Repurposing a 2004 Athlon 64 system in 2021

[eccerr0r]

Ah okay. Well, I'm on the cusp of possibly getting Gbit-like internet connectivity and wondering what's necessary to both be able to route packets at full speed and still have horsepower to spare for other tasks... my current ISP is so slow that I can probably use a 486 to do routing...

[TechGeek]

What routing/firewall solution are you looking at using?

[eccerr0r]

No idea yet, need to know of my complete network including the CPE endpoint device before I spec what I need... that device is unknown as of now. Just trying to plan what I may need at this point... and most of my older machines probably can't cut the cheese, at least at full rate.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by eccerr0r

my current ISP is so slow that I can probably use a 486 to do routing...

That's BS!

[eccerr0r]

You'd think again when you know my ISP isn't even considered broadband by most standards...

[TechGeek]

Just a quick update. Motherboard will be going off for a recap this week (thanks Topcat!) As soon as I can pinpoint where in my schedule I can get it to the local USPS office to get it shipped his way, I'll be prepping it for that and posting another dump of inline pictures here. It's getting about time to get this done as the system is showing symptoms of failing capacitors. More to come later.

[TechGeek]

Scheduling hole opened up earlier than expected, so it's officially go time on getting it out the door.

Shutting the system down.


Shut down.


Power switched off at UPS (Eaton Powerware 9130). Load segment 1 carries the home network stack, so it has to remain on.


On the table and ready for service. Doesn't this look familiar?


A little more room under the desk now...


Into the BIOS we go to remove passwords and reset to defaults.
Passwords cleared.


CMOS reset.


No boot because the HDD is disconnected.


Unplugged from PSU and expansion cards stripped away.


Plenty of expired capacitors to be seen here.


Not expired yet, but soon to disappear.




Motherboard stripped from the case.


MSI's debug+USB breakout dongle.


Expansion cards reinstalled into case, sans motherboard.


Motherboard, removed from case.


CPU heatsink removed.



AS5 thermal paste wiped clean, ready for when the motherboard returns.



Stripped motherboard, ready for shipping.


Next post here will likely be when the motherboard returns to be reinstalled and put back in service. TTFN!

[Uranium-235]

oh a 3500+

I ran on that with a 6800 GT as a gaming rig for a few years

[TechGeek]

Motherboard is shipped and hopefully on it's way to Topcat.

[TechGeek]

Motherboard delivered today.

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Motherboard delivered today.

Confirmed. I haven't opened it yet....but package appears ok.

[TechGeek]

Originally Posted by Topcat

Confirmed. I haven't opened it yet....but package appears ok.

Good to hear. Glad that USPS didn't play football with the box. UPS around here has gotten bad about package footballing and doing entirely stupid things with packages in the past few years, such as making my dad chase them down Texas SH-31 just to get packages because they wouldn't come down the dirt road because it rained a little. FedEx is equally bad, they hung a 30lb battery pack (APC RBC6 pack for an SUA1000) off of our mailbox flag and messed up the mailbox.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by TechGeek

A little more room under the desk now...
https://badcaps.net/forum/attachment...1&d=1617103618

Oh, I know how that feels right now all too well (and it's not well when there isn't much space. ) Practically, I'm the same way - I have towers stacked next to my desk and under it. Some are prior "main" PCs, some are past "gaming" PCs, and others were just a "bridge" / file storage / temporary PC for some task at some point in time. 5 out of 8 are disconnected from KB/MS, monitor, and internet, of which 4 are disconnected from power (so I can minimize the "zombie" standby power consumption of my gadgetry.) Of the 2 under my desk, 1 is disconnected and just serving as a *food rest*, of all things ... though I do hook it up and play around with it occasionally. The other one kind of switches spots with a few other towers in my closet, based on what season it is and what I want to do. In the winter when it's cold, I bring out the hot, inefficient towers out, and in the summer, the opposite.

In any case, I do miss having ALL of my foot space under my desk that I used to have many many years ago before I got into PC repair. On the other hand, I do also like using some of the PCs as a foot rest... so IDK what's better.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Plenty of expired capacitors to be seen here.
https://badcaps.net/forum/attachment...1&d=1617103618

Looks like you got lucky and the bad caps are only for the PCI slots power... so rarely anything will suffer from those going bad. On the other hand, if you had any instability issues with that board, there's a good chance those caps weren't the cause. But it's good to get them out of there, anyways... or at least might as well when TC recaps the board for you. Now, replacing the ones by the memory slots and NB - those definitely matter, so your recapped board should be in much better shape.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

MSI's debug+USB breakout dongle.
https://badcaps.net/forum/attachment...1&d=1617104079

Cool. Never seen one like that for MSI boards. Reminds me of the 4 LEDs by the front USB ports on Dell PCs - I think those also show debug info at POST (not that I ever had to use them, though.)

