Gigabit 7VAXP

[poesidon]

I loved this machine, built it by hand and used it hard for a couple of years. Suddenly it started to frustrate me with random reboots and problems getting past the bios screen before shutting down. At the same time I sold my house and moved a couple of states over and used home sale proceeds to buy a great lappytop that I've used ever since. The poor tower sat back in the office, declared deceased for more than 18 months, until I decided yesterday to tear it down. What I discovered, (I was shocked and excited all at once) was half a dozen bulging capacitors! I've been in electronics for years, and I've only ever seen a handful of blown caps. My first google search brought me to your site, and I have to say that I'm stoked to regain some hope in my old trusty workhorse.
Hold on bessie, I'm comin' fer ya!

~Eric

[starfury1]

Re: Gigabit 7VAXP

if they are GSC then its odds on they are history thats for sure
althought you already stated they are stuffed

sounds like typical stuff caps symptoms to me.

chances are if its still freezing but booting a recap will fix it.

Just make sure you use quality low ESR types if you want it to last for a long time

read the FAQ's and posts for tips and tricks
on cap replacement if you need to ...sound like you don't but it cant hurt anyway.

good luck

cheers and welcome to the forums

[gdement]

Re: Gigabit 7VAXP

If you check with a multimeter, you'll notice that board has 9 solder pads connected in parallel on Vcore, even though gigabyte only populated 4 of them. This gives you some convenient options for replacement caps. You don't have to find 10mm 3300's. In fact, that's probably not even ideal.

I used 9x 2200uF when I recapped one of these, but just 9x 1500uF would meet the original total with less parallel ESR than the 4x 3300uF's had. Looking at it another way, using 9 caps means you could get away with a more conservative series.
Another option is to use 12mm caps, leaving certain pads empty to make room for them.

[starfury1]

Re: Gigabit 7VAXP

good point gdement.

I did something similar,
I think the MB may have come in both flavors too, some had all 9 later ones didn't
(think the 9 were GSC crap)

but dont know for sure just photos I've seen on the net

here mine

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3828

I wouldn't stray too far from nominal capacitance really, but I add about 6000 uf
it will work.

my case 13,200uf Sanyo's.(4 off)..these VRM output,
KZE are VRM input (2 off)

HTH cheers

[gdement]

Re: Gigabit 7VAXP

Interesting yours had 4x Sanyos. Mine was 4x GSC's, all blown of course.

[Ant3G]

Re: Gigabit 7VAXP

First, sorry for bumping old thread.
Got this board for recapp and recapped all bad caps. When tryed to power on MBO it just doesnt start, like it doesnt get power. Fans just move for a 1cm~ and they stops. Power led is on.
What can I try? Tred everything as power supply, other ram, cpu, graphic card...
Issue is not from caps right? Something else on board is bad?

[seanc]

Re: Gigabit 7VAXP

It's detecting a short.
Check your solder joints and then check mosfets near the affected bad caps.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Gigabit 7VAXP

Caps can short too.

[seanc]

Re: Gigabit 7VAXP

True, I read that he'd replaced them all, but actually he's only replaced the bad ones.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Gigabit 7VAXP

I'm thinking he replaced the bloated ones.
Not all bad caps bloat.
.

[Ant3G]

Re: Gigabit 7VAXP

true, I replaced only bloated ones
will replace them all