Capacitor problems?

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m0gely
Posts: 32
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 6:01 pm

Capacitor problems?

Post by m0gely »

Saw this posted on /.
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/11/04/1 ... ml?tid=137
h**p://home.att.net/~garyheadlee/index.html <- old

Added on 2003-02-06
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/re ... /ncap.html

Added on 2003-10-21
http://www.motherboardrepair.com/ <- use this instead of the att.net url posted above

They don't mention the BP6 but well all know the truth :) And they have replacement kits for purchase that include instructions! I see alot of info in there that ditto's problems I have seen on this board. Maybe this will help some of you out. It should also be noted that these problems are not just related to Abit, nor to just motherboards.
Last edited by m0gely on Tue Oct 21, 2003 1:00 pm, edited 3 times in total.
- m0gely
http://quake2.telestream.com/
q2 | q3 | counter-strike

-=[ BP6|366's@550@1.95v|512M|30G RAID0|TNT2u|SBLive|Win2K3 ]=-
m0gely
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Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 6:01 pm

Post by m0gely »

sithscripter wrote:After going through two Abit boards in two years I've gone Gigabyte/MSI. I hope their production engineering department can back up their design engineers and turn their slump around.
Yeah. My first Abit was a TX-5. It was a great board. And my BP6 has been better to me than most have been to others. But now even it is starting to crack with a blown fan header and a brand new intolerant attitude towards XP/2K. I have seen too many Abit boards function weird or just plain fail, to consider using them or recommending them to friends. I was very happy to read about that PC Health beep problem the guy in the article mentioned. I have seen two Abit boards do that and I never new what it was! ERRR! It must be a gut punch to Abit though to have a crowd like some of those here at BP6.com reverse engineer their mobo so the many problems could be fixed. What a role for the customers eh? I suppose it also says alot to the dedication of a few to a board that began inexpensive smp.
- m0gely
http://quake2.telestream.com/
q2 | q3 | counter-strike

-=[ BP6|366's@550@1.95v|512M|30G RAID0|TNT2u|SBLive|Win2K3 ]=-
Derek
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Post by Derek »

Well, what happens to your BP6? Doesn't start or beep?
Blueneko
aka Gabumon
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Post by Blueneko »

wow, you guys seem to have problems with boards, ive had approximately 3 abit boards that were said to be *dead* two bp6's and one vp6 but nothing was wrong with them, only a cmos bios battery, and a good cleaning. Everyboard ive come across is 100% functional and dosent need to be thrown away, it was just miserable with the owner, thats all....
Ive also had 4 tyan trinity 400 boards that were deemed *dead* and they werent broken either. only a bios flash thats gone bad. or pins are mushed together that are used to hold the cmos jumper in place.
Ive come across several computer parts and only have had problems with hard drives, cd-roms, and floppy drives. nothing else has ever given me a headache.

Just luck or the skill and knowhow?
=)
m0gely
Posts: 32
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 6:01 pm

Post by m0gely »

gabumon wrote:Just luck or the skill and knowhow?=)
I would say luck. My 2 abit boards never gave me any problems untill my bp6 just recently. But I have seen and heard of MANY from multiple sources that say otherwise. It is a well known fact that abit has a quality control problem. This is not debatable. The EC10 problem on the BP6 for example, or the VTT problems, or the AGP/GF2 problems. Those are just the BP6 and I could go on. And then to see this article on slashdot (yet another 3rd party source) to confirm all this even more. Most of these problems can be fixed by people going out and getting replacement parts that are of higher quality than the ones that came on the board.

It's not to say that your claims are invalid. your "skill" did award you with some good boards that I'm sure you got for a really good price if you paid at all. But the people who have had problems on this forum, at least for many, were not due to a "lack" of skill at all.
- m0gely
http://quake2.telestream.com/
q2 | q3 | counter-strike

-=[ BP6|366's@550@1.95v|512M|30G RAID0|TNT2u|SBLive|Win2K3 ]=-
RRLedford
HPT IS EVIL!
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Post by RRLedford »

m0gely,

What's with the AGP/GF2 problems you refer to in your post?

