Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

[Pentium4]

Here I've got this Foxconn board that I obtained for free and I want to recap it. The caps on the VRM are KZG and OST RLX (Going to replace the KZG with nichicon HZ, and the OSTs with Sanyo SEP polymers) None are bulged surprisingly, probably because it was using a piece of crap low power 45W Sempron LE-1200. Plan on putting an Athlon 64 x2 in there. The rest of the caps are SAM YOUNG NXC and Evercon LE. The Evercons are definitely getting replaced.

My question is, are Sam Young caps reliable enough or should they replaced? They're all 1000uF 6.3V. If they're fairly reliable, I will leave them, if not I'm hoping that 820uF 6.3V nichicon HN caps would be adequate enough as a replacement. Anyone had experience with these Sam Young caps on motherboards?

[Jooo]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

I had two 1000/16 Samyoung NXC bulgers on TV Digital board... I would replace them.

[SIDMX]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

I have no experience with Samyoung caps but I would replace them if they are in stressed circuits and/or powering a high-speed IC or BUS like CPU, RAM, NB, SB, PCIe or AGP. However that board seems to be made between 2006-2007 (judging by the AM2 socket), so unless you know for sure it hasn't been abused with crappy P/S or poor cooling you better replace those caps IMHO.

[momaka]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

Samyoung caps... I would replace them if they are in stressed circuits and/or powering a high-speed IC or BUS like CPU, RAM, NB, SB, PCIe or AGP.

Agree.

If they are general filters for 3.3V, 5V, and 12V rails or 5VSB and USB +5V, you can leave them. May also be okay on low-power linear regulators (any 1117 parts). Definitely replace if they are on a buck regulator.

For example, it looks like MOSFETs Q60 and Q61 by the bottom of the rightmost RAM slot form a buck regulator. The OCR 330uF 16V cap is probably the input filter for that buck regulator, and above the square coil are the filter caps for the output. If I'm not mistaken, those are Sam Young - and if they really are, I'd say replace them. Maybe not all 4 of them are in parallel, though, so you'd have to check. It's possible that some of them are on the RAM Vtt, which is a very low stress rail.

-sidenote- I really dislike those dark-colored PCBs. Really hard to tell what's connected to what.
/sidenote

[Pentium4]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

I'm OCD about caps, so I replaced all of the Sam Young's. And...Good thing! They all read over 1250uF! Some even as high as 1375uF. So I'm guessing they had a lot of internal leakage. I also noticed that it was extremely easy to pull the legs out of the Sam Young caps. Abnormally easy.

The four 470uF 16V Evercons on the other hand...all read between 463-475uF. Well played Evercon

It looks so much better now! Purely nichicon HZ, except since I was paranoid I replaced the 100uF 16V Teapo SEK that filters the CPU fan power with a 100uF 25V Chemi-Con KY cap. Mainly because it was sitting just a mm away from a voltage regulator.

[mockingbird]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

Nice job. Excellent example of a proper re-cap (Assuming your soldering on the bottom of the board is good). Absolutely always replace Teapo SEK. I would consider them an unreliable series, bearing in mind that the higher diameter versions may be somewhat reliable. The Evercon caps may be reading in spec, but you don't know their ESR.

[Pentium4]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

Thanks for the kind words mb. My soldering job I would say was slightly above average. I was a little picky about some joints but didn't want to spend too much time on this board. I prefer Intel, but this is a nice board now that it's recapped. It uses the 690G chipset. The ESR of the Evercon caps were 0.18Ω, 0.18Ω, 0.20Ω, 0.22Ω Either way they were going to get replaced. The two healthier ones were the two next to the PCI-E slots, which never got used which is probably why. I've seen Evercon/GSC bulge just from sitting, so apparently just having voltage applied kept them "healthy"

[mockingbird]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

Interesting. So the Evercons were indeed in spec. Do you remember the ESR of the Samyoung caps that were reading above their rating?

Nothing wrong with 690G boards. Coincidentally, I was just looking at an Asus M2A-VM I found in the garbage a while ago. Re-capped it at the time, but never ended using it for anything. Now I see there are a few empty cap spots I can fill to improve it a bit. These boards can take Phenom II, but they don't support all the features of the boards with later chipsets.

