Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

[gonzo0815]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

Today i have soldere in the mising ceramic cap near the Jmicron SATAII controler on that board and switched my Samsung system disk from Uli SATA1 to it. up to now it is running flawlesly. I only have to fix those damn SATA plugs with some hot glue. i never understand how someon can develop sutch a utterly crappy plugin system.....

[docbrown]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

Hello,

Sorry for digging out this old thread and also for my bad english, but a few weeks ago i bought an Asrock 930 Dual Sata2 board and its successor, the Asrock 939 Dual VSTA.
Last week i checked the installed caps on both boards.
On my Sata2 Board i found nearly the same caps as described above. (except the small ones (1000uF) which are mostly blue Ltec 6311d LZP 105°C, big ones KZG and KZE)
But the caps on the VSTA board are very different.
I found the following big caps near the cpu socket:

6x OST RLX 6,3V 1500uF (the sata2 uses much bigger ones with 3300uF??)
4x Chemicon KZE 16V 1200uF
2x Chemicon KZJ 6,3V 1500uF 10x15mm (near ATX Power)

The small caps (1000uF 6,3V) all over the board are mostly from Evercon.

Now i ask myself if these caps are really crap or if they are Ok for normal use? (no overclocking, cool case)
I have no skills in soldering and i dont want to loose the warranty.
Especially the OST 1500uF caps seem to be undersized for me, or am i completely wrong?

Docbrown

[willawake]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

its a budget board, what do you expect? the bonus with budget boards is when you recap them immediately.....

its not possible to evaluate a board really by considering the total bulk capacitance. better to install and throw everything you can at it and decide whether it is stable or not. its the final performance which is important not the amount of caps.

for the caps, the chemicons are probably ok. i have had ok experience with ost rlp but not experienced with rlx. maybe ok, the evercon i have not experience again but they are a lower tier manufacturer. still you can get away with shitty caps on the minors sometimes its the input filtering and the vrm output which are usually blowing first.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

Yes, Asrock switched the OSt caps to Evercon, on many motherboards. I belive theyr crap, and i will stop to suggest Asrock boards to people, who do not want to tweak schep stuff in the way i like to do. Bad news, buth it`s busines. Time to go further.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

Well, i have googled for a picture of the VSTA, but your listing of caps near the socket makes no sense for me, may be you can edit a picture and marke them wich caps are from what brand. There are a few reason, why the droped the capcitance that far, not all are necesarily problematic. In genrall, you can expect, that any Asrock board should work without issues for abouth 2 years. Even the Evercon crap`s should last that long.
From that time, your milage can vary. Just rember, if nasty problem occure after that time, avoiding spending to mutch time hunting a software issue wich jus would not be there.

[docbrown]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

These boards replaced two old Asrock K7VT2 socket A mainboards with mostly Rubycon caps on it.
They were still working fine after more then three years (often running 24 hours a day), but more CPU Power was needed, so i bought this boards.
Asrock now using cheap low quality caps makes me
I hope this picture helps to identify the location of the caps.
Maybe i am a bit too anxious now about bad caps after reading so much about bad caps in this forum.
If this board works fine for at least 2 years (normal use) its Ok i think.
So if the use of low capacity OST caps at this location is acceptable then i am




docbrown

[gonzo0815]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

Those Ost RLX are in generall ok at the VRM output, as there is usualy not mutch stress, compared to the input where they have used good long endurance KZE caps.

But why they have reduced the capacitance that dramatically i have no explanation for.
In theory this should only possible, if they are using a higher switching frequency, but this is hard to see from a picture.

I have build a system with an other Asrock SIS 939 board, wich has nearly the same VRM as DS2, but equiped with 3300uF Ost RLX.
I am not absolut shure, if there are problems with them or not, but the system is running fine and passes any hardware test i know abouth. It is atm abouth one or two years on duty.
If they have not increased the frequency, the Vcore should heavily fluctuating, especially if there are major current transients.

IF you have a voltmeter, you can try to measure the Vcore and start some benchmark or other CPU intensive job.
If the Vcore is droping down a lot, this idicates insufficient capacity.
If you can tell me the number of the small VRM controler chip, near the left corner of the LPT, may be i can look into the datasheet, how mutch capacity this circuit needs to supply an Athlon.

Those KZJ are a little suprising on this location, but may be this are locations, where they have had some failures with older boards.
On the DS2 they have used the same Osts caps like on the rest of the board.

On the left side, the KZJ cap is used as an inputcapacitor for the smal VRM, wich is probably supplying the Vchipset. May be those Evercon or L-tec caps are that crappy, that even Asrock has some worries, that hey probably won`t survive the waranty period there.
Thus they used an KZJ, wich has a very low ESR, and have no problems with high ripple currents at VRM input.
The other KZJ i am not shure, but may be it serves as genrall input cap for an low voltage rail. Thus it is probably stressed buy the whole board.

