Epox boards - Second RMA maybe?

[Ark42]

I have 5 8K7A's and had them all in for cap replacement, when they were past warrenty. Epox seems to do this, as long as you send them a check for $14.00 or so for return shipping. I bought 2 8RDA+'s when the 8K7A's were out being replaced, so I wouldn't be totally offline, but even they eventually started having cap problems. I used my reserve 8K7A to keep all my computers on while getting the caps replaced on the 8RDA+'s.
Now today I check them again, and sure enough, they are all developing buldges again. It seems Epox just replaced bad caps with more of the same crappy brand that is destined to fail again.
Is it even worth me paying UPS/fedex to ship these things back and forth for a second time? Does any motherboard maker actually claim to use caps that are known not to have any issues? Honestly it seems as if Epox is the best of all the motherboard manufacturers, even given what I said above. Every other brand is worse somehow - either more bad cap problems or just a low quality manufacturer to begin with.

[Topcat]

It's a waste of money RMAing them, especially when you have to do it again because of the same problem. On top of the $14.00 you send them, you also have to pay the shipping to them as well. Recap it yourself with good quality caps, problem solved.

[Ark42]

Sorry, most of us can't solder, and even if we could, soldering something complex and valuable like a motherboard isn't as easy as soldering a simple single layer board with spaced out parts.

[Ark42]

What we need is local electronic repair shops that do soldering and can do a job like this for $20-$25 or so total, to avoid shipping and having to risk soldering it ourselves. I can buy a refurb 8RDA+ for 49.95, so it better be cheaper then that to have service done to it.

[Topcat]

It's really not as hard as it seems. If you have an old junk board somewhere, practice on it. If you don't, go to a local computer shop, I'm sure they'd donate a bad board for practice... If you still don't want to try it yourself, shoot me or kc8adu a PM, either of us can do it for you.

TC

[Ark42]

According to https://www.badcaps.net/fees/ its $40-$45 plus shipping both ways. Thats about $40-$45 more then if I just send it to Epox, assuming Epox will do a second replacement, which they probably will, although they will use the same crappy brand of caps again probably. I can't really justify $45 more just to get good caps though, because after shipping both ways I might as well just buy a new board, hopefully from a company that only uses good caps, maybe.

[Fatal0E]

Got a brand new Epox KT-600 board in the shop a few days ago, dont know model off hand, uses all, ALL, G-Luxon caps.

What a disapointment,

[Ark42]

From what I've seen, I think all of my bad ones on my 7 boards so far were all GSC's

[Topcat]

Abit does the same thing. Sent in a bad one with Jackcon's (which had problems beyond bad caps), they sent a replacement full of cheapo Teapo caps, another brand notorious of failure. I recapped it the day it arrived just to make sure it stays working.

[bETAbILLY]

Now today I check them again, and sure enough, they are all developing buldges again

EPoX prolly sent you a different mobo, I'm sure by now they wouldnt be using GSC caps.

[tazwhippet]

8RDA+ with bad caps

My first post on this board. I've had an 8RDA+ for slightly less than 2 years. Recently I've been puzzled by very low voltage rails; 3.3v line was at 2.46v and 5v line was at 4.69 per MBM5. Antec True Power 550 checked OK with a multimeter. When I examined the caps on my board I discovered 4 caps had orange residue on their bulging tops and about 4 other caps had noticable bulging. I contacted Epox for an RMA request and immediately got approval to RMA the board for $0, just ship it to them. I'll ship it to Epox this weekend. I like the 8RDA+ a lot and am anxious to see how it is repaired. Do anyone think the bad caps were the cause of my low voltage rails?

[bETAbILLY]

Hardware monitoring programs like MBM dont give real accurate measurements it merely reads bits in registry locations set by the Winbond, etc chips, but is invaluable in logging temp/voltages for load/idle comparison. For accuracy, you are better off using a multimeter.

[rugger]

It might be cheaper to RMA or get a second hand board, but what is the point if they are just going to fail in a year.

BTW, Abit and Asus use good quality caps on most of their boards. But its still a crapshot.

[MD Willington]

BTW, Abit and Asus use good quality caps on most of their boards. But its still a crapshot.

Pardon...I guess you missed Topcat's post above...

MD

[rugger]

Pardon...I guess you missed Topcat's post above...

MD

No, I didn't miss it, and I am as confused about it as Topcat probably is. As far as I know, the new boards coming out of Abit use quality caps. They have no good reason to put low quality capacitors on replacements. One possibility that I can think of is that all these replacement boards were produced years ago with crappy caps and are just send out.

Edit: Another possibility is that using a different brand of caps would require abit to retest and requalify the board design before they could send them out to customers.

[HyperYagami]

One possibility that I can think of is that all these replacement boards were produced years ago with crappy caps and are just send out.

Yup that's the most logical. I doubt they actually take your old board and recap it.

Edit: Another possibility is that using a different brand of caps would require abit to retest and requalify the board design before they could send them out to customers.

No. A 1000uF 6v cap is a 1000uF 6v cap, no matter what brand. No "retest" is needed.