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Expansion cards reinstalled into case, sans motherboard.
https://badcaps.net/forum/attachment...1&d=1617104079

I don't suggest storing expansions cards like that for any extended period of time (more than a month, at least), as they can warp without support from the motherboard slots - especially longer ones, like that video card.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

AS5 thermal paste wiped clean, ready for when the motherboard returns.
https://badcaps.net/forum/attachment...1&d=1617104411
https://badcaps.net/forum/attachment...1&d=1617104411

Pro (up/recycler) tip: thermal compound can usually be re-used if it's not dry and you don't contaminate it with finger oil or other foreign matter too much.

Even more so, AS5 thermal paste does not go bad - at least, not unless abused with really hight temperatures (over 80C) for an extended time (at least a year.)

So don't waste your money and time on new TC if the old one is still good... which the one above seems perfectly normal. Just scoop it up with a clean tool (especially from the sides where the excess is) and re-apply it in the middle so that it can re-spread again. The only time I don't re-use TC from the sides is when it's heavily contaminated with dust. But yours looks pretty much spotless.

On a big surface area like this and a CPU with a heat spreader, re-using even cheaper compounds won't make a difference in the thermal performance. I've done many tests on this, and the difference appears to be less than my testing error margin (typically 1 degrees Celsius, depending on how the room temperature changes, if at all.)

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Next post here will likely be when the motherboard returns to be reinstalled and put back in service. TTFN!

Cool.
BTW, when you do that, perhaps try re-sizing and also cropping your next image session down a bit. There's no need to upload a 3000x3000 pixel image if you're only trying to show one smaller part in detail in that image, so crop an image to show only the area that is needed. Also, use medium JPG compression (medium quality.) A lot of phones save blurry images in the lowest compression, which isn't necessary. And downscale the resolution to just what's needed to show enough detail. That way, we save a bit of bandwidth to the forums. And moreover, if anyone is indeed re-purposing / re-using an old PC like this from the early 2000's and trying to view this thread with it for whatever reason, things will load a lot quicker. I had not problems loading this thread in a near instant on my i5 machine. But on my P4, the loading time was somewhat noticeable. And on my PIII laptop that I generally use for datasheet viewing only (and rarely jumping to look up something on BCN), it takes about at least 10 seconds to load this thread. So a little down-scaling and cropping goes a long way.

Originally Posted by Uranium-235

oh a 3500+

I ran on that with a 6800 GT as a gaming rig for a few years

Me too.
Had mine paired with a Radeon HD2400 (PCI-E), at first. Then switched to a 6800 XT (PCI-E). And then finally switched to an HD3870 - all within 2 years, more or less. I eventually upgraded the 3500+ to an Athlon64 FX-57 (the fastest single-core socket 939 CPU available), but dropped down the GPU back to the 6800 XT due to PSU limitations... and I never upgraded the PSU in that PC as planned so that I could use the HD3870 again... but that's also because I plan on moving it into a different case. It's a project for someday in the future, even if quite outdated by now. After all, you just can't find FX-57 CPUs anymore so easily, so I think it's going to have a bit of retro value some day, despite being a PCI-E consumer board.

[TechGeek]

Originally Posted by momaka

Oh, I know how that feels right now all too well (and it's not well when there isn't much space. ) Practically, I'm the same way - I have towers stacked next to my desk and under it. Some are prior "main" PCs, some are past "gaming" PCs, and others were just a "bridge" / file storage / temporary PC for some task at some point in time. 5 out of 8 are disconnected from KB/MS, monitor, and internet, of which 4 are disconnected from power (so I can minimize the "zombie" standby power consumption of my gadgetry.) Of the 2 under my desk, 1 is disconnected and just serving as a *food rest*, of all things ... though I do hook it up and play around with it occasionally. The other one kind of switches spots with a few other towers in my closet, based on what season it is and what I want to do. In the winter when it's cold, I bring out the hot, inefficient towers out, and in the summer, the opposite.