I'm about to put a my 3rd GF2 series vid card in my 3rd BP6. They are all P-III/1100E@110MHz=>1.21GHZ
This one is the Personal Cinema model that's a GF2-MX400/64MB plus TiVo like recording & TV tuner in a break out box that connects to the card.
I've had no obvious problems with the (2) GF2s already in use - an MX200/64MB & an MX400/64MB. Do you think this is a risky upgrade choice? This PC is my main peer-2-peer file server & Internet connection sharing PC. It also runs a SCSI scanner & serial Wacom tablet. It gets a lot of use as a gaming PC too. Any thoughts?
m0gely
Posts: 32
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 6:01 pm

Post by m0gely »

RRLedford wrote:m0gely,

What's with the AGP/GF2 problems you refer to in your post?
Well, I can say this is one problem I had with my BP6 as well. I had a TNT2 in there previously. At the time, I was running NT4. I just put the card in, and went to play some Q3 (of course). The game would lock the machine hard within a couple seconds to maybe 30. But it always locked up. I looked on the old forums here and saw other people having the same problems. The resolve that worked for most was to set the agp/cpu clock in the bios to 2/3 rather than 1/1. This worked for me and I was back up and gaming. The really weird thing was in my testing, I did a fresh install of NT. I installed the OS then then ONLY the video drivers and nothing else. It worked! I could game as long as I wanted. As soon as I added service pack 6, the problem came back. But other people were having the same problem in 2k as well.

I too used to wonder why so many people seamed to have all these problems. I felt so lucky my board seamed perfect. But as time went on, parts on my board are wearing out more and more. The one thing my board still does well at least is overclock. Look at my sig :). That's 550MHz at 1.95v, not 2, or 2+. No lapping, no $70 heatsinks, no water cooling. Temps are around 34C at idle and get to 42C or so under gaming load.

In the order of failure for my rev 1.0 BP6:
1. GF2/AGP Problem - common
2. PS2 ports intermittant failure - some what common, thank God for USB or that would have been it right there.
3. CPU #2 Fan header failure - some what common
4. No longer am able to install Win2k - not sure how common and I haven't tried XP on it.

At least I never had to replace any caps or voltage regulators. Then again, maybe I should looking at my list above.
- m0gely
http://quake2.telestream.com/
q2 | q3 | counter-strike

-=[ BP6|366's@550@1.95v|512M|30G RAID0|TNT2u|SBLive|Win2K3 ]=-
RRLedford
HPT IS EVIL!
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Post by RRLedford »

Well, I shouldn't say I've had no problems with GF2 cards.
My kids got Dungeon Siege recently, and the 2nd of my (3) BP6-P-III/1100E systems was locking up a few minutes into the game with the GF2-MX400/64MB card. I palyed around & downloaded the latest Detonator 30.82 driver to no avail. Then last nite I see that the Detonator series is already up to 40.72 with the WinXp drivers. So, what the heck, I download & install it on the troubled BP6 & just like that - Dungeon Seige is working fine!

Now, all this time, my 1st BP6 with the GF2-MX200/64MB card was working fine.
InactiveX
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Post by InactiveX »

IIRC, the BP6 didn't mind MX Geforce chipsets, just the faster GF2s.

There was a fix posted by zetetic on the old board.
Derek
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Post by Derek »

The old message board :( I need to get that up again.
m0gely
Posts: 32
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 6:01 pm

Post by m0gely »

InactiveX wrote:IIRC, the BP6 didn't mind MX Geforce chipsets, just the faster GF2s.

