Asrock GE PRO-M2 (S478)

[sl2stick93]

My gf's sister asks me to check out her computer because it keeps freezing. So I head over and 90% of the time it wont post, the other 10% of the time it works fine but freezes under heavy load. So I pull off the case cover not even knowing about the capacitor conspiracy and I see a blown cap, then another, and another. 9 in total (7 blown, 2 buldging). I went home and google'd the problem and found this website. I couldnt believe that it would boot up 10% of the time with 9 bad caps.

Anyways the caps are green Taicon 1000uF 6.3v and there are 3 or 4 good ones still in there (well I shouldnt say "good", working rather). I desoldered the bad ones and replaced them. I booted up the computer 10+times and ran it for an hour and everything seems fine. The only problem I ran into was when I tried to flash the bios, it flashed perfectly, then wouldnt boot (CMOS - invalid checksum) so I reset it to default and left it alone.

I'll give it back to her and see if it goes a week problem-free, hopefully it does, she only uses it a few minutes each day to check email and such.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Asrock GE PRO-M2 (S478)

The problem is, if the bad ones are degraded, the new caps woud overtake their load and could be overstressed. if you have used some higher grade well branded caps how it is adviced by this board, it would certainely survive a long time. If you used some unknown parts from the next elektronic store, you will get it back again in no time.

[tiresias]

Re: Asrock GE PRO-M2 (S478)

I booted up the computer 10+times and ran it for an hour and everything seems fine. The only problem I ran into was when I tried to flash the bios, it flashed perfectly, then wouldnt boot (CMOS - invalid checksum) so I reset it to default and left it alone.

Sounds like you successfully repaired it, good job!

Don't worry about the "CMOS checksum error" message - many flashing utilities are set to clear the nvRAM following a BIOS flash, so it is normal that you should receive that message during the first reboot.

[kc8adu]

Re: Asrock GE PRO-M2 (S478)

replace the rest of the same type .
you can do it now or soon when they die.
btw most bios flashing instructions tell you to clear cmos after a flash.normal to get that on restart after a flash.

[sl2stick93]

Re: Asrock GE PRO-M2 (S478)

thanks for the advice with the cmos,
it did infact update the bios sucessfully, I must have skipped some steps reading the flashing instructions.

for the other capacitors, I'll just leave them since shes already got her computer back

Note: MBM5 is showing a -12 voltage of -14.9v and a -5 voltage of -7v
either MBM is showing the wrong voltage, or the power supply is faulty

I can just use a digital multimeter to double check this right? What wires would I check? Because those are way out of range, and I'm guessing this could have lead to the failing caps.

Correct me if I'm wrong....

-Dave

[gonzo0815]

Re: Asrock GE PRO-M2 (S478)

MBM and co. sucks, as monitoring chips sucks. The only thing they are good for is temperature due to the lack of mounting posibilities for an other thermal probe.