[docbrown]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

Thank you for your detailed answer.
Today i tried to find that small vrm controller chip near the LPT, but i am not certain if i found it. The small chip right beside the LPT (left corner of LPT on my picture) has the following name: ST E252 - ST75185C - MRC 540.
I guess it has something to do with COM/LPT etc. ?
A bit further down + left is a small 8-pin chip called RT9209 - PS8G118 (hard to read). The Sata2 Board uses a RT9202 PS8B703 Chip instead.
Is this the VRM controller you mentioned in your post?
If not, i will take another close look at the board tomorrow.
Beside that, the Board is running stable under heavy load (prime95, video coding etc.) so far. Vcore varies between 1,41 and 1,46V (1,40V default in bios) with a 3700+ CPU. But the readings in the bios are not very exactly, i guess.

docbrown

[gonzo0815]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

Yep, BIOS & monitoring tools are just showing crap on this board.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

The mentioned controlers are not for CPU VRM, there must be some other around.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

Inspired by KC8 polymer topic, i am thinking about deploying some polymer capacitors to my beloved Asrock DS2 board

I would like to replace all those 1000uf 6.3v capacitors around the memory slots with 560uf /4v Sanyo Oscon SEPC and those at the chiset VRM too.
Now i am not sure, if it is wise to reduce the capacitance value that much, even if the ESR will be reduced dramatically (the Oscons are 0.007 and the Ost are between 0.030 to 0.060Ohm). It is a linear VRM so it should respond fast enough.

Same is with the output capacitors of VRM, the only polymer caps wich would make a difference in ESR would be 1000uF, not more.
This would be a large drop of bulk capacitance too (originally KZG 3300uF).

Any comment would be appreciated.

[Super Nade]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

You should be fine Gonzo, just assume a 10us response time for the regulator and say 10A ripple current per phase, you will still be well within the limits. More than bulk capacitance, the ripple current rating will increase by 3x with OS-CON and that is more helpful.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

Thx Super Nade.
I ordered the 560uF Oscons for memory area and the Vchipset VRM. I decided to leave the CPU VRM this time unmodified, as i need this system for the next few weeks in working condition.
But i will recap the VRM output with 1000uF X-con or Oscon in future.

[kc8adu]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

i did that to a generic 462 board.
it had 6 ost 3300 at vrm out.was unstable with vrm whine.cheap 2 ph vrm.
seems it needed some bulk capacitance.added 2 4700 at the far ends of the row while leaving the polymers nearest cpu.
all the 1000@6.3 were on 3.3 or less except for the ones at usb on +5
power it up and flip over to measure to be sure.

Inspired by KC8 polymer topic, i am thinking about deploying some polymer capacitors to my beloved Asrock DS2 board

I would like to replace all those 1000uf 6.3v capacitors around the memory slots with 560uf /4v Sanyo Oscon SEPC and those at the chiset VRM too.
Now i am not sure, if it is wise to reduce the capacitance value that much, even if the ESR will be reduced dramatically (the Oscons are 0.007 and the Ost are between 0.030 to 0.060Ohm). It is a linear VRM so it should respond fast enough.

Same is with the output capacitors of VRM, the only polymer caps wich would make a difference in ESR would be 1000uF, not more.
This would be a large drop of bulk capacitance too (originally KZG 3300uF).

Any comment would be appreciated.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Asrock Dual SATA II --- Replaced some Ost caps and other tweaks

Thx for the reply.
Regarding the voltage issue i will fore sure check the cap`s voltage, before applying 5v to 4v polymer capacitor
Especially on the Asrock K8 VRM`s applied voltage is not that obvious. Same for the memory VRM, but there should only be 3,3v at the highest, which should be ok for an 4v polymer cap.


The Asrock DS2 is equipped with a 3 phase VRM, thus i think it should be fast enough to handle the 1000uF polymers.
Asrock has done this with the 939 Dual VSTA (the successor of the Dual SATA 2) itself, but replaced the 3300uF KZG with only 1500uF Ost RLX.
Sure, when doing this, they may have changed the inductors or something else as well.

ATM i will only replace memory and chipset VRM caps, as those ugly Ost have to go from any mission critical place.
At this locations i will either use Oscon SEPC 560uF, Chemicon PS 820uF or Samxon X con 1000uF.
The 16v 470uF caps near the PCIe slot and may be the other 1000uF 6.3v decoupling caps will be replaced with Panasonic FM.