ECS 865G-M v2.3 Board

[bgavin]

I got this one in as a DOA.
The original problem was a broken P4 retention bracket. The client replaced it, but used a quart of thermal paste. Didn't find any in the pins, and the CPU is still alive.

Found one bulged OST 1000/6.3 near the AGP slot. The whole board is populated with OST craps. None bulging except the one I replaced.

I figured the board would stay dead, and it did. It power ups and spins the fans, heats the CPU, but DOA beyond that.

The bad news is this machine requires a 478 uATX board, two IDE, DDR-400 board, or the client loses all his hardware investment. I'm sniping an eBay bid in 20 minutes for an MSI board that will fit the requirements. Will have to bid WAAAY up to make sure I get it. Not much floating around in this vintage board.

[bgavin]

Re: ECS 865G-M v2.3 Board

I successfully sniped an MSI replacement board for the client.
This leaves me with a dead ECS POS.

Is there any merit in removing all the board caps and checking each for ESR?
The reason, I do not want to waste 30 Rubycons on this POS board. But, I am willing to expend the time to remove and check each cap. If I found more, I might be persuaded to recap the board.

Thoughts?

[gg1978]

Re: ECS 865G-M v2.3 Board

Do you have a PCI port 80 card? It can tell you if the board is actually trying to POST, or if it is in fact totally dead.. Usually even if the caps are totally fragged, you'll get a flicker of activity on the port 80 card before it stops.. The fact that the CPU warms up a bit is helpful though, means it's probably doing something, and coming out of reset.

[bgavin]

Re: ECS 865G-M v2.3 Board

No, and I should have one considering all the hardware work I do.
Any recommendation on which one, or where to buy?

I bought the ESR meter kit here, but have yet to find time to build it.
I figure once it is done, if I remove the caps from the dead board one at a time, I might find a bad one. This would give me hope to recap the board with success, and not waste all my valuable Rubycons.