I tried to fix my broken $2500 video card myself...

The Repair Attempt: A Cautionary Tale

I'm not really sure how I ended up trying to repair this particular device, but it's a great story nonetheless. It was like it just broke off at one point and my friend was saying "hey you can still use it" and I was like okay cool let me see if I can fix it. I mean it's just a second, right? And so I started trying to solder the broken part back on. Now I'm not exactly what you'd call an electronics expert, but I figured how hard could it be?

I reached for my trusty Weller soldering iron and some of that cheap solder that comes in a pack of 10. I mean who needs high-quality components when you're just trying to fix something, right? I heated up the iron and applied a glob of solder to the broken part. I thought it was going to be like magic and it would all come together perfectly, but nope. The solder didn't quite...settle in place as I had hoped, and now I'm stuck with this ugly mess.

The Problem is Still There

I'm still not confident that the repair is done right. There's a good chance that the solder I applied has created a bridge between the two pads, which could cause the device to malfunction or even lock out. I mean, have you ever heard of what happens when you create a short circuit? It's like a domino effect, and in this case, it could cause the entire system to fail. And let me tell you, if that happens, we're back to square one.

I've been over this thing with my friend, and we both agree that maybe we should have just sent it to someone who knows what they're doing. I mean, there's no shame in admitting when you don't know something, right? But I had to try it myself. And now, here we are. I'm starting to think that maybe this device is one of those things that's just not meant to be fixed.

The Consequences of a Bad Repair

So what happens if the repair doesn't work out as planned? Well, for starters, we could end up with a device that's completely unusable. Or worse, it could cause problems down the line. I mean, think about it. If you're not careful when repairing an electronics device, you can create a whole host of new problems. And once those problems start to show up, they can be real pain to fix.

I'm starting to feel like we've been playing with fire here. We took something that was supposed to work and turned it into a science experiment. I mean, what's the point of trying to repair something if you're just going to make things worse? But at the same time, I have to admit that it's kind of fascinating to see how things can come apart like this.

The Importance of Proper Techniques

You know, I've been thinking about this a lot. If someone like Lewis Ross, who is clearly an expert in his field, had done this repair, would we even be having this conversation? Would the device be working properly? The answer to that is probably no. Because when it comes to repairing electronics devices, there's no substitute for proper techniques and tools.

The Super Glue Solution

But what if I told you that I've been thinking about a possible solution to this problem? Well, I have. And that solution involves something called super glue. Now, before you start shaking your head, hear me out. What if we could just use some super glue to hold the broken part in place until someone who knows what they're doing can come along and fix it properly? It's not a perfect solution, but hey, at this point I'm willing to try anything.

The End Result

So that's where we are now. The device is still working, sort of. But I have to admit, I'm not confident in its long-term viability. And if I'm being completely honest, I think it would have been better off just staying broken. At least then we wouldn't be dealing with all these potential problems down the line.

The Morality of Repairing Electronics Devices

There's something that I wanted to talk about for a bit. There are some people out there who might get really upset if they hear that someone like me, who clearly doesn't know what they're doing, tried to repair an electronics device without proper training or equipment. And you know what? They'd be right to be upset. But the thing is, sometimes we have to take risks and try new things. Even if it means messing up.

I don't mean to say that anyone should go out and start trying to fix electronics devices on their own without proper training or equipment. But at the same time, I think there's something to be said for being willing to learn and try new things. And who knows, maybe one day I'll figure out how to use all this stuff correctly and become a real electronics expert.

The Final Verdict

In conclusion, trying to repair an electronics device without proper training or equipment is not always the best idea. But sometimes it's necessary. And if you do decide to try repairing something, just make sure you're doing it safely and responsibly. And most importantly, don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it.