In any case, I do miss having ALL of my foot space under my desk that I used to have many many years ago before I got into PC repair. On the other hand, I do also like using some of the PCs as a foot rest... so IDK what's better.

All the systems under my desk are connected to power and Internet. All but 1 of them is powered up, and the one that isn't is a spare gaming system.

Originally Posted by momaka

Looks like you got lucky and the bad caps are only for the PCI slots power... so rarely anything will suffer from those going bad. On the other hand, if you had any instability issues with that board, there's a good chance those caps weren't the cause. But it's good to get them out of there, anyways... or at least might as well when TC recaps the board for you. Now, replacing the ones by the memory slots and NB - those definitely matter, so your recapped board should be in much better shape.

Agreed. They're all the same age and have seen power for the same time (16+ years POH), Since some of them are visibly bad, I imagine that ALL of them are not long for the world. And yes, it was starting to suffer from stability problems, so even though they weren't visibly bad, they were probably in a heavily deteriorated state, electrically speaking, so if some are getting changed, might as well shotgun 'em all.

Originally Posted by momaka

Cool. Never seen one like that for MSI boards. Reminds me of the 4 LEDs by the front USB ports on Dell PCs - I think those also show debug info at POST (not that I ever had to use them, though.)

Yep. These show green and red, while the Dell ones are green and amber. Both are used for system diagnostics, especially when the motherboard can't bring up the video subsystem, but it can communicate information about a problem through the diagnostic LEDs and/or system speaker, if it's connected.

Originally Posted by momaka

I don't suggest storing expansions cards like that for any extended period of time (more than a month, at least), as they can warp without support from the motherboard slots - especially longer ones, like that video card.

Note taken. It may not be easily visible, but I have the 20-pin motherboard power cable looped under the GPU as to give it some support at the far end. Hopefully when TC finishes with the board, USPS/UPS/FedEx doesn't drag their feet about getting it back to me. They certainly didn't when I sent it out, though, so I don't expect problems getting it back if the courier of choice happens to be USPS.

Originally Posted by momaka

Pro (up/recycler) tip: thermal compound can usually be re-used if it's not dry and you don't contaminate it with finger oil or other foreign matter too much.

Even more so, AS5 thermal paste does not go bad - at least, not unless abused with really high temperatures (over 80C) for an extended time (at least a year.)

So don't waste your money and time on new TC if the old one is still good... which the one above seems perfectly normal. Just scoop it up with a clean tool (especially from the sides where the excess is) and re-apply it in the middle so that it can re-spread again. The only time I don't re-use TC from the sides is when it's heavily contaminated with dust. But yours looks pretty much spotless.

On a big surface area like this and a CPU with a heat spreader, re-using even cheaper compounds won't make a difference in the thermal performance. I've done many tests on this, and the difference appears to be less than my testing error margin (typically 1 degrees Celsius, depending on how the room temperature changes, if at all.)

Note taken. I've always heard that you should reapply thermal paste every time the CPU and heatsink are separated. I also wiped the AS5 away because I didn't want the CPU to make a mess in the ESD bag that I used (especially considering it's from a different full-ATX MSI board, an MS-7850, used in my main computer) and at least one side would be exposed to air for quite some time. Also, how would you store the thermal paste that was wiped away from the CPU/HSF?

Originally Posted by momaka

Cool.
BTW, when you do that, perhaps try re-sizing and also cropping your next image session down a bit. There's no need to upload a 3000x3000 pixel image if you're only trying to show one smaller part in detail in that image, so crop an image to show only the area that is needed. Also, use medium JPG compression (medium quality.) A lot of phones save blurry images in the lowest compression, which isn't necessary. And downscale the resolution to just what's needed to show enough detail. That way, we save a bit of bandwidth to the forums. And moreover, if anyone is indeed re-purposing / re-using an old PC like this from the early 2000's and trying to view this thread with it for whatever reason, things will load a lot quicker. I had not problems loading this thread in a near instant on my i5 machine. But on my P4, the loading time was somewhat noticeable. And on my PIII laptop that I generally use for datasheet viewing only (and rarely jumping to look up something on BCN), it takes about at least 10 seconds to load this thread. So a little down-scaling and cropping goes a long way.

Note taken. Most of the time, I'm throwing these megaposts together at 5am when I'm in the process of waking up, so it hasn't even gotten within 1000 miles of crossing my mind to crop things down. Will try and remember that next time.

