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    MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

    Hi Guys,

    I actually have something relevant to contribute today! I bought this MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) motherboard months ago on ebay. I bought it for a couple of dollars because the seller said it didn't work at all, from the pictures, the LGA 775 socket didn't look trashed, so I rolled the dice and bought it. When I got the board, since I didn't have any CPUs or RAM that were compatible, I was unable to test it, but I have no doubt that the board was non-functional based on the fact that every single one of those awful OST capacitors that cover the board were either bulging at the top or pushing out their bungs.

    So, I decided to recap the board, and as an experiment, I wanted to use entirely polymer capacitors. I was able to find suitable polymer capacitors for all of the capacitors except for the ten little capacitors at the bottom left hand side of board populated near the audio chip. It was awhile ago that I executed the recapping, but if I remember correctly, I used Nichicon LE, LF, LG, and FP capacitors for all of the polymers, and Panasonic FC and FR for the ten little non-polymer capacitors.

    I scored an Intel Core Quad Q6600 for pretty cheap on ebay, but this board requires DDR2 1066MHz 1.8V RAM (well, actually it can take other speeds, but it must be 1.8V modules), and finding cheap 1.8V DDR2 modules is like trying to find hens' teeth. So, the board sat in my projects in progress bin for the last 6 months. Since I am moving in a couple of weeks, I've been trying to push to finish a bunch of projects, so I will have less to move, so, I broke down and shelled out the cash to buy two new 1GB 1066MHz modules from Crucial.

    The board booted right up with no problems. I fleshed the system out in a Cooler Master Elite case, and I dropped in an NVidia Quadro 1800 FX video card that I also got for cheap, and installed a Scythe Big Shuriken cooler. I booted into Windows XP Pro and proceeded to run burn-in tests and so on, and the system is stable as a rock! As an aside, I am pretty impressed with the CPU cooler, it isn't even warm to the touch and it is silent, if the thing had been easier to install, I would say its one of the best CPU heatsinks and fans I've ever used. The hottest places in this system are the southbridge and the video card.

    My plans for the system are to bring it into my place of employment and upgrade the piece of garbage computer I have to use, I am just going to take the hard drive and optical drive out of the old system and install them into the new system. The existing workstation is an ancient Dell OptiPlex 210L that clearly has something wrong with it, even simple browsing of the web takes about 5 minutes to go from page to page, and the fans inside of it spin up and sound like jet engines. The thing is awful, really all I think it actually does anymore is convert electricity into heat, it's gotten bad enough that I just use my laptop unless there is something I have to do on my workstation. Upper management doesn't really seem to care that the computer is useless, and they don't care if I upgrade it, so since I don't have anything better to do with my recapped system, I guess they're getting a donation.

    I've posted some pictures of the motherboard in the case, months ago, I did take "before" pictures, but I've lost them, and since the cooler was so difficult to install, I didn't want to take it off the board to get pictures of the caps around the CPU. Sorry about that. Most of the bulgy caps were around the northbridge and the RAM slots.

    Enjoy, and if you have any questions feel free to ask.

    Yours,
    Justin
    Attached Files
    Last edited by jpyerry; 10-11-2013, 03:54 PM. Reason: clarity of wording

    #2
    Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

    Good job! What kind of soldering equipment did you use? I also have an MSI motherboard waiting to be recapped. I bought the caps but I still don't know whether or not the equipment I have is adequate for the job.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

      Nice job poly-modding it. I find that MSI boards are usually fairly tolerant of being poly-modded - I've done it to a few of them and they've all been fine.

      Originally posted by Nikochan View Post
      Good job! What kind of soldering equipment did you use? I also have an MSI motherboard waiting to be recapped. I bought the caps but I still don't know whether or not the equipment I have is adequate for the job.
      How many watts is your soldering iron? 40W is plenty good enough. You might even get away with 30.
      I love putting bad caps and flat batteries in fire and watching them explode!!

