I have bought a new board, due to the reasonable price drop for socket 939 cpu`s. As i am currently using a Radeon X800 AGP card, i decided to want native SATA support and an current chipset. So i went for the Asrock DS, wich will oc a little too (wich i can`t do with my older setup, an Semperon 3100 64bit due to Mianboard limitations).
Right out of the boxe i recaped the missing big cap within the VRM, even i don`t know about this strange VRM desing. Most VRM`s are usinge equal numbers of caps on all phases, but not the Asrock DS, and many other current Asrock boards. I used an 3300uF MBZ for that.
Then i figured out, that there are some very small Ost cap ( Ost 1000uF RLP 6.3v) on a little smaller single phase VRM unit, wich i don't know for what it is good for. The silkscreen was obviousely for an large sized cap. So i replaced that cap with an 1500uF Rubycon MCZ too.
May be i will replace the o/p caps from this unit too, but not ATM.
All small caps on that board are Ost either RLP or near the PCI-X slot some Ost RLS, wich are probably low esr.
Near the memory banks, there are an linear regualtion circuit, wich will generat some heat. Those 3 caps are getting all very hot, may be Asrock decided for that reason to use 3 of those Ost caps. In any way, if i will get into any trouble with that board, i will replace them very soon with some oscon or some long life caps. On the 939M SIS board from Asrock, i heave seen one single MCZ cap, wich was placed exatlcy where on the DS those 3 Ost caps are. And it is getting very hot too.
Above the upper VRM mosfets, there are silscreen for some bigger cearimc caps, wich are not installed. I soldered some 2,2uf caps there. under the CPU soket there are two ceramics missing too. I installed some 2,2uf ceramics in that place.
On the Audio board there are some small 16v caps missing, may be i install some caps there, as i had experienced some humm with some newer FSP THN-P psu`s in a friends setup.
As usuall, i applied some Arctic silver thermal compound on to the south and northbridge. There was only a very very small ammount there, wich has not even covered the whole cirlce within the chip surface.
On to the Southbridge, i will probably install an small fan, running at 5v, as in generall this chipset coolers are getting pretty hot on all Asrock boards. this will not make this thing running any faster or oc more, but i don`t like hot chips in my rig.
I tested the system with an AMD Athlon 64 3200 E6 and it will runn without issue up to 2600mhz (HTT of 260mhz). I think after testing with memtest, prime95 and cpustresstest (all from the famouse UBCD) this will my new system, running at 2500mhz.
If there will be any problem occure, i will replace ALL Ost caps on this board, but forehand i will need to buy a new soldering iron....
(RoHS....)
From my own experience, those ULI drivers are pretty good, as i have this Ga-K8U 754 board from Gigabyte in my other rig, without any issue. So methinks, if probelms occure, those would be caused by the board, hopefully by the caps, not by the drivers or chipsset.
Right out of the boxe i recaped the missing big cap within the VRM, even i don`t know about this strange VRM desing. Most VRM`s are usinge equal numbers of caps on all phases, but not the Asrock DS, and many other current Asrock boards. I used an 3300uF MBZ for that.
Then i figured out, that there are some very small Ost cap ( Ost 1000uF RLP 6.3v) on a little smaller single phase VRM unit, wich i don't know for what it is good for. The silkscreen was obviousely for an large sized cap. So i replaced that cap with an 1500uF Rubycon MCZ too.
May be i will replace the o/p caps from this unit too, but not ATM.
All small caps on that board are Ost either RLP or near the PCI-X slot some Ost RLS, wich are probably low esr.
Near the memory banks, there are an linear regualtion circuit, wich will generat some heat. Those 3 caps are getting all very hot, may be Asrock decided for that reason to use 3 of those Ost caps. In any way, if i will get into any trouble with that board, i will replace them very soon with some oscon or some long life caps. On the 939M SIS board from Asrock, i heave seen one single MCZ cap, wich was placed exatlcy where on the DS those 3 Ost caps are. And it is getting very hot too.
Above the upper VRM mosfets, there are silscreen for some bigger cearimc caps, wich are not installed. I soldered some 2,2uf caps there. under the CPU soket there are two ceramics missing too. I installed some 2,2uf ceramics in that place.
On the Audio board there are some small 16v caps missing, may be i install some caps there, as i had experienced some humm with some newer FSP THN-P psu`s in a friends setup.
As usuall, i applied some Arctic silver thermal compound on to the south and northbridge. There was only a very very small ammount there, wich has not even covered the whole cirlce within the chip surface.
On to the Southbridge, i will probably install an small fan, running at 5v, as in generall this chipset coolers are getting pretty hot on all Asrock boards. this will not make this thing running any faster or oc more, but i don`t like hot chips in my rig.
I tested the system with an AMD Athlon 64 3200 E6 and it will runn without issue up to 2600mhz (HTT of 260mhz). I think after testing with memtest, prime95 and cpustresstest (all from the famouse UBCD) this will my new system, running at 2500mhz.
If there will be any problem occure, i will replace ALL Ost caps on this board, but forehand i will need to buy a new soldering iron....
(RoHS....)From my own experience, those ULI drivers are pretty good, as i have this Ga-K8U 754 board from Gigabyte in my other rig, without any issue. So methinks, if probelms occure, those would be caused by the board, hopefully by the caps, not by the drivers or chipsset.
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