Originally Posted by momaka

Me too.
Had mine paired with a Radeon HD2400 (PCI-E), at first. Then switched to a 6800 XT (PCI-E). And then finally switched to an HD3870 - all within 2 years, more or less. I eventually upgraded the 3500+ to an Athlon64 FX-57 (the fastest single-core socket 939 CPU available), but dropped down the GPU back to the 6800 XT due to PSU limitations... and I never upgraded the PSU in that PC as planned so that I could use the HD3870 again... but that's also because I plan on moving it into a different case. It's a project for someday in the future, even if quite outdated by now. After all, you just can't find FX-57 CPUs anymore so easily, so I think it's going to have a bit of retro value some day, despite being a PCI-E consumer board.

Can't really chime in with anything on this one because this isn't a response to any of my posts.


Hopefully we'll be putting things back together next week.

[Topcat]

AMD motherboard polymod double-header!!



The VCORE caps (formerly Rubycon 1500uF @ 6.3v MBZ) got replaced with a pretty line of Fujitsu Polymers.



Of course I did replace the poofy ones....



Testing.....



Did anyone have any doubts about it passing?



Of course I abused it a little more after this....no issues.

The other.....just a teaser, this one will make an appearance in another thread...

[TechGeek]

Nice! I sent the CPU and RAM with the board because I knew that it had been a very long time since they were stress tested. Was it lockup-happy before the recap? Also, glad to see that it looks like it's got another 20+ years of service waiting for it.

[Topcat]

I did not pre-test it, no point when there was visibly failing caps....it was going to have issues.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

yupp, i've said this before on the forum many times and others have also said it on the forum many times. never run anything with known bad caps. the bad caps can kill the device. thereafter, recapping will no longer fix it or bring it back to life. many threads about this on the forum, so im glad topcat knows his stuff and techgeek, dont run anything with bad caps or tell anyone to run or leave their equipment running with bad caps!

[momaka]

Originally Posted by TechGeek

All the systems under my desk are connected to power and Internet. All but 1 of them is powered up, and the one that isn't is a spare gaming system.

That's a lot of power burnin'.

My guess would be these systems are mostly sitting idle?? But even so, unless it's a Pentium II / Pentium 3, chances are it will eat at least 50-60 Watts in idle... So x4, you have 200-250 Watts total. That's nice for the winter, but will jack up your A/C usage considerably in the summer. Again, not to beat on this with the power usage stuff, but just something to keep in mind.
So whatever you're not using at any moment (and for an extended time) may be a good idea to turn it off.

In the winter, I have that much power (250W exactly) running into a water heating element in a pot of water in my computer room. It's a small-ish room. With the door closed, it can get the room temperature quite toasty (and humidity quite high) if left to run continuously. And that's when it's below freezing outside with not-so-great wall insulation in that room. So i power-cycle it On and Off as needed. In the summer... I don't even want to think what would happen if I did that. Perhaps if I'm trying to re-create a tropical environment, that might be a good idea.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Note taken. It may not be easily visible, but I have the 20-pin motherboard power cable looped under the GPU as to give it some support at the far end.

Ah, I see now.

At least with these old GPUs with smaller coolers, PCB sag is not as bad.
The worst I saw, IIRC, was an R9 270 or R9 280, I can't remember exactly. The card was sloped down several degrees in one end relative to the other. No backplate or side bracket to prevent PCB sag, so it just looked really droopy and sad.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Note taken. I've always heard that you should reapply thermal paste every time the CPU and heatsink are separated.

That probably is carry-over "rule of thumb" from back in the days (socket 462/370, if not before) when CPU heatsinks used to come with pre-applied thermal patches. Thus, unless you used the same CPU with the same heatsink (and sometimes even if you did), chances are the thermal transfer would suffer afterwards.

But when it comes to modern thermal pastes, they can all be re-used without issue. Again, only exception is if the paste has dried out (many years of high-heat operating conditions.) Even contamination from finger oils won't significantly impact results... though on a small exposed GPU die, it can. On a large CPU heatspreader, it hardly will... unless we're talking CPUs with high TDP output (over 120 Watts.)

Originally Posted by TechGeek

I also wiped the AS5 away because I didn't want the CPU to make a mess in the ESD bag that I used (especially considering it's from a different full-ATX MSI board, an MS-7850, used in my main computer) and at least one side would be exposed to air for quite some time. Also, how would you store the thermal paste that was wiped away from the CPU/HSF?