      No wonder it doesn't work! You installed the jumper wires backwards

      Main PC: Core i7 3770K 3.5GHz, Gigabyte GA-Z77M-D3H-MVP, 8GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600, 240GB Intel 335 Series SSD, 750GB WD HDD, Sony Optiarc DVD RW, Palit nVidia GTX660 Ti, CoolerMaster N200 Case, Delta DPS-600MB 600W PSU, Hauppauge TV Tuner, Windows 7 Home Premium

      Office PC: HP ProLiant ML150 G3, 2x Xeon E5335 2GHz, 4GB DDR2 RAM, 120GB Intel 530 SSD, 2x 250GB HDD, 2x 450GB 15K SAS HDD in RAID 1, 1x 2TB HDD, nVidia 8400GS, Delta DPS-650BB 650W PSU, Windows 7 Pro

      Comment


        #4
        Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

        Originally posted by Nikochan View Post
        Good job! What kind of soldering equipment did you use? I also have an MSI motherboard waiting to be recapped. I bought the caps but I still don't know whether or not the equipment I have is adequate for the job.
        My main soldering iron is a Hakko FX-888D, it is the new digital version of the venerable Hakko FX-888, it is digitally controlled, and for less than $100 USD it is an excellent iron for the price. I know that it might seem a tad expensive for somebody that is starting out, but my first two irons were from Radio Shack, the first was just one of the ones you plug directly into the wall, it was useless, I upgraded to their iron that has a high/low setting, it was better but still not great, in retrospect, I spent $50 USD on irons that weren't up to the task, and wish that instead I had saved up an additional $50 USD and bought the Hakko FX-888D in the first place. Soldering on multi-layer boards is challenging enough with the right tools, it is extremely difficult with lesser tools. Could you get away with a $40-$50 iron, yes, my first successful recap (of a motherboard) was executed with my dual setting Radio Shack iron, but it is so much nicer to just have the right tool for the job. In addition, it is helpful to have a variety of chisel shape soldering tips, in Hakko's instance, they refer to them as shape "D", I mention it because I found the 1.2mm chisel tip the iron came with did not have quite enough thermal mass for soldering and desoldering on motherboards.

        For desoldering, I used the dental pick method, if you search this forum for the dental pick method, you will find a lot of commentary on it. I picked up a set of four different stainless steel dental picks on ebay for a few dollars for the whole set. I primarily use Chemtronics Soder-Wick size 3 (80-3-5) desolder braid, I've had good luck with it, but you go through the stuff like water, so be sure to have an adequate amount before you start. I would not recommend using "solder suckers" for motherboard use, some people here use them on motherboards, but I typically won't use them unless it is a one sided board, or I need to reduce the solder mass on a particularly large joint.

        I've been using 63/37 leaded solder that has a diameter of .38mm, the smaller the diameter the better, gives you more control of the solder. I also use a flux pen for some extra flux. I'd steer away from lead free stuff until you perfect your technique of leaded solder.

        As for miscellaneous other tools, I would say it is pretty essential to have a pair of decent flush cutters and some very fine point needle nose pliers, I am currently using Wiha ESD safe cutters, and I think they are excellent, but they are really expensive, and probably not essential, just nice to have. So, I would say you don't have to buy top of the line here, just get a decent pair for fine work, of course if you do have spare cash, there are a lot of really good pliers out there (Lindstrom, Knipex, Wiha, I could go on).

        If you haven't watched them already, Dave Jones of EEVblog has an excellent three part series on soldering:
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Sb21qbpEQ
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYz5nIHH0iY
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9FC9fAlfQE
        Lots of good information there.

        Definitely have a look around on the forum, this place is a fountain of knowledge.

        One last piece of advice, get yourself on old motherboard that you don't care about, and practice your technique, so that when you are ready to take the plunge on a board you do care about, you will be well prepared.

        I hope that's helpful.

        Yours,
        Justin

        Comment


          #5
          Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

          Hakko has become kind of a no-no for me. I was thinking of buying an FX-888 from the sole so called "official" distributor in the country. I went there to check what they had for sale. They had four boxes of FX-888 and all of them had various missing parts. Two of them didn't even have a metal cover on their heating element inside the iron and their tips were lying around inside their nylon bags. Their boxes were nothing like I've seen on the Net either. In fact, they suspiciously looked like the Chinese ones sold at dx.com. One FX-888 and a T18-D32 chisel tip (they didn't have D24) was going to cost me around 180 USD. I also found that kind of expensive for the stuff they had.

          Anyway, I haven't really decided about what to do/buy yet. I might go and buy a Xytronic LF 1600 next week, which has nice features and is cheaper than Hakko. I currently have one Ersa 16W and a Solomon 30W, which I inherited from my father, but I doubt that they'd do the job properly. As for solder and other stuff, I do have a 0.38mm Multicore C400 (63/37) and two Ersa no-clean wicks which should be enough.

