load would unearth?

[wonderlust]

It's the only way to be sure. I have a 6800Gt that is fine until it is pushed then it starts artifacting badly in everything!

[Lee476]

Ill go give it a try with Gears. Would a 3D game in Vista suffice (something like chess)?

Thanks a lot mate

[wonderlust]

possibly, although I would tend to err towards a hard game or something like 3d mark 05 or 06

[cleggypdc]

you could also run ati-tool on it

[M4T VW]

It was only after i finished building my desktop that i saw my wrist strap had come off and got caught on the plastic of the case.

Not had a problem with it...(Torch wood):redface:

[cleggypdc]

Torch Wood ? :P

[PeterStoba]

I rebuilt my pc the other week, didnt use a strap, was ok, just touched the case whenver handling components

[M4T VW]

Torch Wood ? :P

Never!:|

My bad:mrgreen:

[wonderlust]

Torch Wood ? :P


Damned aliens :D

[mac124]

I work in electronics and very rarely does something die due to static, you can never be too sure though and its not beyond the realms of possibility that something could be stressed by it shortening its life span. That said i have yet to use anti static prcautions when building any of my pc's and never had any issues. Now if that isn't tempting fate nothing is as i am mid way through rebuilding my gaming pc.

[Lee476]

Hey,
I tried it with Gears and im getting blue screens that I've never had under Vista. I don't think my motherboard likes me, so under XP it was constantly blue screening which I think was as a result of overclocking the CPU.

Never had this problem under vista, but mid way through Campus Grinder (had been playing for about 15 minutes) got a blue screen which mentioned 'BIOS' before restarting. Got back into windows and recieved another blue screen trying to open task manager, which said 'anti-virus' this time.

So far its ok, I'm gonna try Gears again this morning, but do you reckon its to do with the card?

[cleggypdc]

Have you updated any drivers recently, or has windows update been busy updating anything?

[Lee476]

Now you mention it, Update was downloading some arbitrary updates for silverlight and defender when the whole system stalled. Other than that, the systems remained unchanged for months.

Thanks again for all your help, ill try gears again and see how it goes.

* * *
Don't think there's anything wrong with the 8500. Got half an hour into act 5 and got another random blue screen. After rebooting the GPU temp was 55 Degrees and the blue screen said something about Update.sys (didn't see exactly what it said). Had problems with Update not installing updates successfully since I first installed Vista so its probably a software issue.

Thanks for all your help