Risk: After some googling, it turns at the capacitor that blew (C523) is part of the main power delivery for the GPU and it being blown should prevent the card from working; but it doesn’t. The card still boots and outputs video fine. It wouldn’t be under any load in the linux machine beyond handling outputs (no gaming or emulating) So is it worth the risk to run it under minimal load?
Fix: If it’s not worth the risk to run it, then what do I have to lose by putting my limited soldering skills to use and attempting a fix? The problem being I have no way to check the value of said cap.
Is there anybody that just happens to have a schematic of the Reference 780 PCB or knows/can know the value of this cap?
I thought of this originally but I’ve read that proving a cap still in circuit gives a less than accurate reading. And honestly, I’d probably fry the cap removing it.
Worst comes to worst, I’ll probably do what @Dje4321 said and remove the cap entirely. But I’m cautious because like I said, usually when that cap blows, the GPU stops functioning
Check to see if the cap failed dead short first. If it didnt then its safe to remove. If it did then it might be the only thing keeping the card running.