There was a fix posted by zetetic on the old board.
The threads I remember were specifically about the MX cards, which was also the card I had trouble with at the time.
- m0gely
http://quake2.telestream.com/
q2 | q3 | counter-strike

-=[ BP6|366's@550@1.95v|512M|30G RAID0|TNT2u|SBLive|Win2K3 ]=-
Wolfram
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Post by Wolfram »

I found the following on

http://www.abit.com.tw/abitweb/webjsp/g ... patibel%3F

...only in German- did not find it on the Abit Global or US Site. It applies only to boards with SoftMenu III (not the BP6)... but who knows?

Here´s a translation from Google (too lazy to correct it :D ):

2002/03/09 nVIDIA GeForce 2 maps are actually incompatible with some ABIT Motherboards? ABITs first four soft menu? III models (Be6-ii, BF6, KA7, Ka7-100) are provided with a special PWM cycle, with this are GeForce 2 diagram maps (both GTS and MX) indeed incompatible with these maps can it while a cold raising to the fact come that the diagram map is not correctly initialized. With ABIT we are to be untestuetzen the problem and frustration with the Anwerder consciously, if older Main boards are not able, newest components. By making some changes at the Kapazitoren on the Main board, we were able this interference behaviour of the PWM and dadruch incompatibility caused to repair. Therefore this problem on the current Main boards is no longer present (this applies to the Bx133-raid, KT7, and all other after July 2000 manufactured products). If it an older version soft menu? III boards have, and with the Main board this problems to experience should, turn you please to the next ABIT address for a correction of the Kapazitors on your board.
BP6, RU BIOS, XP SP3, ACPI, 2x366@523(1,95V), Pentalpha HS + 1x 12cm fan @5V, 768MB, Powercolor Geforce 3, RTL8139D NIC, Terratec EWS64L, Samsung M40 80GB (2,5''), LiteOn CDRW
RRLedford
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Post by RRLedford »

OK, I took the plunge & installed the GF2-MX400/Personal Cinema card in my main BP6. It already has P-III/1100E@1.2GHz/512MB/60G/Promise-100/Adaptec 2910 SCSI/Pioneer SCSI DVD/LS-120 SuperFloppy/Liteon IDE 48-12-48 burner/SB Live! 5.1 Platinum/NetGear 10-100LAN/UMAX 1200S scanner/Wacom serial 3x5 tablet/USB KB-Mouse-Modem/WInXP-Pro-NTFS.*** I decided to install a new Adaptec USB 2.0 card at the same time (in the last free PCI slot).
The latest XP drivers were pre-downloaded to the hdisk, and as soon is I installed them & rebooted - lock ups & disk errors started happening Big Time.

Every shutdown put up an error about file corruption too briefly to read it all. Chkdsk would run on restart almost every time. I was seeing a major crash heading my way & decided to pull the USB card first - too many changes at once is not a good thing to do.
Removing the USB 2.0 helped alot. Then I struggled for two days to get the right Windows WDM drivers to load & initialize the TV tuner H/W. Finally, I have a TIVO in my BP6! TV tuning works well, though the S/W is a bit clunky. For current street price of $89 - this is a good value upgrade for the BP6. Now I need to get another 120G Hdisk to record on.
e.lectronick
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Sep 03, 2002 6:06 pm
Location: New York City

How Difficult is it to perform your own "recap"?

Post by e.lectronick »

Hey, I was just over at http://home.att.net/~garyheadlee/ to read up on the capacitor failure repair procedure, and he says in his FAQ:
"Q-Can I attempt to repair the board myself?
A-If you have considerable soldering skills and are up to date on multilayer "through hole" soldering techniques, Yes!"

