Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

[stevo1210]

Hello All,

I recently received an Achieva Australia V845SX motherboard .... the board turned out to be an OEM PC Partner motherboard.

Well it has a VIA P4X266E Northbridge and 8377A Southbridge ( I'll recheck it later to make sure of south bridge). It runs off SDRAM , has 5 PCI slots, an AGP 4X slot and onboard VIA 1611A audio.

I took it off a person i knew who runs a mechanic garage and has left this computer on 24hrs for the last 2 years or so, he had complained it had crashed 20 times a day in Windows XP and so he got quite teed off with it, and decided to buy a new computer, which was a P4 3.2GHz and a Asus P5P800 motherboard..... quite a waste for an office computer.... lol.

Luckily i picked this board back from him after i called him to check out a few other issues, only to find a distressed mechanic on the phone who went nuts after he thought he lost all his files because this comp crashed; he eventually recovered his files after using the windows repair setup.

When i got it off him it was complete with 256MB Nanya SDRAM , Intel Celeron 2Ghz CPU and an Asus/ nVidia MX200 32MB AGP card.

Would this board be worth saving or should i just let it go? , i've got the correct 12.5mm Hitano EXR Low ESR, 3300uf caps to replace the 9 bulging 10mm 3300uf caps around the VRM and a few 1000uf to replace the bulging RAM caps. As far as i can see here, the MOSFETs are fine, no burn , no charing marks. The northbridge is probably fine because the damn thing still boots into BIOS.

Im just hesitant because replacing 26 caps or so is going to be a pain especially if you dont have any solder removing tools and the only option is stuffing a new cap in while heating old solder.... looks like that gootwick desoldering braid doesnt work at all !! .




Thank You.

[willawake]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

Would this board be worth saving?

its up to you really whether you can use that board. you will only know after you replace the caps whether it will be stable. probably it will as long as it is still posting. check the ram though with memtest86+ on another pc though to see if it is not bad ram along with the caps causing the crashing.

replacing 26 caps or so is going to be a pain especially if you dont have any solder removing tools and the only option is stuffing a new cap in while heating old solder....

why dont you read the recapping FAQ on this site. get a dental pick or sewing needle and learn to clean the holes properly. its quite easy

only to find a distressed mechanic on the phone who went nuts after he thought he lost all his files

typical small business attitude to data backup. i hate those type of callouts. i bet he still has no backup.

[stevo1210]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

Hello,


I have recapped this motherboard at last. it took a day or so but it works .
I was about to give up when i saw some paint peeling around some negative leads of the 3300uf caps. But it actually works fine, boots to windows XP, running without a problem, been gaming on it.... just upgraded the graphics to an nvidia FX5200 128MB. Also i inserted an extra 256MB of RAM so now i got 512MB.... just perfect for playing games such as Vice City etc.
Thanks Willawake for advice on solder removal but the needle trick proves hopeless.... when i used the needle technique.... it turned to be something like a 2 person job, my brother pushes the needle, i apply heat to the holes.... doesnt work for some odd reason, so i gave that up and went back to the old stuff new cap in and apply new solder.
12.5mm caps went into the spot where the 10mm caps were so they look ugly but they work, required a little cap bending here and there....

[Rainbow]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

PCPartner boards are good, except for the caps.

[stevo1210]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

Hello Everyone,

Those Hitano 12.5mm caps that i recapped the board with are pretty big and they dont look very good with all the cap bending and stuff.... dust is a major issue here.... theres dust in between the caps and i cant clean out the dust and also some caps are touching the CPU heatsink, i dont think caps really like heat so i want to recap it once more with proper caps and proper soldering this time.
I was planning on ordering some 3300uf 6.3V 10mm Samxon caps from Bigpope someday.
If i recap it once more is it going to ruin the motherboard? So far i havent had any recap job fail on me. I've recapped 4 boards and they all work without an issue.
I've finally learnt how to use a desoldering braid/wick so desoldering and putting in new caps shouldnt be an issue i guess.
Right now the board is working fine.... I'm actually posting this article on it right now.... this board is rock solid and can even last a 10 hour internet gaming session!!.

Theres also a lot of Licon 1500uf 6.3V caps which havent failed yet.... but just to be sure.... i think they should be replaced too.





Thanks.

[stevo1210]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

Just had a check on it.... theres about 26 caps to recap again.... now this is going to be very painful.

[starfury1]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

I guess with regard to cap removal , it like riding a bike...all you can get is a few good advice pointers to make it easier...its up to you to learn the technique with your own experence
This sounds like your getting better at it

As to the Board...well I guess its up to you...how much life it has in it for your use
I am assuming you are planing on keeping it for your personal use

As to recapping again Humm well only you know how much stress you put on that board with the first recap.....
Considering from your posts on it, it sounds like you would have dumped a fair amount of heat and physical stress, I would put it as risky.

26 caps, well I would only do it if you think your skills are at a level that you are going to not stress pcb too much.

