sold a bad motherboard

[silvergoat]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

So it's also a possibility that replacing the cap will not fix it.....should have never bought used.

[silvergoat]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

This was the most similar cap I was able to find and I looked at numerous places. What do you guys think?

http://www.het-electronics.net/servl...icon-PM/Detail

I've been practicing removing capacitors from my old xbox, but I just can't seem to get them to heat up enough to come out- I tried heat gun plus soldering iron, and I tried to add a little solder to help conduct heat. No luck at all.

[shovenose]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

What wattage and type of soldering iron do yoyu have? You shouldn't need a heat gun to remove a capactiro.

[silvergoat]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

I got it....just needed a little more patience and some guts to get in closer. I also cleaned the tip of the soldering gun with a green scrubbing sponge and added solder to the tip.

Now the only problem is that the hole is closed up with solder and I can't get the solder off of it. Otherwise, I think I might be able to get this done so long as I find the right cap.

[silvergoat]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

I cleaned up the holes as much as possible.

I wasn't really sure what to be careful for after reading the tutorial on the web site. I used a sewing needle to push through as I melted the solder from that back side, and eventually got a hole that you can see through, but it's not very clean.

[silvergoat]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

I ordered these:

http://www.mouser.com/Search/Product...7-RR71C101MDN1

Do they look okay?

[c_hegge]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

That one should be fine

[Krankshaft]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

You may luck out with the cap (if it was somehow not soldered properly) but based on my history with that brand I wouldn't hold my breath.

In the future stay away from Asus all together. Hopefully either they're going to clean up their act or keep producing crap and go out of business.

I've had way too many issues with their boards from bad caps, to them partially dying (dead onboard nics), to completely an inexplicably dying (no POST). The last two had no high ESR caps. IMO they're lowest bidder bottom of the barrel Chinese crap.

Your motherboard is the foundation of your PC which everything is built off if it topples every other component is meaningless. No need to get the highest end board out there but you don't want a low end board either.

Let online reviews be your guide when selecting a board if there is a disproportionate amount of bad reviews stating the board is dying prematurely or failing in some other way move on.

I've had good luck with Gigabyte as of late and on the board I've got they used Chemicon polymers. Intel is another reliable brand I haven't had issues with.

[silvergoat]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

I hope so- I needed an extra computer that would be able to crunch data but would not break the bank.....so I looked for used parts. My first few builds were ASUS, but I've been hearing a lot of people echo what you've said. I still have my Gigabyte board that I'm using now, and it is a great board in every way so I think maybe I'm going to be less open with my computer building choices.

Is it important to clean all the solder before attaching the new capacitor? I don't have any desoldering braid, but if I need to I'll have to go check radio shack to see if they have any.

[Krankshaft]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

If you've removed enough solder to insert the new cap leads it's fine.

However if the original cap got ripped out somehow the through hole via could be torn if that's the case the cap could have lost contact with the trace or traces on the inner layers of the PCB hopefully that's not the case.

[kaboom]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

IMO they're lowest bidder bottom of the barrel Chinese crap.

And overpriced besides. They're counting on suckers or lamer "gam3rz" falling for "ERP" and other gimmicks 'packaged and marketed' in such a way as to sound better than they really are. Like I say, ECS quality on a Tyan budget- sorry, Shovenose.

I've had good luck with Gigabyte as of late and on the board I've got they used Chemicon polymers.

Polymers in the VRM and HMs elsewhere. Sometimes HDs.

Intel is another reliable brand I haven't had issues with.

WARNING. Make damn sure you can either see in person or get large pix of whatever 'Intel' board you're mulling over. The newer ones sometimes contain an "Egg." If the caps' silkscreens are backwards, it's a goddamn ASUS... Other than that, they are reliable.

-Paul

[shovenose]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

And overpriced besides. They're counting on suckers or lamer "gam3rz" falling for "ERP" and other gimmicks 'packaged and marketed' in such a way as to sound better than they really are. Like I say, ECS quality on a Tyan budget- sorry, Shovenose.

I don't like ECS either. I bought the ECS because it was CHEAP

[kaboom]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

I bought the ECS because it was CHEAP

Don't even go there, buddy! Reminds me of that stupid ASCROCK 780FHD I suffered with- what a losing deal. I thought I could be 'cheep' too...

See, I wanted an AMD CPU... This was a cheapie system built in a case that was saved from being scrapped.

System was an LE-1640 and 780FHD, with 2GB DDR-2/800, dual channel. I only went for that board with the expectation that recapping it (while brand new, no less) would bring it up to my expectations. Spending as much in caps as the board cost, I still wasn't there- I wrote about this in another post/thread.

With what I have now, it became immediately apparent what was missing! Hint, hint, performance and, more importantly, stability!

-Paul

[c_hegge]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

I totally agree, ASUS aren't much better quality wise than ECS. They are essentially the Antec of the motherboard world - expensive, but absolute junk in terms of reliability. It stands for Always Seriously UnStable

[silvergoat]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

Well, something didn't work-

I soldered in a new cap from the link I posted, and my MOBO failed to POST. I tried another cap, and the same thing......

Not much I could do at this point but try to scavege parts- anything even worthwhile?

[holmes222]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

check for the trace around the caps ..maybe the trace got damaged
i have asus P5E that have a damage trace around NB HSF screw
fixed it with wire jumper

3 asus board (P5E, Maximus Formula , P5K Premium) all fine and overclock well

[PCBONEZ]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

It stands for Always Seriously UnStable

OH! - I like that!
And it's so true!
.

[TBoneit]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

This may be a stupid question did you check to see if it had warranty with ASUS. I believe they give years of warranty. If you can make it look new where you were working........

And if they say no warranty that is one we scrapped then you have proof to go after the seller.

[kc8adu]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

its an asus you know..polarity marks reversed.white half=+.
double check your work.

[silvergoat]

Re: sold a bad motherboard

Well, I decided to give it one more shot without trashing it.....not having a solder sucker or other solder remover really made things much much more difficult and probably contributed to the failure the first time around.

Originally I used silver solder, but decided to double check with my 60/40 free stuff that I got when I bought my soldering iron. I also grabbed my other soldering iron that heats up much better. I filled as much of the space as I could with the 60/40 solder so that the flux would get in as far as I could get it (I don't think my other solder had flux). I then went through a few caps trying to clear the holes since they wouldn't come through. Eventually I got one in to where I felt it was good enough and used a heat gun to flow the accumulated flux away from the leads, and then added one last dab of solder to form a decent, but imperfect joint. I also spent some time blasting it with a heat gun in case to get it melty and flowing in the hole where the lead makes contact.

I tested it once, but my power supply would shut down almost immediately.....switched RAM slots and it powered up. I may have ruined some RAM slots, or maybe one of my fan jumpers was shorting because they were bent, but it powers up now.

Unfortunately, I can't trust it yet so I can't use it until I get it into a test rig and beat on it for a few hours/days.....fingers crossed.