OK, so I don't know what all that means, but I've soldered old tube amps in my time without any trouble, and I suspect he's just making it sound harder than it is.
What does multilayer "through hole" soldering mean, anyway? Are there traces *in between* layers of the motherboard that would need to be soldered? How difficult could it be?
-Erik.
"Who put the Tribbles in the Quadrotriticale?"
m0gely
Posts: 32
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 6:01 pm

Post by m0gely »

There are traces in the layers, but I don't see it being too difficult. As long as you understand that and have enough common sense to do a good job, all should be well. Just tin the leads up really good and try to remove as little solder as possible when removing the old components. It should be pretty easy. If it doesn't work, you just go down to the local TV repair shop and have the guy there patch up your job. How much can they charge you?
- m0gely
http://quake2.telestream.com/
q2 | q3 | counter-strike

-=[ BP6|366's@550@1.95v|512M|30G RAID0|TNT2u|SBLive|Win2K3 ]=-
e.lectronick
Posts: 16
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Location: New York City

BP6 VP6 Capacitor upgrade tutorial!!!

Post by e.lectronick »

http://www.kabalsrealm.com/systems/projects/vp6

This is a link to an article I found a fellow named Overclocker had posted over on VP6-board.com

I think it answers all the quesitions I had, and it might help others over on this board do their BP6 mods themselves too.

It has given me enough confidence to try the repair myself. I hope someone here finds it useful

Thanks to all who have replied to my messages regarding this.
-E.
"Who put the Tribbles in the Quadrotriticale?"
Derek
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Post by Derek »

Found this site posted on the old message board:

http://www.fabyen.hu/bzd/

Okay first thing: How are you people still finding ways to get at the old message board.

Two: Why, oh, why are you still posting there!

Thanks for your attention :D
Wolfram
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Post by Wolfram »

Hungarian, hu? Looks interesting... just wonder why he took all pics from different angles ;)?
BP6, RU BIOS, XP SP3, ACPI, 2x366@523(1,95V), Pentalpha HS + 1x 12cm fan @5V, 768MB, Powercolor Geforce 3, RTL8139D NIC, Terratec EWS64L, Samsung M40 80GB (2,5''), LiteOn CDRW
InactiveX
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Post by InactiveX »

InterTran made a pig's ear of translating it for me:

"The prior to one mouthful UNISEX US1050-es cracking IC lett"

"That's why something like not ússza plus, one 72 watch-maker's sweaty Memtest run yet reserve the to him..."

Hmmmm...... My grandmother is Hungarian. Wonder if she'll translate it?
Wolfram
Posts: 401
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2002 3:19 am
Location: Germany

Post by Wolfram »

InactiveX wrote:InterTran made a pig's ear of translating it for me:

"The prior to one mouthful UNISEX US1050-es cracking IC lett"

"That's why something like not ússza plus, one 72 watch-maker's sweaty Memtest run yet reserve the to him..."

Hmmmm...... My grandmother is Hungarian. Wonder if she'll translate it?
Well... my wife´s family also has their roots in Hungary. But I doubt there´s anything left but her admittedly pepper hot temper...
BP6, RU BIOS, XP SP3, ACPI, 2x366@523(1,95V), Pentalpha HS + 1x 12cm fan @5V, 768MB, Powercolor Geforce 3, RTL8139D NIC, Terratec EWS64L, Samsung M40 80GB (2,5''), LiteOn CDRW
g0fvt
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Post by g0fvt »

I have posted elsewhere that my capacitor replacement on BP and VP has been successful.

I have read various articles regarding the replacement procedure, we all have pet ways of component changing.

I found it was very easy to remove the capacitors on each board, however I must admit that clearing the solder from the holes was easier with assistance... a desoldering pump on one side of the board and a hot iron applied to the other, note you may need to add a little solder to get the heatflow.

In my case I did not change the voltage regulator for VTT, part of the problem is that this regulator is operating very close to it's drop out voltage... ie the voltage output is very close to the voltage input.
Yoichiro addresses this in his P111 conversion... sorry can't remember the URL.

With all the larger value capacitors replaced with 4700uF including EC10 mine is a happy BP again.

For what it is worth the capacitors failed rapidly in the course of a month or so the machine went from being a bit crashy to showing visible signs of capacitor damage to failing to boot... it has been hammered for about 2 years so I was surprised to see it go down hill so fast.
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