http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/re ... /ncap.html
Thanks goes out to InactiveX for posting the link.
Edit: And thanks to m0gely for posting it before InactiveX
I guess I'm blind...Derek
Faulty Capacitors
Moderator: News Team
Faulty Capacitors
Some interesting reading for you folks:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/re ... /ncap.html
Thanks goes out to InactiveX for posting the link.
Edit: And thanks to m0gely for posting it before InactiveX I guess I'm blind...
Derek
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/re ... /ncap.html
Thanks goes out to InactiveX for posting the link.
Edit: And thanks to m0gely for posting it before InactiveX
I guess I'm blind...Derek
It is an Interesting topic, as I just went through such a failure. I had an ECS D6VAA that started having problems. At the time it was dual booting Win2k and linux. The Linux would not boot but the Windoze would. I tried reinstalling but it would lock up. I did the old pull each card until it works and had no success. Then I was just sitting there looking at it and noticed almost every cap was swollen. Having done a bunch of TV repair, I knew this was the problem. The board was 2days out of warantee when I called ECS. they would not even talk to me. I got off the Phone and ordered a TYan to replace the ECS. I also won't be buying any ECS boards very soon either.
I am going to replace all the caps on the board from Mouser Electronics and see what it will do. It should be ok since it was booting and running windoze ok. I let you know
I am going to replace all the caps on the board from Mouser Electronics and see what it will do. It should be ok since it was booting and running windoze ok. I let you know
Haven't seen this on my BP6, but I've been replacing caps left and right on other boards:
MSI 694D
Abit KT7 RAID
Shuttle SV25
MSI K7 Master
All are Via Chipset so far no problems with my BX/LX/EX/GX, i815 boards.
I've been getting replacement caps from www.newark.com and Digi-key.com. Been tough finding the exact size in the combination of physical and rated value, so I've improvised a few values. I figure most of the boards were working when I pulled them out just having trouble booting or spontaneous reboots so a non-exploded cap of just about any size is better than a exploded leaky cap.
MSI 694D
Abit KT7 RAID
Shuttle SV25
MSI K7 Master
All are Via Chipset so far no problems with my BX/LX/EX/GX, i815 boards.
I've been getting replacement caps from www.newark.com and Digi-key.com. Been tough finding the exact size in the combination of physical and rated value, so I've improvised a few values. I figure most of the boards were working when I pulled them out just having trouble booting or spontaneous reboots so a non-exploded cap of just about any size is better than a exploded leaky cap.
Hello All! My BP6 has went bonkers again.
Hello fellow BPSixers!
This is my first post here and my 4 year old BP6 is beginning to show its age.
Last week, I disassembled my box to do some routine maintenance. Getting rid of dust bunnies and basically dusting the machine down. My Global Win Heat sinks are especially dirty, filled with months of dust and gunk. I've been doing this once every few months with no trouble. Since last year, I have migrated all my parts to a new and bigger PC casing with side and top blow holes and a new Enermax 430w PSU. And I have installed up to 9 fans keeping my 466@525mhz Celerons cool. My Dual Celerys and BP6 has served me well over the past 4 years but once it compeletly went dead for a few days and miraculously revived itself. That was about 2 years ago. Prior to last week's failure, it was still running fine.
I was aware of the Bad capacitors problem for a while now, but I did nothing as I believe in don't fix anything if it still works. The capacitors circling the CPUs are busted, bulging and with electolyte residue staining the legs. The funny thing is that they were busted since the first time it refused to boot and after it started to work again, I decided not to touch it. But now after my spring cleaning, my BP6 will inexplicably reset itself or it will not post. I mean I can still get it to boot if I'm persisent by booting and rebooting till I get to the desktop(I'm using XP pro) but this is getting very annoying. My BP6 currently is my home's fileserver, printserver and I run it for days while downloading goodies from the internet.
Luckily for me, my elder brother works at a electronics lab customizing PCB test equipment and he has the resources to repair my motherboard. I also had experience assisting him in reparing my friend's MSI motherboard at his lab (also suffering from bad caps). So this Saturday, I'm going with my Bro to purchase some capacitors at our local electonics parts store and replace the fried caps. I will keep you guys updated once the work is done. I am pretty confident that replacing the caps will fix my BP6.
Oh yeah, my friend's MSI motherboard my brother repaired now works great! It even boots faster now. I will try to post some pictures here.
