ECS A780GM-A Black

[cufarmer]

About a month ago, my son shut down his unstable (crashes during stressful apps, like games) PC with A780GM-A board. Two days ago, I tried to fire it up to go through a troubleshooting routine, but the PC failed to post....fast forward to today. I have identified one failed capacitor (1000uf 6.3v) next to the battery. Board was still under warranty but in the third year, so ECS says "pay us diagnostic fee and we send you new one". Thats probably not going to happen, to be honest, I have no intention in paying for an older chipset.

The question is... board does not post, is the capacitor pictured a known bad cap. For this board, which capacitors should i replace for good measure??


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[mariushm]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

Determine the diameter (of the capacitor with or without the room around it) - basically you need it to reject capacitors that are too wide for the location.

Then pick one from known brands and known series Nichicon, Panasonic, Rubycon - you can't pick generic ones from Radioshack or other stores.

You can pick capacitors that are rated for higher voltage but you need to keep the capacity the same and the capacitors you choose must have low impedance.

You should replace all three (or four, looking at a picture of the whole board it looks like there's 4 identical there) 1000uF capacitors and maybe even that gold one labeled RLP (but I don't see the capacity and voltage for that one). The reason why all three 1000uF should be replaced is that if they were in the same circuit, once this one bulged and got out of specs, the others may be overloaded and are probably going to die soon.

if you're in us, you have digikey.com
in europe you have uk.farnell.com

there's also mouser.com and other stores.

suggestions (from less wide to wider, great to less great)


8mm wide

http://uk.farnell.com/rubycon/16zlh1...16v/dp/8126291
http://search.digikey.com/us/en/prod...2354-ND/613715
http://search.digikey.com/us/en/prod...1647-ND/756163

10mm wide

http://search.digikey.com/us/en/prod...2366-ND/613727
http://search.digikey.com/us/en/prod...1664-ND/756180
http://search.digikey.com/us/en/prod...2353-ND/613714
http://search.digikey.com/us/en/prod...1933-ND/756449

ps if anyone else wants to have a look the large image is here: http://img14.*************/img14/4301/1006976b.jpg

[cufarmer]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

Thank you for your quick reply.
I notice the voltage rating for the capacitors you selected were all well above the 6.3v labeled on the bad capacitor. Is there a benefit to having a higher voltage rating? I understand lower impedance is better, but what is the significance of the higher voltage?

I'll have to measure those this evening before i can order them.

Also, thank you for posting a proper link to the larger image. attached is a slightly wider view of that area. Yes, there are 4 1000uf caps.

[mariushm]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

The voltage information tells you the maximum voltage a capacitor can support without damaging itself. If you exceed it, the foil/dielectric material inside will get damaged, chemical reactions are going to happen, gas forms, capacitor swells up, explodes etc.

So you can use a capacitor rated for 10v or 16v even though there was a 6.3v one there before - in that area there probably isn't more than 2-4 volts there in the first place. If I were to guess, the capacitors are probably used to supply power to the chipset under the heatsink, which usually requires around 1.2-1.8 volts.

Capacitors rated for higher voltage are usually also taller or wider, and with the additional volume, it's easier for manufacturers to guarantee low impedance and high ripple (both matter on motherboards and power supplies) - seeing as there is room to go up (the location won't block video cards or the other slots), I chose to give you capacitors with better specifications than any capacitor rated for 6.3v could have (leaving polymer capacitors aside).

[cufarmer]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

The voltage information tells you the maximum voltage a capacitor can support without damaging itself. If you exceed it, the foil/dielectric material inside will get damaged, chemical reactions are going to happen, gas forms, capacitor swells up, explodes etc.

So you can use a capacitor rated for 10v or 16v even though there was a 6.3v one there before - in that area there probably isn't more than 2-4 volts there in the first place. If I were to guess, the capacitors are probably used to supply power to the chipset under the heatsink, which usually requires around 1.2-1.8 volts.

Capacitors rated for higher voltage are usually also taller or wider, and with the additional volume, it's easier for manufacturers to guarantee low impedance and high ripple (both matter on motherboards and power supplies) - seeing as there is room to go up (the location won't block video cards or the other slots), I chose to give you capacitors with better specifications than any capacitor rated for 6.3v could have (leaving polymer capacitors aside).

Thank you, that explaination works for me.
Voltage: Higher is better to a degree.
Ripple: Higher value is better
Impedence: Lower is better

Thanks. I'll select from your suggestions, hey all seem to be capable of fitting.

[cufarmer]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

Before i get started ordering capacitors, I thought i might note a curious problem it has and see if anyone might have a clue if capacitor replacement is worth a shot.

Board will not power down while holding power button. This is true for both the front panel power button and the onboard power button.