In other words you can remove and clear the holes before you put new caps in.....not forcing them in..

As to those other caps...off hand, don't know if they are good or bad listed ones
but if they have been running 24/7 for 2 years, which is 17,520 hours yeah id replace them regardless.

If it was me I would start with your recap ones first, check that it works then go for the others.
(although pcb placement might make this a bit difficult)

That way if you do lose a via or damage the pcb you haven't done the lot.

Just take your time with it

If one is being difficult and stressing you ...that''s the time to go have a break, get a coffee watch TV
go back when you are feeling more relaxed

Anyway this is just my thoughts on it...and good luck with it...

I can almost feel that great feeling you had when it fired up and worked after the first recap from here.

Cheers

[tazwegion]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

Yeah I gotta' agree the 12.5mm Hitano EXR's are too big, especially when working in small spaces (like PSU's), personally I just acquired some Samxon's off Big Pope or davmax to do the job.

[tazwegion]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

For an alternative cleaning method... I alternate between a 25w ~ 40w iron & use a superfine standard tip jewelers' screwdriver, which I hold down firmly (on the hole) and rotate with my spare hand (whilst supporting the motherboard on a strong cardboard box/surface (a pizza box will do in a pinch)

I also use a desoldering vacuum tube sometimes, but a bulb would be better me thinks!

[Off topic] Does anyone know who's boards Optima use in their PC's?

[stevo1210]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

I havent heard of Optima for a long time.... last time i saw a desktop one was in 2003 and that was a school computer. I think it was something like a Celeron 300 maybe? nor sure....
I don't use Optima desktops, I use Ipex Desktops, in fact I still have an Ipex Pentium II 350MHz still running.... that Ipex had an Intel SE-440BX motherboard.... It was very good and reliable. Only had one mishap with it and that was a dead PSU. But that was fixed and it still runs for over 9 years.

Are Optimas only available here in Australia?.... I think Ipex desktops are only available here in Australia.... I could be wrong though.

[starfury1]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

Well Taz more useful info....for stevo1210

to be honest he's probably better at it then me

Yes seems Saxmon from posts here might be the go for price.
Jury I think is still out on their long term life but from what I understand if the live up to expectations should be a very good alternative

So I would look into that Stevo1210.

Most of the brand names are some what pricey...Taz will vouch for that too LOL

I have to get some myself

Anyway I have no real idea on the Optima, but did find (for AMD CPU) a review which says Gigabyte MB.

HERE

I had a look at their down load site, on motherboard manual and that had that char curved corners from what I could tell.

HERE

So I don't know but you might want to have a look at the Gigabyte range and see if one matches what you looking for.

probably someone here works with the beasts and will know for sure thought

Anyway hope that helps

[tazwegion]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

Yes seems Saxmon from posts here might be the go for price. Jury I think is still out on their long term life but from what I understand if the live up to expectations should be a very good alternative

Hmmmm... well the Epox EP-8HKA+ I recapped back in August '06 has been in 24/7 use @ 100% ever since (F@H) without issue, though to be fair... the capacitors used were a blend of Hitano EXR & SamXon GC/GD series IIRC, so we'll watch with great interest the progress/stability of the Hitanos as well

The reason I asked about the Optimas was my Father-in-law recently purchased on of their desktops, and had native AC'97 related issues only this week, understanding the unit was under 12 month (on-site) warranty I only checked over the software side of things (drivers etc.), the long & short of it was the attending technician swapped out the faulty motherboard... hence I was curious what breed it was (as I wasn't about to open the case)

Ipex... yeah I've owned a couple, picked up second hand of course (CeleronA 400s IIRC), ugly as sin low profile desktop cases though with built in sound speakers... 2 out of 3 of their PSUs (I acquired) spat the dummy big time too!

[stevo1210]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

The 3300uf 10V Hitano EXR caps I got from Wagner components were $2.20 each.... they were expensive compared to Samxon caps.... and as for quality im not even sure about Hitano. But i do know that Samxon caps are pretty good.

As for Ipex desktops.... how do you get them inbuilt speakers to work?! Am i missing the cable that plugs into that spare port in the rear of the case. As for Ipex power supplies, I opened one up the other day and it was a Delta Electronics OEM.

[tazwegion]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

As for Ipex desktops.... how do you get them inbuilt speakers to work?! Am i missing the cable that plugs into that spare port in the rear of the case.

I just so happen to have the cables

$2.20 a pop? ouch! I just paid $4.00 ea for some 3900uF Panny's LOL

[stevo1210]

Re: Achieva Australia V845SX board with bad LICON caps.

I kinda have some problems with this motherboard right now....
I was removing some caps and the end bit of the foil on the positive hole of a VRM input cap had come off.
At the same time, i'd also like to repair the foil on the other ones that came off in the last recapping process.... those ones still worked which was amazing.
Is there some way to repair the end bit of foil?? I tried solder but it won't stick to the PCB.
I don't really want to throw this motherboard out.... it's a good board that runs on SDRAM.

Thanks.