This is my first post here and my 4 year old BP6 is beginning to show its age.
Last week, I disassembled my box to do some routine maintenance. Getting rid of dust bunnies and basically dusting the machine down. My Global Win Heat sinks are especially dirty, filled with months of dust and gunk. I've been doing this once every few months with no trouble. Since last year, I have migrated all my parts to a new and bigger PC casing with side and top blow holes and a new Enermax 430w PSU. And I have installed up to 9 fans keeping my 466@525mhz Celerons cool. My Dual Celerys and BP6 has served me well over the past 4 years but once it compeletly went dead for a few days and miraculously revived itself. That was about 2 years ago. Prior to last week's failure, it was still running fine.
I was aware of the Bad capacitors problem for a while now, but I did nothing as I believe in don't fix anything if it still works. The capacitors circling the CPUs are busted, bulging and with electolyte residue staining the legs. The funny thing is that they were busted since the first time it refused to boot and after it started to work again, I decided not to touch it. But now after my spring cleaning, my BP6 will inexplicably reset itself or it will not post. I mean I can still get it to boot if I'm persisent by booting and rebooting till I get to the desktop(I'm using XP pro) but this is getting very annoying. My BP6 currently is my home's fileserver, printserver and I run it for days while downloading goodies from the internet.
Luckily for me, my elder brother works at a electronics lab customizing PCB test equipment and he has the resources to repair my motherboard. I also had experience assisting him in reparing my friend's MSI motherboard at his lab (also suffering from bad caps). So this Saturday, I'm going with my Bro to purchase some capacitors at our local electonics parts store and replace the fried caps. I will keep you guys updated once the work is done. I am pretty confident that replacing the caps will fix my BP6.
Oh yeah, my friend's MSI motherboard my brother repaired now works great! It even boots faster now. I will try to post some pictures here.
Last edited by weeliano on Thu Jul 10, 2003 1:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
Pictures of my Busted BP6 caps
Here are the pictures of my Busted BP6 caps
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Hi Derek! Nice job maintaining this website! I was a regular visitor to the old BP6.com to download the latest hacks to my Twin Faithfuls.
As to what revision of the motherboard I'm using, I'm not sure exactly. Perhaps the picture below can help. All I know is that the motherboard was purchased in November 99'. I have upgraded the BIOS many times and the last one was the Hacked RU with the latest HPT366 bios. This bios also comes with a nice BP6 logo everytime I boot it up.
My Celerys are 466@525mhz and I use a pair of Global Win Ball bearing fans and Black heat sinks. Been running them for almost 3 and a half years now. I started running them at 466 for a few months, but then decided to overclock them and that's when I got my Global Wins. My BP6 ran on 128mb of ram then upgraded to 256mb. It used to have a 3Dlabs Oxygen 32mb card, now it runs on a Elsa Gladiac GeForce MX 32mb. I sold the 3Dlabs card to a friend. It was primarily used for doing 3D renderings and games and the Elsa is better at doing both. The PSU unit was changed about 2 years ago to a Enermax 430W as my old PSU was not delivering enough juice that led to stability problems. Prior to my BP6 having its first case of instability, I remembered smelling something like burning plastic or like fried electronic components. But like I said earlier, a few days after my system went poof, it revived itself and also partly I think after I changed to the Enermax PSU.
I really believe that having a good PSU can solve a lot of stability issues. The Enermax PSU is the best investment I had for my BP6.
I'll post new pictures once the new caps are installed and keep your fingers crossed, I hope to see my BP6 running as new again!
As to what revision of the motherboard I'm using, I'm not sure exactly. Perhaps the picture below can help. All I know is that the motherboard was purchased in November 99'. I have upgraded the BIOS many times and the last one was the Hacked RU with the latest HPT366 bios. This bios also comes with a nice BP6 logo everytime I boot it up.
My Celerys are 466@525mhz and I use a pair of Global Win Ball bearing fans and Black heat sinks. Been running them for almost 3 and a half years now. I started running them at 466 for a few months, but then decided to overclock them and that's when I got my Global Wins. My BP6 ran on 128mb of ram then upgraded to 256mb. It used to have a 3Dlabs Oxygen 32mb card, now it runs on a Elsa Gladiac GeForce MX 32mb. I sold the 3Dlabs card to a friend. It was primarily used for doing 3D renderings and games and the Elsa is better at doing both. The PSU unit was changed about 2 years ago to a Enermax 430W as my old PSU was not delivering enough juice that led to stability problems. Prior to my BP6 having its first case of instability, I remembered smelling something like burning plastic or like fried electronic components. But like I said earlier, a few days after my system went poof, it revived itself and also partly I think after I changed to the Enermax PSU.