Thanks in advance.

[c_hegge]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

Give it a go, but replace ALL OST capacitors. They are total junk and don't often bulge when they fail, so the others are more than likely bad as well. Also, what other capacitors are on the board besides those OSTs?

They are 8mm diameter btw. replace them with either one of the suggested ones or https://www.badcaps.net/store/produc...roducts_id=131

[cufarmer]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

are poly caps worth it for this? Can anyone recomend a spec for the ones pictured?

[mariushm]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

I wouldn't spend money on poly caps. ECS imho isn't a performance motherboard manufacturer, it's not making designs that would benefit much from polys.

[cufarmer]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

Good point. For me, on my personal PC's, I find it hard to justify purchasing an expensive motherboard when i see those fail quite often as well. So, this is my experiment; if i can fix this one, then I may pony up the cash on the next board for something a bit more pricey.
Overall, I have had great luck with ECS, and I game frequently. They board (up until this one) have been good and the systems have turned over benchmarks that were consistant with, and it some cases better than, a system with a higher quality board. By far, the best board I have ever purchased by ECS was the N2U400 Ultra (socket 462, 400Mhz FSB). I am migrating everything to MSI now due to ECS's crappy and misleading warranty.

[Mad_Professor]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

You might want to try and see if you can remove the capacitor with ease.

I recently got an ECS socket 775 board and spent 2 hours trying to remove a cap and failed. I hit it with everything, 25w iron, 40w iron, 45w radio shack desoldering iron then did two irons, then pull out the wagner heatgun at 1000*F and even that didn't work. Solder was silver on top but when you remove the silver lining it looked like they use an epoxy resin in the holes to hold the cap until the solder bath was done.

I eventually did get it out, but I couldn't punch a hole through it to fit a new cap in.

Anyways if this is your first time soldering; I found this was the best way for me is to:

Tin the iron then add solder to cap leads on board to heat up and liquify the old solder, move back and forth between the leads in tadem while wiggling the cap out. Then use a sewing pin or pin big enough for a capacitor lead. Use the iron to heat up the solder and push the pin through from the other side. Then remove iron and keep moving the pin and slowly remove it so the hole doesn't fill in. Place new cap through the newly open hole

*warning make sure you align the negative lead to the negative marking on the board, this is the opposite for asus and asrock boards*

and make sure it sits on the board. Bend the leads a little to keep the capacitor from falling out and trim the leads. When using the dikes or electrician scissors or whatever, go parallel with the board, and not a downward angle. This has been known to damage traces on the board.

Then use 91% alcohol or acetone and sterilize the trace and area of flux and dirt. Now get the iron and heat the trace and lead and then just add solder. Only a little and then pull the iron straight up away from the board to leave a nice spiky point.

If the solder looks dull, you got a cold solder joint. Just reheat, add little more then do it again.

If it's shiny, great! Just make sure that the height on the solder point isn't any higher then the highest thing on that side of the board.



If it doesn't work, you might have the problem that I had.

[kd6aaj]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

I have the same exct problem; no POST, racing fans, no beeps, no hard drive action, no display. Nothing, just a nice fan to cool me off.

I have at least one bad capacitor (the only one "visibly" bad), "EC55". Unfortunately I lost it after removing it. Now I don't know what value to replace it with. ECS Technical support is no help, so far...

I'll attach a photo (coincidentaly someone else had the same cap go bad) so maybe someone here can ID it for me? The photo just shows the side with "RLE" and the temperature rating, the value is on the opposite side, so is unreadable.

Thanks.

PS, anyone have a complete cap list for this board? Anyone successfuly repair it?

[retiredcaps]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

I have at least one bad capacitor (the only one "visibly" bad), "EC55". Unfortunately I lost it after removing it. Now I don't know what value to replace it with.

Since it is by the DRAM slot, my guess would be 1000uF 6.3V.

[mariushm]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

That's OST RLS series capacitor.

From your picture and this one : http://nforce2and3base-by-polli.info...S_A780GM-A.jpg I would guess the capacitors there in a row are all the same size.

They're probably used in parallel and they almost sure are used for the RAM modules, so it's probably 6.3-10v capacitors. Can't tell exactly what's written on the chips on the left of the capacitor but they're voltage regulators, probably generating 2.5v for the memory modules.

Measure the diameter of the other caps and the height and check what's written on them... if it's 820uF-1500uF 6.3v-10v I think that's about right.

[c_hegge]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

Based on its size, it would be a 6.3v 1000uF

[sparkyrick]

Re: ECS A780GM-A Black

Old thread, but I thought I'd ask anyway

I have the same mobo and it wouldn't POST this morning. I found the same cap by the battery was bulging on mine. Did you replace all the caps or just the one by the battery?