But hey, at least we learned a lot from this experience. We learned that sometimes things just break, and sometimes they can be fixed with a little bit of super glue and some cheap solder. But in the end, if all else fails, it's probably best to just send it back to the manufacturer or take it to someone who knows what they're doing.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is the graphics card that I broke this is the thing I broke off of it and yes I contacted Louis Rothman's guys and they gave me a price and a coke to fix it and it's actually a really good quote but I'm gonna see if I can't fix it myself today today's video is sponsored by audible and their huge library of online audiobooks now look I've talked about audible in the past and it's great for someone like me who's constantly on the go but even when I'm sitting in planes or cars I can't read books because I get incredibly motion sick but I can certainly listen I don't get sick when I listen to things now usually I'm a fan of the self-help section I mean I've talked about needing all the help I can get in the past but lately I've been on quite the Star Wars kick as you can see about one the latest pcs that I'd built but if you want to learn a little bit more about Star Wars and see how far the universe actually expands when it comes to Star Wars they've got a huge selection of Star Wars books and I'm gonna be actually starting a new book just called Star Wars Darth Plagueis I want to know more about that particular history that leads a lot to what we know about Star Wars as we know it today one of the cool features of audible is the fact that you can switch back and forth between audiobooks and a traditional reading book between all of your devices because they sync the best part is members get a free audiobook every single month even if you cancel the service that book is yours to keep forever but if Star Wars isn't your thing that's alright because they're massive online library includes all genres that you could possibly think of so they're sure to be something in there that's gonna be right up your alley so what are you waiting for go get your free book right now by heading to audible.com slash Jays two cents or texting Jay's two cents to 500 500 alright so as we've already talked about this is a $2,500 Titan that I broke a resistor off of because of the fact that it was at liquid metal sitting on there which messed up some of the solder once a long time yeah but you know Steve told me he left stuff he left it on for a year before I didn't have any problems so I thought we were in the clear but I I think we've been fine if I had neck cently pride on it I think the prying on it and Lewis Rossman already talked about how terrible these as these s MDS are all soldered down he has a whole video about it actually I watched it it was it's it's a combination of like the gallium effect plus the the way I was trying to clean it by scraping it it caught the end and popped it off so I probably would not have broken off and it would be just fine just like the other one had I not done a terrible way to cleaning it I highly recommend seniya to professional get it fixed I'm not a professional I'm gonna try and fix it though because that's what this channel is all about but I'm not gonna jump right into it I am going to see if are broken I have a lot of broken Gravatar inherently our broken 9800 gtx+ I'm gonna see if this has it should have a resistor on the other side there's none on the back I'm gonna practice on this card since we already broke it and I'm doing that with my trusty guide picture also too the only thing that's probably right for this job is the I fix it honestly and tearing down the graphics card because I'm using this guy nah not the right soldering iron let me explain I know a lot of you out there following this channel our electrical engineers and do this stuff for a living because you've all reached out to me and trust me I am very appreciative of all of you saying just send the card and somebody to ship it back and no and you'll fix it and I trust that all of you would send me back a twenty five hundred of our graphics card when I send to someone that I I don't know that's besides the point this is a rare opportunity where I get to do something for the first time ever on this channel that I've never done before so I'm gonna be doing it the wrong way for a couple of reasons one as much as I've been researching I can't seem to find any definitive tutorials on how to do it the right way so I'm gonna do it the way I sort of think I should the other thing too is I think this is also very indicative of what a lot of people out there and the general public would do the big oh I broke that off I need to go I need to get a soldering iron and you just sort of that back on I don't know sorry to use what temperature should I use I don't know so we've got a 25 watt up to 750 F I don't know that's right I mean there were other ones I don't like 60 watts and like 900 degrees so I don't know what I'm doing but many of you might agree that I don't know what I'm doing with anything and to that that's fine but oh I did try and find and I actually I'm not a noob to soldering I'm just don't have any of my actual decent soldering stuff here I also have some really fine solder