I really believe that having a good PSU can solve a lot of stability issues. The Enermax PSU is the best investment I had for my BP6.
I'll post new pictures once the new caps are installed and keep your fingers crossed, I hope to see my BP6 running as new again!
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
My BP6 is back online!
Hi Derek!
I am very pleased to announce that our capacitor replacement is successful and my BP6 is operational again! And you can be sure I'm very very happy about it but not without some frustration that went before it. I am typing this now on my BP6 and so far so good.
Today, my brother and I spent nearly an hour searching for the right capacitors to replace the busted ones and boy were they difficult to find! In the end we had to use higher (16v) voltage capacitors with 1500 Micro Farad rating (The original capacitors were 6.3v 1500 microfarads). Back at my brother's lab we spent about half an hour removing the capacitors and boy were they busted bad! A few had its stuffing spilling out and it was an ugly sight. (I wanted to post pictures of the bad caps but I lost them on my way home together with a cmos battery and extra capacitors. I must have dropped them as they were in a small plastic bag. I had to buy another lithium battery as a result.)
The capacitor removal was easy but removing the old solder in the motherboard holes was another matter. It took some expert soldering skills from my brother and with my assistance with the solder sucker to remove the excess. We managed to remove the old solder without doing much damage to the mother board. As we proceed to install the new capacitors, I noticed that due to the larger diameter of the new caps, we had to leave them standing a little high so that it won't obstruct the CPU removal lever and the cooling heatsinks. You can see from the pictures below that the capacitors were way bigger than the older ones. My brother assured me that as long as we stick to the capacitance rating, the higher voltage is perfectly fine. Finally, we finished fixing the new caps onto the board and I was eager to set up everything once I hit home.
I was expecting everything to boot up fine when I installed the cables and components, but to my horror, my beloved BP6 did not boot up at all, not even any error beeps! It just stayed on power with all the devices on. I was sorely disappointed, I tried to isolate the problem by removing power from other devices but to no avail. I thought that was the end of my BP6. I went out with my brothers later to watch a movie (T3- I thought it was not bad) and I was thinking to myself how can I get my BP6 to work again, or should I just trash it and upgrade to a new CPU and motherboard. After the movie, I went straight to my BP6 and I tried this, I removed the CPUs and swapped their places. Then I double checked my connections and turned on the power and I heard long repeating beeps and I know that my BP6 is back!!!! I recognized the error beeps as the graphics card not being detected. I realized that I have screwed the board in too tight and twisted it slightly causing some pins not to connect. I loosened the graphics card and jiggled it a little and slowly ease in the screw without over tightening. And you know what! The familiar Graphics card info flashed before my monitor, the BP6 logo and the BIOS info all start to spring out and a positive "I'm Okay" single beep!
After resetting the BIOS settings to my old settings. I finally boot back to XP. The display was messed up but a reinstallation of the drivers fixed that. Right now I am very grateful to my brother for fixing my motherboard. It appears that my BP6 is not ready to go to the scrap heap up there yet! May it serve me well for a few more years!
Check out the pictures below!
I am very pleased to announce that our capacitor replacement is successful and my BP6 is operational again! And you can be sure I'm very very happy about it but not without some frustration that went before it. I am typing this now on my BP6 and so far so good.
Today, my brother and I spent nearly an hour searching for the right capacitors to replace the busted ones and boy were they difficult to find! In the end we had to use higher (16v) voltage capacitors with 1500 Micro Farad rating (The original capacitors were 6.3v 1500 microfarads). Back at my brother's lab we spent about half an hour removing the capacitors and boy were they busted bad! A few had its stuffing spilling out and it was an ugly sight. (I wanted to post pictures of the bad caps but I lost them on my way home together with a cmos battery and extra capacitors. I must have dropped them as they were in a small plastic bag. I had to buy another lithium battery as a result.)
