Legendary dad fixes their kid's dead RTX 3070 by ripping the capacitor out of an old radio and slapping it on the side, saving over $100 in the process

Stara škola električara – najbolja
from r/SerbiaGaming

It’s never nice to have to replace your old hardware, but with the memory crisis in full swing, it has become more and more painful to watch old hardware break down. That’s why it’s particularly nice to see people save their old hardware with a little ingenuity, and one Redditor’s dad used a whole heaping of it recently.

As spotted by Tom’s Hardware, user External_Length_8877 took to the SerbiaGaming subreddit recently to share that their dad ripped a capacitor from an old radio to replace the broken one in their RTX 3070, saving 12,000 dinars (around $115) in the process.

In the process, the dad also swapped out the thermal paste for one used on high-voltage lines, and the original poster claims, “Now it runs better than before the repair.”

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The only downside so far is that the capacitor from the radio is bulkier than the original capacitor, so it now hangs outside of the GPU. That means you can see it noticeably on the side, and it also means it may struggle in a super tight case, but one can expect some hits to performance if your parts are super cramped anyway.

The Redditor claims the GPU hits “No more than 80 °C during Spider-Man on ultra graphics settings without frame generation. Maximum load—up to 99% on GPU and CPU. And temperatures—no more than 80 °C on GPU and 75 °C on CPU.”

Those aren’t exactly low figures, but the Redditor claims they were going above 100 °C during stress and 80 °C+ without stress prior to the swap. It seems like the paste is the real winner here. But the important thing is that the GPU works now.

And, I personally like the DIY angle of jamming in your own capacitor, even if it makes the card look less clean. There are likely very few people in the world who can claim the GPU running Spider-Man has been operated on by their dad.

Nvidia RTX 3070 Founders Edition

(Image credit: Future)

Still, External_Length_8877 claims it’s only a “temporary solution” while they look for a capacitor with the same size and dimensions as the original they lost.

Though at-home repairs can also be a bit risky, the one silver lining of the memory crisis is that more people are learning to fix their own gear and caring more about repairability. If taking apart a radio and learning about GPUs will save you up to hundreds of dollars, it’s a great skill to hone. And there’s absolutely charm in your GPU looking just a little DIY.