With the success of my Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe recap project, I'm turning my attention to the other benchmark board in my history - the venerable MSI 694D-Pro A.
Wayyyyyy back in the day, I paired one of these (in protoype orange PCB no less) with a pair of 366 Celerons for a world of fun. That board was flawless from day #1 (well, aside from the usual VIA issues with sound cards and Promise getting narky about additional HDD controllers). Wish I'd never sold it off.
The current board is one of a hundred examples from a teaching college near the IT shop I used to work in. All of them died from bad-cap plague.
This board was hung onto for years as a trophy/example as to why we were preferring high-end boards with solid caps. Its been non-esd-safe handled by hundreds (if not thousands) of customers and yet, with a bodgy recapping, sort-of mostly worked again for a few years almost a decade ago.
Thanks to my bodgy recapping, I'm not sure exactly what used to be on this board - given the handling history, I had no idea if the board was working so I pillaged caps from all over the joint to repair it. The conclusion then: CPU's, PCI+AGP, memory all seem fine - weeks of uptime. Promise controller must be disabled or the system is crash happy (ESD damage maybe?).
This time around I'd like to do the job properly - with correctly sized and lead spaced caps that aren't wildly over-specced.
Looking about the forums, there's a few threads that are useful
Bushytails 2004 "MSI 694D Pro V1.0 recap"
Bushytails 2005 "MSI 694d Pro-AR recap" (lots of lovely helpful photos, thanks!)
Bushytails 2005 "MSI 694d Pro-AR recap #2" (again lots of lovely helpful photos, thanks!)
Working backwards with these for reference, I've sorted
6 Tayeh 2700uf 6.3v - replaced today with Nichicon 3300uF, 6.3 V, HM Series
8 Chhsi 1000uf 6.3v - replaced today with Rubycon 1000uF 6.3v ZLJ
3 Chhsi 470uf 16v - Bushytails comments
I'm guessing I can raid my stash of Rubycon 820uF 16v ZLJ's left over from the A8N recap?
What I'm yet to sort are the last 5 - bushytails commented
Whereas I simply have 5x Hitano 1500uF 10v (would have been the closest match from the local hobby shop in 2009).
Does anyone have notes on the layout of the board and what caps went where?
I'm kind of presuming the 4x 10v caps were the two pairs (EC1-2 & EC13-14) and the 6.3v one is the solo tucked in by the 6.3v VRM caps (labelled EC6). Does it particularly matter? Solder a couple of fly leads to the pins and run the multimeter across them to confirm?
Oh, and on my board, c390 was installed as per the silk-screen and not vented. Interesting comparison to Topcat's experience here Design Flaw on MSI 694D Pro ver:1.0
Assuming I get this puppy running again, I've got a couple of PCI serial cards spare that I might chuck in slots 2 & 3 to see what happens... or just attach a couple of fly leads and see whats what with the DMM?
Thanks all
Aeth..
Wayyyyyy back in the day, I paired one of these (in protoype orange PCB no less) with a pair of 366 Celerons for a world of fun. That board was flawless from day #1 (well, aside from the usual VIA issues with sound cards and Promise getting narky about additional HDD controllers). Wish I'd never sold it off.
The current board is one of a hundred examples from a teaching college near the IT shop I used to work in. All of them died from bad-cap plague.
This board was hung onto for years as a trophy/example as to why we were preferring high-end boards with solid caps. Its been non-esd-safe handled by hundreds (if not thousands) of customers and yet, with a bodgy recapping, sort-of mostly worked again for a few years almost a decade ago.
Thanks to my bodgy recapping, I'm not sure exactly what used to be on this board - given the handling history, I had no idea if the board was working so I pillaged caps from all over the joint to repair it. The conclusion then: CPU's, PCI+AGP, memory all seem fine - weeks of uptime. Promise controller must be disabled or the system is crash happy (ESD damage maybe?).
This time around I'd like to do the job properly - with correctly sized and lead spaced caps that aren't wildly over-specced.
Looking about the forums, there's a few threads that are useful
Bushytails 2004 "MSI 694D Pro V1.0 recap"
Bushytails 2005 "MSI 694d Pro-AR recap" (lots of lovely helpful photos, thanks!)
Bushytails 2005 "MSI 694d Pro-AR recap #2" (again lots of lovely helpful photos, thanks!)
Working backwards with these for reference, I've sorted
6 Tayeh 2700uf 6.3v - replaced today with Nichicon 3300uF, 6.3 V, HM Series
8 Chhsi 1000uf 6.3v - replaced today with Rubycon 1000uF 6.3v ZLJ
3 Chhsi 470uf 16v - Bushytails comments
Originally posted by bushytails
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What I'm yet to sort are the last 5 - bushytails commented
Originally posted by bushytails
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Does anyone have notes on the layout of the board and what caps went where?
I'm kind of presuming the 4x 10v caps were the two pairs (EC1-2 & EC13-14) and the 6.3v one is the solo tucked in by the 6.3v VRM caps (labelled EC6). Does it particularly matter? Solder a couple of fly leads to the pins and run the multimeter across them to confirm?
Oh, and on my board, c390 was installed as per the silk-screen and not vented. Interesting comparison to Topcat's experience here Design Flaw on MSI 694D Pro ver:1.0
Assuming I get this puppy running again, I've got a couple of PCI serial cards spare that I might chuck in slots 2 & 3 to see what happens... or just attach a couple of fly leads and see whats what with the DMM?
Thanks all
Aeth..
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