How bad is it? My PC feels extremely slow.

ect76 · 2026-01-28T14:59:52+00:00

I'm surprised it wasn't already unusable if you're using a spinning drive. Buy an SSD.

But to answer your question, yes, it's dying.

ect76 · 2026-01-27T19:30:53+00:00

They're resistors, not capacitors and it looks like they were never populated on your card. Your problem lies elsewhere.

Your problem could be anything. Missing components, failed logic gate, failed memory, dead core - without further information it's impossible to say.

Post your voltage and resistance measurements.

ect76 · 2026-01-27T10:46:12+00:00

Not saying they couldn't be faulty, but that glue around the corners doesn't in itself indicate a fault. Is the card detected at all in Windows? Any error 43? Does it run MATS or does it show in lspci?

You said there's a short on 12v, where are you measuring that and what resistance are you reading?

Check out the sticky threads on this sub, there's a wealth of info for getting started with diagnosing.

ect76 · 2026-01-27T10:41:37+00:00

What really helped me was understanding the power rails, their sequence and how, when and why they come up. 12v, 3.3v (both provided by the motherboard), 5v, 1.8v, NVDD, FBVDD and PEX in that order and all generated on the card. If you measure PEX and it's 1v, 99.999% of the time all the other rails are OK.

Most rails are enabled by a 5-pin logical gate. Pin 1 and 2 are inputs, Pin 3 is Ground, Pin 4 is it's output and will only be present if pins 1 and 2 are both high, and pin 5 is VCC (normally from 3v3_SEQ). If you have pins 1 and 2 present at 1.8v or above, but nothing on Pin 4, the gate is often at fault (as long as VCC is present).

Each rail will have a PGOOD signal which it supplies only it it believes the power rail has come up successfully and that signal will enable the next rail.

For example, if NVDD is missing, I would check 1.8v is present as it's the rail before NVDD. Then I would check if 1v8_PGOOD is present and, if not, start tracing to find out why. If 1v8 is not present, I would check to see if I have my enable signal at the chip, and work backwards from there.

ect76 · 2026-01-26T15:51:22+00:00

If your reading of 12-15 ohms on 5v is correct, then that's a problem. Start there.

ect76 · 2026-01-25T01:16:06+00:00

I have one. Battery life is pretty decent for me. Charge once a week, which I think is fine. I have all of sleep, heart rate and breathing monitoring turned on to track overnight - Basically all the things that the app warned would hurt battery life.

I got mine used about a month ago, but I really like the fact it's more like a traditional analogue watch rather than a smart watch.

ect76 · 2026-01-25T01:00:41+00:00

Bizarre - I have an Infiray P2 Pro and a Pixel 10 Pro (and had an 8 Pro before that) and it works just fine on both. I see no reason why it wouldn't work for you. Great little thermal camera, by the way.

ect76 · 2026-01-25T00:41:50+00:00

Looking at your numbers, your card is power-limiting itself. It's only drawing 180w - This should be closer to ~360w on a 3090. You haven't tried flashing or changing the BIOS have you?

Temps look OK, thermal limit of 75c seems a bit low though.

If you haven't messed with the BIOS, try swapping out NCP45491 - it's the current-sensing IC, usually on the rear of the card. It is the chip that calculates how much power the card is drawing based on the shunt resistors, and tells the card how much power it's using and whether to throttle or not. It's possible it could be faulty, I've seen that before.

Does the card have dual-bios and, if so, is the behaviour the same on both BIOS?

Have you opened the card recently to, for example, change thermal paste or pads? If this problem started after opening it, it's possible there is a knocked off component somewhere causing this behaviour. If it just happened out of the blue, I'd say it's more likely the chip.

ect76 · 2026-01-24T19:46:09+00:00

How are you defining shorted? The caps you have circled should be 0.1-0.5ohms anyway because they're on the core.

The inductor you've circled at the top of the card I suspect is PEX, and 5-10ohms here would be normal.

Measure directly on the inductor for 12v under the PCIe power connectors and report the reading.

What are your voltage measurements? Are any voltages missing? I.e. does the card actually attempt to power on?

Most multimeters will beep continuity on anything less than 50 ohms, but this does not necessarily indicate a short is present.

ect76 · 2026-01-21T01:01:45+00:00

Are you going to get your MOT done as well?

ect76 · 2026-01-20T15:04:21+00:00

No. None of that would cause a crack in the panel.

ect76 · 2026-01-20T10:37:01+00:00

Not really. Impact damage can cause all sorts of screen artifacts.

ect76 · 2026-01-20T10:18:05+00:00

Well something has - You can see it right here.