somewhere that's not here and I couldn't find any when I went to Lowe's which is undoubtedly the worst place to buy soldering stuff from I used to get all that stuff I needed from RadioShack we all know what happened there so for starters let me go ahead and get this card cooler off and see if there's an SMD on the other side of this if there's not I'm just gonna start going around the shelf to find a graphics card that I don't mind mutilating to practice on so the tip that came on the soldering iron is a little too big for what we want to do I think so I'm gonna turn this tip using my drill like a lathe to try and make it more pointy so this is the one I have to replace right here and as you can see there's individual pads that you decide with that divided down the middle so I can't just put solder on there push it down because that will probably lock us at 300 megahertz because that will be bridging where it shouldn't be so I've got to put a little bit of solder there probably a tiny bit there and on both sides and then heat up the resistor and smoosh it down but I don't have any on this card to allow me to practice all right well we're setting it yeah because that other card is not it's not working very well all right so there is solder there is some slaughter still on there well they're there they're in there I don't really want to add more it's just like like a second it's your ball it broke off really easy but you did get it you did get it to stick but I was getting into CEQA this is probably really difficult for experts to watch I don't know how you're supposed to heat it like you have a special thing that touches both the ends and just heats it properly I'm a whole different loan but in feels like it's on there I feel like putting a little hot glue over it it feels on there so what I'm gonna do because I don't want to put the stock cooler back on because that's got a bajillion million trillion screws I'm just gonna screw this guy on I don't want to do any hot glue or anything on there to kind of like hold it down because all this making contact right because what I am kind of worried may have happened here is it might now be touching like it might be bridging those two pads together or whatever and now it's gonna just lock itself because now it's not on there properly so I'll be honest I'm not feeling very confident right now cuz I just know I did such a terrible job yeah soldering that there's no possible way that that could work cuz that's the ugliest solder I don't know what kind of detail the camera was picking up it was pretty packed and I'm almost positive it's bridging where it shouldn't that's the thing I'm not confident about and I know for a fact if the if that area bridges and then it sees no resistance then it's gonna just immediately clock down to 300 that's what it does that's why we could pop off those resistors and the card would work he was go down to 300 cuz that's exactly what dere Bower was saying when they tried to like when they soldered wires across it and stuff to bypass the resistor which I guess used to work in the olden days like I feel like this card's also just one jolt from like that little piece going looped and falling out that's why I won't have that's why when it's well I guess I get super glue it to I got some of that but that's why I want to do hot glue honey babe and then send it to Lewis Ross for me like hey what do you think tell me what you think of my repair not everyone should have the right to repair if this is how they're gonna do it cannot establish connection with update server oh that's fine we're not or fine do it it's at 1350 begger it's already because I haven't said to the the event of the perform it prefer maximum performance automatically goes to 1350 wait wait wait wait wait wait no freakin way 1935 1950 okay the max power limit there's 24 t there's 27 t 54 see it's just got the 28 et I like basic double fan cooler on there 1.03 7 millivolts so our 1037 millivolts 7000 megahertz on the memory that's the ugliest solder job and I'm not confident I wouldn't go on the card it wouldn't go pink it fall off dude I think we could have fixed it without soldering it at all I feel like I could have just like held it down there I'm me like the super glue or it would find super glue hot glue and just we're been fine as long as it's making connection it may not be the greatest connection those onsens making connection it worked it's the wrong iron it's the wrong solder it was the wrong technique I filed down the tip because the tip was too big it cost me $19 still stinks in here cuz it's the wrong solder didn't I well I has flux on it but it freakin works so what'd you do that now hey back off the shelf I got a super good so I kept saying super glue I got a hot glue it ah all right I just love the contrast of levels of technology between that dye onion that can you not for a second Phil listen here's the moral of the story yes there are people that could fix this for you and yes I could have sent this to someone to fix but I was curious could I do it using all the wrong stuff look it's a gorilla glue glue gun it's a Weller cheapest soldering iron you can freakin buy so yes anyone that is triggered by this video saying oh my god Jay I'm an electronics engineer and i'm so triggered by this you