I usually don't wipe the TC away for storage (but when I do, I sometimes store it on the inside of a plastic bottle cap that I've wiped beforehand with IPA.) Rather, I just place a large cap/cover over the area where the thermal compound is (but not touching it) so as to avoid excessive dust and other particle contamination (especially if stored for an extended period of time.) I see in your case, you also sent the CPU to TC for testing. So in that regard, this would probably have been the option for you. Otherwise, if you're also going to store the CPU along with the heatsink, then you can just put the CPU right back onto the heatsink, so that the two thermal compound surfaces are back together (to reduce dust and other particle contamination, again.) Then I store the CPU + cooler like that on a shelf somewhere (preferably some place that you're not going to drop something over the CPU and bend its pins... or if stored "upside down" with the CPU on the bottom, then be careful the CPU doesn't fall out as you move/pick up the cooler.)

As for anti-static bags... I don't bother with those, most of the time - at least not with older CPUs, as they tend to be quite resilient to ESD. Of course, it also helps to know your environment. If you live somewhere far up North and have very dry weather / low humidity, it's a good idea to always follow careful ESD practices. But a little further south where I am (VA), we get humidity well above 50% most of the year (except winter, where it can drop in the 20-30%), so ESD is not much of an issue here. I imagine you get even more of that in Texas year-round.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Note taken. Most of the time, I'm throwing these megaposts together at 5am when I'm in the process of waking up, so it hasn't even gotten within 1000 miles of crossing my mind to crop things down.

5 AM?!
I envy you of being able to do that.
Some days (particularly in the winter), 5 AM is when I [may] *go to* bed.
(Though 3-4 AM is my more usual winter norm, with the late outliers being as late as 7 AM! Summers, it's more around midnight-2 AM.) That is, of course, when I don't have a workplace schedule to follow (i.e. my natural clock.)

Originally Posted by Topcat

The VCORE caps (formerly Rubycon 1500uF @ 6.3v MBZ) got replaced with a pretty line of Fujitsu Polymers.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1617921363

I'm guessing those are the 820 uF, 2.5V Fujitsu's?

Don't discard those MBZ's, though! Probably still good for less critical projects. Even MCZ are usually OK after all these years... though IMO not as reliable or trustworthy as MBZ.

Originally Posted by Topcat

Of course I did replace the poofy ones....

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1617921363

Was it ever a question that you wouldn't?

Originally Posted by Topcat

Did anyone have any doubts about it passing?

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1617921363

These older MSI boards are bullet-proof (save for ones with nVidia chipsets, which this one isn't.)

Originally Posted by Topcat

The other.....just a teaser, this one will make an appearance in another thread...

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1617921363

I don't think that's the dual s462 Tyan mobo from eBay I PM'ed you about... or is it? (Doesn't look like it, but I forgot to check back how far the seller dropped the price over time.)

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by momaka

I'm guessing those are the 820 uF, 2.5V Fujitsu's?

Don't discard those MBZ's, though! Probably still good for less critical projects. Even MCZ are usually OK after all these years... though IMO not as reliable or trustworthy as MBZ.

It all depends on what kinds of loads were on them (high ripple) and how hot they had been running at. Under normal loads and kept relatively cool, yea....MBZ and MCZ were pretty robust....but excess of one or the other or both, their lifespans were relatively short.

Yes, these are 820uF @ 2.5v. These have stood the test of time for polymodding for the last ~15 years, I've never had an issue when these were correctly applied in place of lytics. ...but FWIW, you can get away with a lot of 'slop' when playing 'musical values' in the polymodding process. Barring the unexpected, TechGeek having a good PSU on the system feeding it good/solid/clean power, and nothing crazy happening to the system; this board should last a very long time.

Originally Posted by momaka

I don't think that's the dual s462 Tyan mobo from eBay I PM'ed you about... or is it? (Doesn't look like it, but I forgot to check back how far the seller dropped the price over time.)

No, it wasn't That one was an eATX, and I didn't have any cases available for it....but FWIW, I found this one via ebay's 'recommended for you' targeted spamverts....and added it to my 'watchlist'... This one is a S2466-M4; and supports Barton CPU's (I had a pair of rare 2800+'s I forgot I had). In the few weeks I watched it, it dropped from $80 to $30...when it hit $30, I grabbed it.

...so yea, it's your fault!