The capacitor removal was easy but removing the old solder in the motherboard holes was another matter. It took some expert soldering skills from my brother and with my assistance with the solder sucker to remove the excess. We managed to remove the old solder without doing much damage to the mother board. As we proceed to install the new capacitors, I noticed that due to the larger diameter of the new caps, we had to leave them standing a little high so that it won't obstruct the CPU removal lever and the cooling heatsinks. You can see from the pictures below that the capacitors were way bigger than the older ones. My brother assured me that as long as we stick to the capacitance rating, the higher voltage is perfectly fine. Finally, we finished fixing the new caps onto the board and I was eager to set up everything once I hit home.
I was expecting everything to boot up fine when I installed the cables and components, but to my horror, my beloved BP6 did not boot up at all, not even any error beeps! It just stayed on power with all the devices on. I was sorely disappointed, I tried to isolate the problem by removing power from other devices but to no avail. I thought that was the end of my BP6. I went out with my brothers later to watch a movie (T3- I thought it was not bad) and I was thinking to myself how can I get my BP6 to work again, or should I just trash it and upgrade to a new CPU and motherboard. After the movie, I went straight to my BP6 and I tried this, I removed the CPUs and swapped their places. Then I double checked my connections and turned on the power and I heard long repeating beeps and I know that my BP6 is back!!!! I recognized the error beeps as the graphics card not being detected. I realized that I have screwed the board in too tight and twisted it slightly causing some pins not to connect. I loosened the graphics card and jiggled it a little and slowly ease in the screw without over tightening. And you know what! The familiar Graphics card info flashed before my monitor, the BP6 logo and the BIOS info all start to spring out and a positive "I'm Okay" single beep!
After resetting the BIOS settings to my old settings. I finally boot back to XP. The display was messed up but a reinstallation of the drivers fixed that. Right now I am very grateful to my brother for fixing my motherboard. It appears that my BP6 is not ready to go to the scrap heap up there yet! May it serve me well for a few more years!
Check out the pictures below!
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Last edited by weeliano on Sat Jul 12, 2003 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
Hi Derek, I told my brother what you said and he says "show me the schematic" jokingly. Nah, I don't think he'll want to modify the board for PIII CPUs. Anyway he reminded me that we already have two 2.4ghz P4s running in our home and besides, PC parts are so cheap right now.
I'm happy that my BP6 is back after being down for 1 week and I've grew so attached to it. Come to think of it, in another few months my BP6 and the CPUs will be 4 years old!
I'm happy that my BP6 is back after being down for 1 week and I've grew so attached to it. Come to think of it, in another few months my BP6 and the CPUs will be 4 years old!
So far so Good
Here is a screen shot of MBM in action showing my BP6 in its new speed rating. I am quite impressed by the temperatures of the CPUs, I think the cooling fans are doing their job well.
The System is running for the past 3 days continuosly at 545mhz without any problems whatsoever.
The System is running for the past 3 days continuosly at 545mhz without any problems whatsoever.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
dude
you get better temps than me
i get about 40C constantly and i have 500MHZ celerons OC'd to 563MHZ
of course i have facorty intel HSF's too....
you get better temps than me
i get about 40C constantly and i have 500MHZ celerons OC'd to 563MHZ
of course i have facorty intel HSF's too....
!!! WARNING !!!
The following forums: www.bp6.com
are infected with the following VIRUS(s): Kuun.infected.all.posts.Win2K.user
The following IRC servers has been exploited: irc.bp6.com
with the Following Exploit: Kuun.lurks.using.mIRC.v5.82.exploit
The following forums: www.bp6.com
are infected with the following VIRUS(s): Kuun.infected.all.posts.Win2K.user
The following IRC servers has been exploited: irc.bp6.com
with the Following Exploit: Kuun.lurks.using.mIRC.v5.82.exploit
It is alleged that a major motherboard manufacturer is being sued by a German box-shifter and a distributer over the faulty capacitor problem.
http://theinquirer.net/?article=13962
http://theinquirer.net/?article=13962
Like BP6.com? Not a member?
Then why the hell not? It's great!
-> BP6.com Membership <-
Then why the hell not? It's great!
-> BP6.com Membership <-
Hi to all.
My 3rd day since joining and posting again. That capacitor issue is interesting. Looks like BPSixers that are just now replaceing the caps are the luckiest. At least 4 ways to fix their boards.
1) Pay someone else by taking it or sending to a shop that charges.
2) Pay for a capkit and do it yourself. (Don't use radshak for this one)
3) Free use the Abit RMA. Loose the board for several weeks.
I did NOT contact Abit to confirm they still do RMAs on BP6.