          Comment


            #6
            Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

            Originally posted by Nikochan View Post
            Hakko has become kind of a no-no for me. I was thinking of buying an FX-888 from the sole so called "official" distributor in the country. I went there to check what they had for sale. They had four boxes of FX-888 and all of them had various missing parts. Two of them didn't even have a metal cover on their heating element inside the iron and their tips were lying around inside their nylon bags. Their boxes were nothing like I've seen on the Net either. In fact, they suspiciously looked like the Chinese ones sold at dx.com. One FX-888 and a T18-D32 chisel tip (they didn't have D24) was going to cost me around 180 USD. I also found that kind of expensive for the stuff they had.

            Anyway, I haven't really decided about what to do/buy yet. I might go and buy a Xytronic LF 1600 next week, which has nice features and is cheaper than Hakko. I currently have one Ersa 16W and a Solomon 30W, which I inherited from my father, but I doubt that they'd do the job properly. As for solder and other stuff, I do have a 0.38mm Multicore C400 (63/37) and two Ersa no-clean wicks which should be enough.
            I'm sorry to hear about your difficulty in obtaining genuine Hakko equipment, I suppose that since I am a spoiled American, I sometimes forget that the rest of the world does not have the same level of access to things as we do. Despite its appearances (the blue and yellow coloring almost makes it appear toy like), my station just exudes high quality, it is solid and robust, and is an absolute joy to use compared to my Radio Shack iron. I can't even begin to fathom why people out there produce counterfeit components, let alone something like a soldering iron, but I guess that if there is even the chance to make a couple extra dollars on an unsuspecting buyer, some unscrupulous person will be there to take advantage of them. This world really does suck sometimes. I will say, don't be fooled by the box, my Hakko iron came in plain brown cardboard box, with some writing on identifying what was contained within.

            If I remember correctly, my Radio Shack iron's high low setting, was 20 Watts on low and 40 Watts on high. So, since my first successful recap was performed with my old iron, I can say a 40 Watt iron would probably be adequate, even if it may not be the best tool for the job.

            Good luck!

            Comment


              #7
              Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

              Originally posted by c_hegge View Post
              Nice job poly-modding it. I find that MSI boards are usually fairly tolerant of being poly-modded - I've done it to a few of them and they've all been fine.
              Thanks, I definitely feel more confident about poly-modding now that I've tried it. I will admit this was a pretty expensive experiment, all things considered, especially when I just donated the system, I was just seeing if I could do it.

              It's good to know that MSI boards are tolerant to being poly-modded, I know they are not all that popular on this forum, but I've personally always had very good luck with MSI products, perhaps they don't make the best choices when it comes to caps (of course which motherboard manufacturer (other than maybe Supermicro) always does?). I guess I developed a brand loyalty when I was a PC repair tech ten years ago, after my employer decided to stop using no-name motherboards, he went with ECS, I wasn't impressed, then he tried DFI, again just okay, finally when we switched to MSI, so many problems just were solved seemingly overnight, systems were more stable, we saw fewer random glitches, etc, plus a motherboard manufacturer that offered a 3 year warrantee, that was practically unheard of back then!

              I've just always had good luck with them, same thing with Samsung products, the only Samsung product I've ever had an issue with was my Blu-Ray player I bought about 3 years ago, other than that one product, I've never had a Samsung product fail on me personally. I have repaired a few monitors and TVs and a laser printer, but those products all failed for other people.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

                ^
                MSI aren't too bad IMO. I'll take one over an ASUS any day. The last one I polymodded was a K9A2VM, which worked perfectly. There's a thread about it here - https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=30330
                I love putting bad caps and flat batteries in fire and watching them explode!!

                No wonder it doesn't work! You installed the jumper wires backwards

                Main PC: Core i7 3770K 3.5GHz, Gigabyte GA-Z77M-D3H-MVP, 8GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600, 240GB Intel 335 Series SSD, 750GB WD HDD, Sony Optiarc DVD RW, Palit nVidia GTX660 Ti, CoolerMaster N200 Case, Delta DPS-600MB 600W PSU, Hauppauge TV Tuner, Windows 7 Home Premium

                Office PC: HP ProLiant ML150 G3, 2x Xeon E5335 2GHz, 4GB DDR2 RAM, 120GB Intel 530 SSD, 2x 250GB HDD, 2x 450GB 15K SAS HDD in RAID 1, 1x 2TB HDD, nVidia 8400GS, Delta DPS-650BB 650W PSU, Windows 7 Pro

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

                  Congrats on the fix!

                  I like MSI too. I bought a RS482M4 (MS-7191) on eBay for cheap as well. After some new caps, it was working no problem.

