Ok... my first post here so go easy please. 
I had an Epox 8RDA3+ mobo with an Athlon XP 2500+ in a computer that I've used just for basic net surfing, playing music, Excel, Word etc. It was never really a gaming PC so it's always been good enough which is why I've never really upgraded.
Anyway... late last year it started getting sudden restarts and BSOD's and random error messages (that I can remember).
I didn't know what the problem was so I did a bit of online research and figured it must have been the mobo or CPU or PSU. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on replacements because as I said this comp isn't used for anything intensive so I didn't want to get into an upgrade costing 100's of dollars.
Eventually the restarts got often enough that I looked around and bought another compatible mobo for my comp. I thought I "lucked out" because I found another Epox 8RDA3+ mobo with an Athlon XP 2500+ processor bundled together that someone was selling for the equivalent of about $20 USD. I wanted to keep the same mobo setup because I have 3 sticks of DDR400 Ram and a Sata HD and many of the more basic Socket A boards only have 2 dimm slots and don't support Sata.
Also I've had really good luck with this Epox board overclocking my Athlon 2500+ and have gotten it up to the 3200+ level and really haven't tried to push it even further although that's probably about as high as it would go. I've run that processor overclocked at that level for about 7 years and had no problems.
Anyway... I got the "new" Epox 8RDA3+ board and put it in late last year and it's worked fine until the last week or so and now the same flaky problems are beginning again. Random lock ups and then restarts. It can work fine for several hours and then have several restarts in a row in a half hour period. Really random but gradually increasing in frequency.
I also noticed my VDD frequency is not stable and when the computer reboots and I watch the VDD number with the Epox USDM software it's constantly fluctuating between ~1.35 to ~1.7. I think when it drops below 1.3 is when I'm getting the restarts.
I've ditched the overclocking and put the CPU back to stock speed just to see what happens and that seems to have no effect. I even slightly underclocked it and that also really made no difference that I can see.
I even reinstalled windows XP and that made a huge difference in the overall system speed but zippo difference in the restarts problem.
My idle CPU temp is 37 Celcius and with Prime 95 running my CPU usage to 100% my CPU temp gets to 44 Celcius.
I've also tested my PSU with a digital voltmeter while running prime 95.
While running Prime 95 my PSU rails tested at exactly 3.4 Volts for the 3.3 rail, 5.14-5.15 volts for the 5 volt rail and 12.18-12.20 for the 12 volt rail.
Now long winded story coming to an end...
I've enclosed a few pics of the current mobo which are the 1st 3 pictures.... there appears to be some swollen caps (but I don't really see any leakage yet) on the caps all around the video card and the dimm slots but the big caps around the CPU look ok to me. I'm no expert but I counted maybe 11 caps in total that "might" be swollen around the AGP slot and the dimm slots area.
The last pic is of my previous Epox board and the 6 caps next to the CPU are looking swollen but none of the other caps on the board look bad (to my untrained eye).
Basically I wanted to ask whether you all agree that it's likely bad caps that is causing the trouble on these 2 mobos or is there any other area that could be a problem? I've tried to do as much testing as possible to rule out everything else. I've done a few memory tests and the ram comes up fine as well. I actually have a new AGP graphics card (bought less than a year ago) which I upgraded because the fan on my old one went and it was having some graphical issues so I don't think the basically new graphics card is the problem either.
So any ideas? Is it simply bad caps again and I either invest in a soldering iron and recap these or look for yet another older basic mobo and CPU? (staying away from the Epox 8RDA3+ this time though.)
I actually might buy a $25 USD used Socket 754 mobo and an Athlon 64 3000+ CPU as an "upgrade" to take me one step out of the socket A dark ages.
Is there anything else to test or is it pretty certain to you all that's it's likely a capacitor issue?
Thanks in advance.
I had an Epox 8RDA3+ mobo with an Athlon XP 2500+ in a computer that I've used just for basic net surfing, playing music, Excel, Word etc. It was never really a gaming PC so it's always been good enough which is why I've never really upgraded.
Anyway... late last year it started getting sudden restarts and BSOD's and random error messages (that I can remember).
I didn't know what the problem was so I did a bit of online research and figured it must have been the mobo or CPU or PSU. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on replacements because as I said this comp isn't used for anything intensive so I didn't want to get into an upgrade costing 100's of dollars.
Eventually the restarts got often enough that I looked around and bought another compatible mobo for my comp. I thought I "lucked out" because I found another Epox 8RDA3+ mobo with an Athlon XP 2500+ processor bundled together that someone was selling for the equivalent of about $20 USD. I wanted to keep the same mobo setup because I have 3 sticks of DDR400 Ram and a Sata HD and many of the more basic Socket A boards only have 2 dimm slots and don't support Sata.
Also I've had really good luck with this Epox board overclocking my Athlon 2500+ and have gotten it up to the 3200+ level and really haven't tried to push it even further although that's probably about as high as it would go. I've run that processor overclocked at that level for about 7 years and had no problems.
Anyway... I got the "new" Epox 8RDA3+ board and put it in late last year and it's worked fine until the last week or so and now the same flaky problems are beginning again. Random lock ups and then restarts. It can work fine for several hours and then have several restarts in a row in a half hour period. Really random but gradually increasing in frequency.
I also noticed my VDD frequency is not stable and when the computer reboots and I watch the VDD number with the Epox USDM software it's constantly fluctuating between ~1.35 to ~1.7. I think when it drops below 1.3 is when I'm getting the restarts.
I've ditched the overclocking and put the CPU back to stock speed just to see what happens and that seems to have no effect. I even slightly underclocked it and that also really made no difference that I can see.
I even reinstalled windows XP and that made a huge difference in the overall system speed but zippo difference in the restarts problem.
My idle CPU temp is 37 Celcius and with Prime 95 running my CPU usage to 100% my CPU temp gets to 44 Celcius.
I've also tested my PSU with a digital voltmeter while running prime 95.
While running Prime 95 my PSU rails tested at exactly 3.4 Volts for the 3.3 rail, 5.14-5.15 volts for the 5 volt rail and 12.18-12.20 for the 12 volt rail.
Now long winded story coming to an end...
I've enclosed a few pics of the current mobo which are the 1st 3 pictures.... there appears to be some swollen caps (but I don't really see any leakage yet) on the caps all around the video card and the dimm slots but the big caps around the CPU look ok to me. I'm no expert but I counted maybe 11 caps in total that "might" be swollen around the AGP slot and the dimm slots area.
The last pic is of my previous Epox board and the 6 caps next to the CPU are looking swollen but none of the other caps on the board look bad (to my untrained eye).
Basically I wanted to ask whether you all agree that it's likely bad caps that is causing the trouble on these 2 mobos or is there any other area that could be a problem? I've tried to do as much testing as possible to rule out everything else. I've done a few memory tests and the ram comes up fine as well. I actually have a new AGP graphics card (bought less than a year ago) which I upgraded because the fan on my old one went and it was having some graphical issues so I don't think the basically new graphics card is the problem either.
So any ideas? Is it simply bad caps again and I either invest in a soldering iron and recap these
or look for yet another older basic mobo and CPU? (staying away from the Epox 8RDA3+ this time though.) I actually might buy a $25 USD used Socket 754 mobo and an Athlon 64 3000+ CPU as an "upgrade" to take me one step out of the socket A dark ages.
Is there anything else to test or is it pretty certain to you all that's it's likely a capacitor issue?
Thanks in advance.
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