Another A8V Recap - I screw something up?

[mazade]

Hi there,
Looking for insight from you experienced gentlemen... I'm hoping I missed something.

Asus A8V Deluxe
For its owner the thing has become less and less reliable, powering off/freezing/dying becoming more common, it sounds like it has sat unused for 6 months to 1 year.
I get my hands on it and notice that it's loaded with KZG caps, like 20 of em;
6.3V/820uf things. So I get on here to learn, and then follow standard procedure. A bunch of Samxon 6.3V/820uF caps for most places, Fujitsu Poly 2.5V/820uF caps for Vcore, Samxon/Rubycon 6.3V/1500uF for some spots above Vcore, and Samxon/Rubycon 16V/1000uF for some more by Vcore & near to P4 power plugin.
The cap silkscreens on this board are reversed(at least that's what I'd think), with the positive half being whited out instead of negative... I checked stock setup, and also referred to pics of other members A8V recaps. I double/triple-check and everything is in as it should be.

I'm thinking things are sailing here.
Plug the board & accessories back in, power up...
The Caps Lock, Scroll Lock, and Num Lock are ALL flashing simultaneously, and continuously. The screen doesn't come on either. Dead End.

Things attempted:
Try less ram(single stick) and/or swapping out for other sticks
Swap out Video Card(had AGP, I try a known working PCI card)
No extra pci cards either.
Swapped out CPU
Swapped out Power Supply
Pulled board and tested all cap leads while board is powered up on shop bench, everything checks out, didn't miss or short anything that I can tell.
Purchased and swapped in a new bios chip.

This is not a Nvidia Chipset

I'm only posting because I've tried everything I can think of... short of going over the underside of the board to see if I somehow may have scuffed a trace when de-capping the board.

My question for you-all: what am I not thinking about here, what else can I try. This would be the 1st board that I may have caused a total failure by attempted recap

Thanks for taking the time to check out my dilemma.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Another A8V Recap - I screw something up?

I get my hands on it and notice that it's loaded with KZG caps, like 20 of em;

I received 3 non working socket 775 boards and all have KZG caps. Lots of them too. For me, having to replace 20+ per board may not be worth the $$$ and that is assuming it is a cap problem.

The cap silkscreens on this board are reversed(at least that's what I'd think), with the positive half being whited out instead of negative...

Yes, I noticed that too with Asus so you have the correct orientation.

Did you

1) reset CMOS via jumper
2) check the 3V CR2032 battery to see if it is > 3V DC

[pfrcom]

Re: Another A8V Recap - I screw something up?

I had a similar problem here https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...3&postcount=16 with a P4C800-E that I recapped

Eventually found that I'd bridged a capacitor leg to a tiny solder dot only a couple of millimetres away, on the bottom of the board

Really easy to do, when they're that close together

[mazade]

Re: Another A8V Recap - I screw something up?

well about all the KZG's, I left some of them that were dedicated to unused USB connector spots, and to the audio chips/amp interface.
I did perform the CMOS jumper reset earlier, before swapping bios chips.
I noticed the battery is still a few hundredth's above 3V when I'd checked... maybe change-out still?

I'll likely be grabbing the 5X optical loupe and taking a close look at things : /

Thanks ^_^

[retiredcaps]

Re: Another A8V Recap - I screw something up?

I noticed the battery is still a few hundredth's above 3V when I'd checked... maybe change-out still?

Troubleshooting motherboards is fairly new to me, but I *think* I read somewhere that some motherboards manufacturers are more picky about the CMOS voltage than others? It might be a longshot, but it is a quick 30 second swap out and test.

I buy the CR2032s from ebay using the sort by lowest price + shipping method. In fact, I just received 10 of them yesterday for $1.25 + free shipping. All of them tested around 3.23V DC or better with my multimeter. I can't even buy 1L of gas for $1.25 much less get it shipped from the far east to my house.

edit: I think the local Wal-Mart wanted $10 for 2 duracell CR2032s.