Thought some of you might be interested in how I spent some of my Thursday. The mail contained two advertised as not working FIC AU31 motherboards I had won for $10 Canadian each on eBay, and since I knew about the PSU quality in Emachines I figured I would roll the dice on two of the boards and see if I actually got a good one for dirt cheap. I figured even if only one worked, $20 Canadian total was a good deal.
So, I sat down with my recently recapped Antec SL350, an old stick of PC2700, an old Duron 700 with heatsink, and proceeded to test both boards. The only visible difference between them was a "FSB 400MHz" sticker on the second one I tested. Caps were the same on both... Nichicon HM around the CPU socket, a few Sanyo WX, the occasional Rubycon, one OST, and a bunch of smaller Teapo.
Board 1 I started testing with just the CPU fan connected - it powered itself down after a few seconds. Decided to try the memory and CPU too... nothing. Should have gone at it first with the DMM to be sure it wasn't going to roast my memory and CPU, but the DMM told me it needed a new battery when I tried it. Gave in to impatience then and decided my testing parts were old enough I would take the risk. At any rate, the southbridge ran red hot - almost burned my fingers. So, that one looks to be dead. I'll use it for parts.
Board 2 was another story. It stayed alive when run without RAM or CPU, and nothing ran as hot as the southbridge of the first. Memory and CPU switched over from the first board - this board works perfectly.
So, that's how I spent my afternoon yesterday
So, I sat down with my recently recapped Antec SL350, an old stick of PC2700, an old Duron 700 with heatsink, and proceeded to test both boards. The only visible difference between them was a "FSB 400MHz" sticker on the second one I tested. Caps were the same on both... Nichicon HM around the CPU socket, a few Sanyo WX, the occasional Rubycon, one OST, and a bunch of smaller Teapo.
Board 1 I started testing with just the CPU fan connected - it powered itself down after a few seconds. Decided to try the memory and CPU too... nothing. Should have gone at it first with the DMM to be sure it wasn't going to roast my memory and CPU, but the DMM told me it needed a new battery when I tried it. Gave in to impatience then and decided my testing parts were old enough I would take the risk. At any rate, the southbridge ran red hot - almost burned my fingers. So, that one looks to be dead. I'll use it for parts.
Board 2 was another story. It stayed alive when run without RAM or CPU, and nothing ran as hot as the southbridge of the first. Memory and CPU switched over from the first board - this board works perfectly.
So, that's how I spent my afternoon yesterday
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