should be i'm not saying this is the way to do it that's the way i just wanted to see if i could and I did I mean like the army says if it's a dumb idea but it works it's not a dumb idea sothis is the graphics card that I broke this is the thing I broke off of it and yes I contacted Louis Rothman's guys and they gave me a price and a coke to fix it and it's actually a really good quote but I'm gonna see if I can't fix it myself today today's video is sponsored by audible and their huge library of online audiobooks now look I've talked about audible in the past and it's great for someone like me who's constantly on the go but even when I'm sitting in planes or cars I can't read books because I get incredibly motion sick but I can certainly listen I don't get sick when I listen to things now usually I'm a fan of the self-help section I mean I've talked about needing all the help I can get in the past but lately I've been on quite the Star Wars kick as you can see about one the latest pcs that I'd built but if you want to learn a little bit more about Star Wars and see how far the universe actually expands when it comes to Star Wars they've got a huge selection of Star Wars books and I'm gonna be actually starting a new book just called Star Wars Darth Plagueis I want to know more about that particular history that leads a lot to what we know about Star Wars as we know it today one of the cool features of audible is the fact that you can switch back and forth between audiobooks and a traditional reading book between all of your devices because they sync the best part is members get a free audiobook every single month even if you cancel the service that book is yours to keep forever but if Star Wars isn't your thing that's alright because they're massive online library includes all genres that you could possibly think of so they're sure to be something in there that's gonna be right up your alley so what are you waiting for go get your free book right now by heading to audible.com slash Jays two cents or texting Jay's two cents to 500 500 alright so as we've already talked about this is a $2,500 Titan that I broke a resistor off of because of the fact that it was at liquid metal sitting on there which messed up some of the solder once a long time yeah but you know Steve told me he left stuff he left it on for a year before I didn't have any problems so I thought we were in the clear but I I think we've been fine if I had neck cently pride on it I think the prying on it and Lewis Rossman already talked about how terrible these as these s MDS are all soldered down he has a whole video about it actually I watched it it was it's it's a combination of like the gallium effect plus the the way I was trying to clean it by scraping it it caught the end and popped it off so I probably would not have broken off and it would be just fine just like the other one had I not done a terrible way to cleaning it I highly recommend seniya to professional get it fixed I'm not a professional I'm gonna try and fix it though because that's what this channel is all about but I'm not gonna jump right into it I am going to see if are broken I have a lot of broken Gravatar inherently our broken 9800 gtx+ I'm gonna see if this has it should have a resistor on the other side there's none on the back I'm gonna practice on this card since we already broke it and I'm doing that with my trusty guide picture also too the only thing that's probably right for this job is the I fix it honestly and tearing down the graphics card because I'm using this guy nah not the right soldering iron let me explain I know a lot of you out there following this channel our electrical engineers and do this stuff for a living because you've all reached out to me and trust me I am very appreciative of all of you saying just send the card and somebody to ship it back and no and you'll fix it and I trust that all of you would send me back a twenty five hundred of our graphics card when I send to someone that I I don't know that's besides the point this is a rare opportunity where I get to do something for the first time ever on this channel that I've never done before so I'm gonna be doing it the wrong way for a couple of reasons one as much as I've been researching I can't seem to find any definitive tutorials on how to do it the right way so I'm gonna do it the way I sort of think I should the other thing too is I think this is also very indicative of what a lot of people out there and the general public would do the big oh I broke that off I need to go I need to get a soldering iron and you just sort of that back on I don't know sorry to use what temperature should I use I don't know so we've got a 25 watt up to 750 F I don't know that's right I mean there were other ones I don't like 60 watts and like 900 degrees so I don't know what I'm doing but many of you might agree that I don't know what I'm doing with anything and to that that's fine but oh I did try and find and I actually I'm not a noob to soldering I'm just don't have any of my actual decent soldering stuff here I also have some really fine solder somewhere that's not here and I couldn't find any when I went to Lowe's which is undoubtedly the worst place to buy soldering stuff from I used to get all that stuff I needed from RadioShack