[Pentium4]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

Yeah, the Sam Young caps were between 0.03Ω-0.06Ω with most being 0.04Ω

The Asus M2A-VM is a nice board too, it'd make a great little file server, HTPC, or internet browser.

These boards can take Phenom II, but they don't support all the features of the boards with later chipsets.

Interesting, is this why they aren't in the "Supported CPU List" ? I also have a Phenom sitting here, but those don't seem to perform that well. I know they have some known issues.

[Uniballer]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

I also have a Phenom sitting here, but those don't seem to perform that well. I know they have some known issues.

Phenom II's should all be fine, but early Phenoms had a TLB bug that caused lock-up issues and the software fixes reduced the performance quite a bit.

[Pentium4]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

I'll give the Phenom a try, because I have a bad Athlon 64 X2 here, and even the "crippled" Phenom is better than the Sempron LE-1200 that's installed right now. Thanks for the link.

[mockingbird]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

Interesting, is this why they aren't in the "Supported CPU List" ? I also have a Phenom sitting here, but those don't seem to perform that well. I know they have some known issues.

For the M2A-VM they are, right up until almost the latest models. MSI probably just got lazy and didn't update the page.

Bios 5001 for my board has the TLB workaround, make sure yours does too.

[mockingbird]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

I just checked the BIOS page for your board. Latest version is P45 from August of '08. Foxconn isn't really that well known for updating the BIOS of discontinued boards as much as Asus is.

You'll probably have to manually update the latest BIOS yourself by replacing the AGESA module. I also checked up on the TLB bug. If your Phenom is B3, you need not worry. If it's a B2 or earlier, your BIOS will need to have the workaround implemented.

The BIOS workaround for TLB slows the system down significantly.

My suggestion to you is to post a request at Bios-Mods.com linking to your bios asking for an update for all the option ROMS but most importantly AGESA and CPU IDs.

[momaka]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

It looks so much better now! Purely nichicon HZ

Like.
A.
Boss.


Nice recap job! This is how it's done properly for sure .

[formula95]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

Very nice job on the motherboard, atleast you did a complete job, that way you don't have to worry about other caps going bad right away

I need to replace a couple of caps on a Dell Optiplex myself but I'm not sure which series to purchase from BadCaps. I currently have KZJ 2200uf, 6.3v caps and not sure what I need to buy because there are 3 different series of Rubi caps, HM,HZ or HN. Can anyone help me?

I'm new to this forum so if I did something wrong, please forgive me.

[formula95]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

My previous post stated different series of Rubi caps, I meant Nichicon caps. These were the ones I was interested in due to past use of this brand. No failures yet. Thank you BadCaps.

[mockingbird]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

Very nice job on the motherboard, atleast you did a complete job, that way you don't have to worry about other caps going bad right away

I need to replace a couple of caps on a Dell Optiplex myself but I'm not sure which series to purchase from BadCaps. I currently have KZJ 2200uf, 6.3v caps and not sure what I need to buy because there are 3 different series of Rubi caps, HM,HZ or HN. Can anyone help me?

I'm new to this forum so if I did something wrong, please forgive me.

For KZJ, you need at least Nichicon HN. HZ is good too, but HM is not.

Which Optiplex do you have? You might need to re-cap the PSU too.

[Pentium4]

Re: Foxconn A690GM2MA-8KRS2H

I just checked the BIOS page for your board. Latest version is P45 from August of '08. Foxconn isn't really that well known for updating the BIOS of discontinued boards as much as Asus is.

You'll probably have to manually update the latest BIOS yourself by replacing the AGESA module. I also checked up on the TLB bug. If your Phenom is B3, you need not worry. If it's a B2 or earlier, your BIOS will need to have the workaround implemented.

The BIOS workaround for TLB slows the system down significantly.

My suggestion to you is to post a request at Bios-Mods.com linking to your bios asking for an update for all the option ROMS but most importantly AGESA and CPU IDs.

Wow, thank you for looking that up for me! I'm lucky, it's a B3. System is running like a charm with 4GB RAM @ 800MHz and a completely recapped Macron PSU. Should be good for as long as it's useful!

Like.
A.
Boss.


Nice recap job! This is how it's done properly for sure .

Thank you, sir

Very nice job on the motherboard, atleast you did a complete job, that way you don't have to worry about other caps going bad right away

Thank you! Yes, I don't want to have to worry about any of the caps going bad!