                  Many board brands of that era are under-designed IMO, and usually have hot-running MOSFETs (I'm looking at you ASUS/AsRock, Intel, and Foxconn!). MSI may use bad caps, but at least the rest of the board is designed well.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

                    Originally posted by jpyerry View Post
                    perhaps they don't make the best choices when it comes to caps (of course which motherboard manufacturer (other than maybe Supermicro) always does?).
                    Many mid-to-high-end MSI boards come from the factory with all polymer caps, usually Samxon/X-CON, which I hear is pretty good. I can't find a single non-poly cap anywhere on my 970A-G46.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

                      Just to clarify, did you only change the regular electrolytics next to the 24pin power connector, the GPU-related caps near the PCI-Express port and the couple of other obvious ones? Or did you change all the ones around/near CPU too? They seem to be polys already on my unit, if not mistaken.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

                        P45 boards usually have polies anyways. Bad aqueous electrolytics are more common on early 775 boards. (especially pre-2006) And KZG aqueous electrolytics are common on Gxx 775 boards.

                        TK aqueous electrolytics appear to also be common on Gxx 775 boards, had folks reporting them having a tendency of going bad often.

                        Looks like ECS is likely the OEM for Acer.
                        Last edited by RJARRRPCGP; 11-09-2014, 02:25 PM.
                        ASRock B550 PG Velocita

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                        "¡Me encanta "Me Encanta o Enlistarlo con Hilary Farr!" -Mí mismo

                        "There's nothing more unattractive than a chick smoking a cigarette" -Topcat

                        "Today's lesson in pissivity comes in the form of a ziplock baggie full of GPU extension brackets & hardware that for the last ~3 years have been on my bench, always in my way, getting moved around constantly....and yesterday I found myself in need of them....and the bastards are now nowhere to be found! Motherfracker!!" -Topcat

                        "did I see a chair fly? I think I did! Time for popcorn!" -ratdude747

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

                          P45 boards don't require DDR 2 1066. There's a good chance that you can get 450 Mhz FSB with a DDR 2 800 stick.

                          And I suggest changing the VDIMM from 1.8 V to 1.9 V with 4 sticks! With 4 sticks, don't forget to set the RAM timings to manual and start at "333" before installing 4 sticks!

                          With 2 sticks or less, set the RAM timings to manual and set the DRAM voltage to 1.90 V and I would start with 5-5-5-18 for the latencies, then save, shut down and put the 4 sticks in.
                          If it fails to boot, reseat the RAM and try again..... (including without bleeps)

                          Q6600s don't need 1066 for 3.3 Ghz if you set the FSB-to-RAM ratio to 1:1!

                          -> Warning, it seems that P43 and P45 chipsets may not like anything other than 1:1!

                          For 3.3, don't be surprised if 1.40 V is the sweet spot for Vcore. (Without CPU load line calibration, I would try 1.45 V for 3.3)
                          (My Q6600 required 1.4 V at 3.3 for Linpack to pass)

                          And I would turn up the FSB termination voltage to 1.3 V.
                          (Or else the CPU probably will report a bus communication error and thus cause Windows to give a "STOP: 0x00000124" BSOD)
                          Last edited by RJARRRPCGP; 11-09-2014, 02:39 PM.
                          ASRock B550 PG Velocita

                          Ryzen 9 "Vermeer" 5900X

                          16 GB AData XPG Spectrix D41

                          Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 6750 XT

                          eVGA Supernova G3 750W

                          Western Digital Black SN850 1TB NVMe SSD

                          Alienware AW3423DWF OLED




                          "¡Me encanta "Me Encanta o Enlistarlo con Hilary Farr!" -Mí mismo

                          "There's nothing more unattractive than a chick smoking a cigarette" -Topcat

                          "Today's lesson in pissivity comes in the form of a ziplock baggie full of GPU extension brackets & hardware that for the last ~3 years have been on my bench, always in my way, getting moved around constantly....and yesterday I found myself in need of them....and the bastards are now nowhere to be found! Motherfracker!!" -Topcat

                          "did I see a chair fly? I think I did! Time for popcorn!" -ratdude747

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: MSI P45 Neo (MS-7519) complete (almost) poly recapping

                            Originally posted by RJARRRPCGP View Post
                            P45 boards usually have polies anyways. Bad aqueous electrolytics are more common on early 775 boards. (especially pre-2006) And KZG aqueous electrolytics are common on Gxx 775 boards.
                            Yep, on the board of the topic, all the ones around the CPU are polies, but the rest are electrolytics. And the one I'm repairing has all the ones around the PCI-E x16 port bulging. I'll change them and report if the board posts. If not, I'll also change the 8 or 9 just next to the ATX 24pin connector.

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