XFX 4770 fried on power on.

ntippet

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Oct 9, 2009
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Bought an XFX 4770 locally yesterday. (great price too)
After installation and rivatuner tweaking it was running excellent.
Few hours later after a powerdown-restart, a sizzling/burning noise was heard when the power button was pushed. Fans were on for a second and then everything was off.
The terrible electronics burning smell was in the air, and I feared the worst.

I tried the power button again after switching the power supply off and on. The video card fan and m-board leds come on for a second
then shut off. Nothing happens.
After inspecting the components I did not see any noticeable burnt areas.

I swapped my old video card back in and everything was back to normal.

EVGA microATX 630i
Antec trupower 500W

I am going to swap the xfx video card at the store.
Before I try to run the second one is there any way my power supply is causing this.
Or did I get a defective card?
I haven't had any power issues at all with it.

Thanks all.
 

ntippet

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Oct 9, 2009
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Just make sure your unplugging your power supply and pushing the power button a few times to release any power in the capacitors before installing your new card.

Smell the back of your power supply....does it smell burnt or does the card smell burnt?

The sizzle was heard after a shutdown and power up, not after the XFX was installed into the case.
Nothing has any lingering smell even after a few seconds the smell was gone.
I would like to know what exactly fried on the XFX but I could not find anything.
Maybe I will inspect it further before returning it.
The computer was restarted a few times before this happened.
One thing I noticed was the fan seems to default to 100% on startup which dosn't seem like the best approach.
A slow ramp up to 100% would make more sense as its not drawing full as soon as you hit the power switch.
Believe me I would never install components into a computer that had any chance of having power.
Any other good advice?
 

skolpo

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Sep 20, 2009
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The fan usually goes 100% on boot. You already solved your problem when you switched out the card and was able to boot. The card is bad. Return it.
 

ntippet

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Oct 9, 2009
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The replacement card is working well.

This one does not start the fan at 100% on boot which is much nicer.

Not sure why there is a difference, but whatever.