4) Free contact Jackson for replacement caps and do it yourself. Don't know timeframe yet.
I didn't want to loose my board for 6 weeks(I just got it 2 weeks ago) so I didn't go with the Abit RMA route. Looks like that is a free repair done by experienced pros.
Before making a purchase of caps from motherboardrepair.com or badcaps.net I decided to try contacting Jackson. One of those websites mentioned that Jackson will send replacemetns. I logged onto the Jackson.com.tw website and got the email address of
jackcon@ms14.hinet.net
I stated that I had some leaking and some protruding and some normal looking caps on my Abit BP6. I gave a list of what badcaps.net includes in their replacement kit.
WOW
I emailed Jackson yesterday(I work nights) Monday maybe 3:00am. I checked my messages today, Monday 7:00pm and there was a reply from Jackson asking me to give them an address to ship replacements to!!!! I was supprised to get a response within only hours, infact even to get a response at all. I replied giving them an address, also I mentioned that I used someone elses inventory list and said if they had a kit for BP6 I would accept whatever they sent me.
I will post followups as this story unfolds. Lets see if Jackson comes through.
BTW, has anyone else done this route yet?
My 3rd day since joining and posting again. That capacitor issue is interesting. Looks like BPSixers that are just now replaceing the caps are the luckiest. At least 4 ways to fix their boards.
1) Pay someone else by taking it or sending to a shop that charges.
2) Pay for a capkit and do it yourself. (Don't use radshak for this one)
3) Free use the Abit RMA. Loose the board for several weeks.
I did NOT contact Abit to confirm they still do RMAs on BP6.
4) Free contact Jackson for replacement caps and do it yourself. Don't know timeframe yet.
I didn't want to loose my board for 6 weeks(I just got it 2 weeks ago) so I didn't go with the Abit RMA route. Looks like that is a free repair done by experienced pros.
Before making a purchase of caps from motherboardrepair.com or badcaps.net I decided to try contacting Jackson. One of those websites mentioned that Jackson will send replacemetns. I logged onto the Jackson.com.tw website and got the email address of
jackcon@ms14.hinet.net
I stated that I had some leaking and some protruding and some normal looking caps on my Abit BP6. I gave a list of what badcaps.net includes in their replacement kit.
WOW
I emailed Jackson yesterday(I work nights) Monday maybe 3:00am. I checked my messages today, Monday 7:00pm and there was a reply from Jackson asking me to give them an address to ship replacements to!!!! I was supprised to get a response within only hours, infact even to get a response at all. I replied giving them an address, also I mentioned that I used someone elses inventory list and said if they had a kit for BP6 I would accept whatever they sent me.
I will post followups as this story unfolds. Lets see if Jackson comes through.
BTW, has anyone else done this route yet?
There are *almost* no bad BP6s. There are mostly bad caps.
No BP6s remaining
Athlon 2800
Sempron 2000
ViaCPU laptop with Vista.(Works great after bumping ram to 2Gig)
P-III 850@100
No BP6s remaining
Athlon 2800
Sempron 2000
ViaCPU laptop with Vista.(Works great after bumping ram to 2Gig)
P-III 850@100
received on 3/1 from Jackson via snail mail:
15ea 6.3v 1500uf 8mm
15ea 10v 1000uf 8mm
NO CHARGE
Jackson is to be commended on their integrity in this situation.
15ea 6.3v 1500uf 8mm
15ea 10v 1000uf 8mm
NO CHARGE
Jackson is to be commended on their integrity in this situation.
Last edited by davd_bob on Wed Jan 05, 2005 3:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
There are *almost* no bad BP6s. There are mostly bad caps.
No BP6s remaining
Athlon 2800
Sempron 2000
ViaCPU laptop with Vista.(Works great after bumping ram to 2Gig)
P-III 850@100
No BP6s remaining
Athlon 2800
Sempron 2000
ViaCPU laptop with Vista.(Works great after bumping ram to 2Gig)
P-III 850@100
Like BP6.com? Not a member?
Then why the hell not? It's great!
-> BP6.com Membership <-
Then why the hell not? It's great!
-> BP6.com Membership <-
Remotely related:
A big sticker on the front of the box of my new Abit AV8 motherboard says (among other things):
"100 % Japanese Capacitors for Best Quality"
A big sticker on the front of the box of my new Abit AV8 motherboard says (among other things):
"100 % Japanese Capacitors for Best Quality"
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