DFI LANParty nF3 250GB going wonky, and bad caps

[Nagoshi]

Bought that motherboard off eBay, like, 2 months ago. Looked fine at the eye, so I used it for a month. Got my ML-30 CPU to 333 x 8 at start which I was happy about. After some fizzling during the month of use I noticed that I couldn't overclock like before, no matter the voltage I couldn't get past 330 anymore.

Noticed during the whole time that I used it that, if I did not have the right settings in, the computer would display a "nVidia IDE RAID" search screen then restart. It was VERY picky about the RAM settings and HT speed. Something that nobody using that board before saw.

Also during that time I found out that this board seems to have bad RAM slots. The 3rd one is not working anymore, the second one has issues when going past 225+ MHz RAM (no matter the timings). The first one has no problems whatsoever. When using the 1st and 2nd slots, it was a bit more stable at the beginning but at the end I just couldn't overclock it anymore past 220MHz on the RAM.

I decided I would keep the CPU alive and try another one... dumped a Mobile 3000+ Clawhammer in there, with board at default it would not boot into Windows... weird. Bumped the voltage, it got in there but was unstable as heck. I also noticed during that time that I had two SATA ports not working.

That's when I saw a cap that started creaming. Right beside the two bad SATA ports. Coincidence? I think not, because the ports could see the hard drive when plugged in but wouldn't do anything else, Windows' disk would just hang while detecting the drives.

Also found out that there was a cap bulging right beside the RAM slots. It's kind of.... going in. It's weird, it's not leaking at all, it's just round-ish on the edge. I'd take a picture but it's really hard to see.

You guys think I should re-cap the whole boards? There are, I believe, 58 caps in total. 20 nichicons HM (the two that appears to have failed are HM), the rest are Chemi-Con, mainly KZG, alot of small KMG and some KMA.

Also, I could get another identical board (with all Chemi-Con caps, or so it seems) that is dead, but the caps all looks fine, for free. Could I transfer the caps from the dead board to my board? Or should I go with brand new stuff, and if so, which ones?

Quick listing of the caps and numbers:
- 20 x Nichicon 1000uF 6.3v HM 105C
- 5 x Chemi-con KZG 1000uF 10V
- 1 x Chemi-con KZG 470uF 16V
- 4 x Chemi-con KZG 1500uF 16V
- 6 x Chemi-con KZG 3300uF 6.3V
- 18 x Chemi-con KMG 100uF 16V
- 4 x Chemi-con KMA 100uF 16V

[c_hegge]

Re: DFI LANParty nF3 250GB going wonky, and bad caps

First Q: re cap the whole board (not just the bloated ones), caps do not always bloat and leak when they fail, especially the Chemi-Con KZG. Replace them with either Rubycon MBZ/MCZ (Available from Badcaps.net), Nichicon HM (see below), Panasonic FJ (if you can find them) or Sanyo WG (Once again, not the easiest to get hold of).

Second Q: Don't transfer the caps. The other board is probably suffereing the same fault. Caps can fail without bloating.

Also, Nichicon HM had manufacturing defects which they fixed in 2005, so check the date codes. If it begins with 05__ or lower, it was defective. If 06__, they are fine. Replace them with either Rubycon MBZ from here, or new Nichicon HM from mouser

[Nagoshi]

Re: DFI LANParty nF3 250GB going wonky, and bad caps

The Nichicons were all made during '05, that might explain it.

So you are suggesting I grab Rubycon MBZ for the whole board?

[c_hegge]

Re: DFI LANParty nF3 250GB going wonky, and bad caps

So you are suggesting I grab Rubycon MBZ for the whole board?

Yes. You can get them from badcaps.net. You can also use NEW Nichicon HM from Mouser electronics.

[c_hegge]

Re: DFI LANParty nF3 250GB going wonky, and bad caps

Also, The tiny caps (100uF KMG and KMA) can probably be left in place as they are in low-stress areas and aren't very critical to the performance

[mathog]

Re: DFI LANParty nF3 250GB going wonky, and bad caps

We just had one of these fail at work. I don't see any Nichicons, the entire board seems to be UCC KZG. Several have swollen tops and one is oozing out the vent. The machine is not stable when running either linux or Windows. For the former (knoppix from a CD) it refused to start any programs from the menu once the desktop came up. Under windows it keeps losing track of files. It ran memtest for hours without problems though, so the caps seem to be mostly affecting IO to the disks.

This particular PC was attached to an instrument, and except for a few short periods when it was off, ran 24/7 for the last 46365 hours (5+ years, read from the counters on the disk). KZGs are not noted for their longevity, and I think we only made it this far because the inside of the machine was generally only a bit above room temperature. The case was well ventilated, ambient temperature was 68-72 degrees, it had a tiny low power graphics card, and only rarely did it run anything that loaded the CPU.

Odds are we will replace it rather than fix it.

[seanc]

Re: DFI LANParty nF3 250GB going wonky, and bad caps

I have one of these, covered in KZG.
None bulged but it was having random stability issues in Windows 7.

I'm in the process or re-capping, cleaning the solder holes is a struggle.

[seanc]

Re: DFI LANParty nF3 250GB going wonky, and bad caps

Turns out, mine is actually an NF4.

Replaced all KZG above 470µf (didn't have any 470µf) seems to be really stable now. Posts correctly all the time.

[Player2]

Re: DFI LANParty nF3 250GB going wonky, and bad caps

I've got this same board, and it has had a multitude of issues. Turns out it was full of UCC KZGs, several were blown in the VRM and a few others here and there. Also, the Antec PSU it was running on had some blown caps. I decided it might make a nice test rig (mainly for AGP) so I recapped the board with polys and cleaned up the PSU as well. Haven't fired it up yet, but I'll let you know how it turns out.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: DFI LANParty nF3 250GB going wonky, and bad caps

Chemicon KZG and KZJ fail without bloating.

The HN/HM problem began in '01 and was corrected in mid/late '04.
Thus the bad date codes for HM and HN are 01__ thru 04__ .
The 05__ and up codes are fine.
.
It's not that hard to know that when Nichicon made the public announcement admitting the problem in May or June of '04.
.