My friend told me that his graphics card might be broken. It was displaying artifacts. It had happened before, and he fixed it by blowing it with a hairdryer. It happens occasionally.
I asked him how long he had been using it, and he said it was about a 14-year-old graphics card.
He is currently using an integrated GPU from his CPU. Just making do.
A couple of days later, he gave me the graphics card to take a look. I opened it up for a simple test, cleaned the dust, and wiped the gold fingers. Out of laziness, I didn't test it on the machine (dodged a bullet?).
The next day when he came to pick it up, the problem was still there. I asked him to take a picture and send it to me. When I saw the picture, I realized that the so-called artifacts were not the kind of colorful garbled text that I understood. His artifacts had some horizontal white dots. Another symptom was that it would black out.
Hearing about the blackouts, I thought it was a power supply issue with the graphics card. He couldn't use it anymore. He said to help him sell it as second-hand. I said okay.
The next day when I got the card, I thought a broken card would be around 60. A good card would be 150 or higher. I couldn't tell if the graphics card itself had power issues without an oscilloscope; I could only check if the core was shorted, but there might be other methods. I didn't see anything in the videos, so I estimated.
I directly swapped it into my big case for testing. That big case has a 450-watt power supply. I usually keep my assembled computers under 450 watts. I think anything more is just wasting electricity.
However, if you use a new, powerful computer to make money, like a 1000-watt power supply, and you improve your earning efficiency, that's understandable. Or if you have money and really have nowhere to spend it, buying a 1000-watt computer to play games every day, providing emotional value and promoting family harmony, is also fine.
If you say you bought a 1000-watt computer because of the heat, to keep warm in winter, and connected a ventilation pipe to the case's exhaust to warm your hands, I can only say that's quite clever.
Back to the point. I took out my old Sapphire graphics card. The card lock was really tight, and the gap between the graphics card and the CPU cooler was about 4 cm. This graphics card is an old antique with three fans and comes with a backplate. But its performance is not even as good as an AMD integrated GPU. The law of diminishing returns for discrete graphics cards is also becoming more pronounced; they are getting smaller and stronger. When I was using an iPhone 4, I said I would wait until I could play StarCraft 1 on a phone before I changed my phone. About 4.5 to 5 years later, someone actually installed Windows on a phone and played StarCraft.
I also wished that when integrated graphics on desktops could play StarCraft 2, I would change my computer. I did change it, but it was just for power saving; I got a second-hand i3 10100 CPU upgrade. But the GPU was weak. I could only play Warcraft 3. Playing Civilization VI felt not so smooth. But it's good to reduce gaming time.
Continuing on. The gap was small, so I usually found a complete pencil to poke it; any tool that can control the force well can be used. I feel using wood is a bit safer. I opened the card lock, took out the graphics card, and replaced it with my friend's graphics card. It lit up, and after ten minutes everything was normal. I thought I would run a stress test. Then I started it for a minute, and I remembered my power supply's wattage, so I quickly checked my phone's JD order, and it was indeed 450 watts. I bought it in 2014. I quickly closed the stress test. I found no issues. After watching for about ten minutes without problems, I contacted my friend, saying the graphics card was fine, and his power supply was probably broken. The graphics card could be sold for more money.
I put my graphics card back in. I started the computer and watched the tutorial for Civilization VI. I was about to shut down and leave, but while checking information, I saw an unfinished label and clicked to continue watching. It took about ten minutes to finish.
As it was about to finish, my computer screen also showed the snowflakes from my friend's photo; the screen went black for a second, then blacked out again for a second, but it felt a bit longer, then blacked out for about two seconds. I picked up my phone to record the screen to show my friend, and I checked the case; it was indeed my own graphics card. My friend saw it and said it looked exactly like his. He told me to shut down quickly while it was still lit, or the time would get longer. So I shut it down.
I wondered if there was a virus, so I booted up and scanned for ten minutes; there were no issues.
I thought the power supply was damaged.
Should I buy another second-hand power supply? I had previously bought a 550-watt one.
In summary: my friend's computer only needs the integrated graphics to work; the CPU power supply, motherboard power supply, and hard drive power supply can stabilize it. This indicates that these circuit parts are normal.
His normal operation does not mean mine is also normal; I can only swap and test.
Using a 550-watt power supply for my integrated graphics is also wasteful. It's just right to test the overall performance of the second-hand 550-watt power supply.
The worst-case scenario for swapping power supplies is that neither works, and the best is that both do.
The 450-watt SeaSonic power supply is still semi-modular. I swapped it into the integrated graphics computer, and it felt quite refreshing. It booted up, and after an hour of standby, there were no abnormalities.
The 550-watt power supply was installed in my old discrete graphics computer, and after running the stress test for half an hour, there were no issues. The only problem was the fan noise. Now when I see the fan, I think of maintenance issues, which is also why I consider integrated graphics. Integrated graphics usually have three fans: one for the case, one for the CPU, and one for the power supply (if changed to a transformer type, it can be reduced by one; some say it could boom). AMD's box size is good for everything. However, I feel the cooling is relatively poor; modifying the cooling would require cutting the box. Additionally, I prefer mechanical hard drives. So I still want to buy an AMD integrated graphics desktop. However, mobile integrated graphics are indeed strong and cost-effective. The above considerations are for second-hand items, not new ones. I look at new ones only for mechanical hard drives. Everything else is second-hand.
The LED temperature of the graphics card is about 40 degrees, and all three fans start running. If it's on standby or watching videos, only two fans start. It's about 20 degrees.
After all this tinkering, it seems I saved myself from buying another second-hand power supply. I'll observe for now. It feels like I'm not fully released; it's just a temporary break. Haha.