GFXcel - PC chips M758LMR

[tazwegion]

Not being a fan of products by the ECS/PC Chips group, I recently acquired a GFXcel s370 motherboard (officially designated PC Chips M758LMR) in a 'job lot' from 'Flea-bay'

It has a 'pixelation issue' with the integrated graphics, so I swapped to an old 8Mb PCI card instead, interestingly on occassion I still note the odd bit of pixelation... my question to all you 'recappers' out there is, could cruddy capacitors degrade the circuit flow in the motherboard enough to have created this issue?

FYI it is infested with G-Luxon's, which don't appear to be effected... though one was bulging, and in my haste to get it up and 'folding' I ashamedly recycled a Jackon 1500uF capacitor

[Rainbow]

Re: GFXcel - PC chips M758LMR

If one was bulging, change all of the same type.
What's 'pixelation issue'?

[tazwegion]

Re: GFXcel - PC chips M758LMR

A light 'snow storm' would be the best explaination

I know I should replace them all... but after all it's only a PC Chips mobo but if it'll fix the GFX issue... then I'd likely reconsider my position

From what I've researched, one of the causes for pixelation (other than a cooked GPU) is an insufficient power supply, or in the case of a V/card... poorly seated into expansion slot

[linuxguru]

Re: GFXcel - PC chips M758LMR

Yeah, bad bypass caps near the Northbridge, as well as the ones near the DIMM slots, can cause this symptom. It generally pays to replace all GSC and G-Luxon, whether or not they're bulging.

[tazwegion]

Re: GFXcel - PC chips M758LMR

Well thanks linuxguru, if I could rectify this GFX issue... that'd really make this motherboard viable once more, looks like it's back to the 'great capacitor hunt' for me then

[gonzo0815]

Re: GFXcel - PC chips M758LMR

I think new caps will fix the issu, but in any way, those ECS boards don`t have that good vrm desing too. So the vrm caps are getting realy hot, due to they are placed near the hot inductors and mosfets.
But any way, i have recaped some ecs boards and they are fine with good caps.

[Per Hansson]

Re: GFXcel - PC chips M758LMR

That issue you see is common when you overclock the memory of a GFX card too far, the data in the memory chips gets corrupted

And I'd say that poor 8mb PCI card needs to do some swapping so it has to go to system RAM and on the way back there is probably a poor cap that causes the signal to detoriate...

[tazwegion]

Re: GFXcel - PC chips M758LMR

Sounds like it'd be worthwhile to add some thermal epoxy & mini-sinks to the MOS-fets as well as replace the capacitors

Thanks for the input guys