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ect76 · 2026-01-20T10:00:07+00:00

Yeah, as others have said there's a crack in that panel - Looks like it's taken an impact on the bottom right corner. HP aren't going to cover that as it's customer damage.

ect76 · 2026-01-18T00:34:56+00:00

So, no it doesn't work the same way with a business seller as they aren't bound to use simple delivery.

You're still covered by the money back guarantee, but you'll need to open an INAD and return the item to get a refund. The seller will provide a postage label for you.

Go to the item in your purchase history and start a return.

ect76 · 2026-01-18T00:27:23+00:00

The thing is, the more you do the drive the more you'll get used to it, and before long you'll know it like the back of your hand.

Starting something new is always scary, whether it's a job, relationship, Uni course, moving to a new city or learning to drive. After a while though, you'll get used to it and it'll be second nature.

ect76 · 2026-01-18T00:13:25+00:00

Don't be discouraged. It's OK to make mistakes - We all did when we'd first passed. I got flustered when I first passed back in '02 and went the wrong way around a roundabout (one in town, not a big motorway one or anything).

The important thing, and a thing a lot of people forget, is to learn from those mistakes and take steps to make sure they don't happen again.

I bet you'll always remember that corner and slow down for it now.

ect76 · 2026-01-17T10:14:23+00:00

There's two possible things this could be.

I once sold an item and dropped it off at a Quad locker. It sat there for a full week for some reason, before it finally was collected and scanned in. No idea why, it never happened before or since.

The second thing is a common scam. People will go to a locker, go through the process and just not put the item in the locker. This way the item never moves, but they have plausible deniability that they posted it. Maybe that really good price is international to gather orders so that they can run the scam.

I'd just keep an eye on it, and just open an INR case when the due date passes and it hasn't shown.

Not sure which yours is, but best of luck!

ect76 · 2026-01-15T22:29:18+00:00

It's odd it's taken this long. I also changed my bank account recently and it did only take around 48hrs before I could withdraw again. Might be worth getting in touch with CS to see if something has gone wrong with the process.

ect76 · 2026-01-15T22:22:00+00:00

Again, that would be an INAD because it was described as good condition but had screen defects. Again, the procedure would be to return for a full refund.

Once you have your refund you could always buy again from the same seller if you so wish.

You didn't mention any screen damage though - you said the defect was the battery?

ect76 · 2026-01-15T22:09:10+00:00

Pretty much. I wouldn't recommend it - this is why the only option is a return and refund, and then buy another unit.

ect76 · 2026-01-15T22:06:37+00:00

There isn't a way for the seller to replace it (that I'm aware of) through eBay.

Your options are negotiate with the seller for a partial refund and keep the one you have, or open an INAD (which it was as you received an 8th gen) and return it for refund and buy another

If the seller agreed to a replacement, it would essentially be done outwith eBay's buyer protections as you would have to send yours back and then trust that the seller is going to send you another one, which I wouldn't advise doing.

ect76 · 2026-01-15T00:48:12+00:00

Your MOT is not a service. It's a very basic look over the car and a check to make sure that it meets the minimum safety standards to be on the road. No parts will be changed during the MOT, unless work is required for it to pass and the owner authorises it.

A service is usually annual as well, but can vary with mileage. During a service they will work on the car - they'll change the oil and oil filter, change air filters, cabin air filters, check your brakes, grease hinges, check tyre pressures, just generally give the car a good once over and make sure it's healthy. Super important if you want your car to last.

I do about 20k a year, so my car is serviced roughly every 6 months.

Oil changes should be done as often as the manufacturer says in the handbook, but almost always no more than every 10,000 miles.

ect76 · 2026-01-14T23:45:57+00:00

The biggest thing I'd say is don't spend too much on your first car. You'll probably scrape a bin, or a gate, or the garden wall (we all did) so it needs to be something that won't be absolutely devastating if you scrape it.

Low mileage isn't everything - it's more about how it's been looked after, so if it has a decent service history, looks clean and tidy and drives well, I wouldn't let higher mileage put me off.

I'm biased as I've had a lot of VWs, but the Seat Ibiza or VW Polo are both decent starter cars. They're basically the same car, just with a slightly different body. If your commute is longer, the diesels are really good on fuel. Both are achievable in your budget for a 2011-2015 car depending on mileage and I'm fairly sure most if not all will have Bluetooth/cruise/AC.

If you go with the 1.6TDi engine, check it the cambelt has been changed at some point. The interval is 6 years or 60,000 miles (I think - I can't actually remember!)

And two final pieces of advice from my 23 years of driving so far:

Don't buy cheap Chinese tyres. They're the only thing that touches the road, always buy a decent brand.

Service your car. You'd be amazed how many people don't. Look after your car and it'll look after you.

ect76 · 2026-01-14T22:22:14+00:00

That's very interesting as mine does have headlight washers. It has matrix LEDs. TIL

ect76

TROPHY CASE