we all know what happened there so for starters let me go ahead and get this card cooler off and see if there's an SMD on the other side of this if there's not I'm just gonna start going around the shelf to find a graphics card that I don't mind mutilating to practice on so the tip that came on the soldering iron is a little too big for what we want to do I think so I'm gonna turn this tip using my drill like a lathe to try and make it more pointy so this is the one I have to replace right here and as you can see there's individual pads that you decide with that divided down the middle so I can't just put solder on there push it down because that will probably lock us at 300 megahertz because that will be bridging where it shouldn't be so I've got to put a little bit of solder there probably a tiny bit there and on both sides and then heat up the resistor and smoosh it down but I don't have any on this card to allow me to practice all right well we're setting it yeah because that other card is not it's not working very well all right so there is solder there is some slaughter still on there well they're there they're in there I don't really want to add more it's just like like a second it's your ball it broke off really easy but you did get it you did get it to stick but I was getting into CEQA this is probably really difficult for experts to watch I don't know how you're supposed to heat it like you have a special thing that touches both the ends and just heats it properly I'm a whole different loan but in feels like it's on there I feel like putting a little hot glue over it it feels on there so what I'm gonna do because I don't want to put the stock cooler back on because that's got a bajillion million trillion screws I'm just gonna screw this guy on I don't want to do any hot glue or anything on there to kind of like hold it down because all this making contact right because what I am kind of worried may have happened here is it might now be touching like it might be bridging those two pads together or whatever and now it's gonna just lock itself because now it's not on there properly so I'll be honest I'm not feeling very confident right now cuz I just know I did such a terrible job yeah soldering that there's no possible way that that could work cuz that's the ugliest solder I don't know what kind of detail the camera was picking up it was pretty packed and I'm almost positive it's bridging where it shouldn't that's the thing I'm not confident about and I know for a fact if the if that area bridges and then it sees no resistance then it's gonna just immediately clock down to 300 that's what it does that's why we could pop off those resistors and the card would work he was go down to 300 cuz that's exactly what dere Bower was saying when they tried to like when they soldered wires across it and stuff to bypass the resistor which I guess used to work in the olden days like I feel like this card's also just one jolt from like that little piece going looped and falling out that's why I won't have that's why when it's well I guess I get super glue it to I got some of that but that's why I want to do hot glue honey babe and then send it to Lewis Ross for me like hey what do you think tell me what you think of my repair not everyone should have the right to repair if this is how they're gonna do it cannot establish connection with update server oh that's fine we're not or fine do it it's at 1350 begger it's already because I haven't said to the the event of the perform it prefer maximum performance automatically goes to 1350 wait wait wait wait wait wait no freakin way 1935 1950 okay the max power limit there's 24 t there's 27 t 54 see it's just got the 28 et I like basic double fan cooler on there 1.03 7 millivolts so our 1037 millivolts 7000 megahertz on the memory that's the ugliest solder job and I'm not confident I wouldn't go on the card it wouldn't go pink it fall off dude I think we could have fixed it without soldering it at all I feel like I could have just like held it down there I'm me like the super glue or it would find super glue hot glue and just we're been fine as long as it's making connection it may not be the greatest connection those onsens making connection it worked it's the wrong iron it's the wrong solder it was the wrong technique I filed down the tip because the tip was too big it cost me $19 still stinks in here cuz it's the wrong solder didn't I well I has flux on it but it freakin works so what'd you do that now hey back off the shelf I got a super good so I kept saying super glue I got a hot glue it ah all right I just love the contrast of levels of technology between that dye onion that can you not for a second Phil listen here's the moral of the story yes there are people that could fix this for you and yes I could have sent this to someone to fix but I was curious could I do it using all the wrong stuff look it's a gorilla glue glue gun it's a Weller cheapest soldering iron you can freakin buy so yes anyone that is triggered by this video saying oh my god Jay I'm an electronics engineer and i'm so triggered by this you should be i'm not saying this is the way to do it that's the way i just wanted to see if i could and I did I mean like the army says if it's a dumb idea but it works it's not a dumb idea so\n"