EPoX 4PCA3I fixed

[Scenic]

got this board for free.

EPoX 4PCA3I Rev. 2.0 (socket 478)

nice board while it worked.. i875 (Canterwood) chipset and stuff like that.. quite "high end" for that time.

tested it with a 1,6GHz P4 and 256MB DDR400/PC3200 and my test-gfx-card (FX5200).

onboard debug LED Display showed "FF" all the time. no beeps.. nothing.

replaced all VRM input caps (GSC 2200uF 16V ; all of them leaking onto the board a bit out of the holes for the legs) with Panasonic FJ (1800uF 16V).

replaced all smaller valued caps around the DIMM slots, the northbridge, the PCI/AGP slot(s) and the front-USB headers (GSC & Teapo 1000uF 6,3V) with Nichicon HE (1000uF 6,3V).

was a real pain to replace all those small caps. (especially those between (!) the DIMM slots -.-)

left all VRM output caps (Sanyo WG 3300uF 6,3V) and all caps under 470uF (not much) as they were.

Tested the board again, POSTs and works fine
Rock stable. updated to the newest availible BIOS and i'm actually using this board to post this

Board is perfect for overclocking too

OCed my test-CPU (1,6GHz 400MHz FSB P4 Willamette) to 2,13GHz without any problems (533MHz FSB with +0,05V VCore)
highest primestable clockspeed so far is 2,41GHz. maximum (non-primestable) is 2,62GHz

i thought about replacing those Sanyo WGs too just to be safe.. but until now i think i don't need to

edit: pic of the 4PCA3+ Rev 1.0 ... almost identical to my 4PCA3I Rev. 2.0 (layout). only thing thats different is that the 4PCA3I is missing the Highpoint IDE RAID Controller



i'll post pics of my recap later...

[zandrax]

Re: EPoX 4PCA3I fixed

I don't usually like ECS boards, but this one seems quite nice. The Highpoint is useful only for extra ide channels, not for its raid: anyway you won't miss it if you use 4 drives or less.
What about getting a Northwood for a bargain price?

Zandrax

[Scenic]

Re: EPoX 4PCA3I fixed

ECS? o.O it's an EPoX Board!

well.. Northwood CPUs with 2,8GHz+ and 800MHz FSB are still rather expensive on ebay.
Anyways... the 1,6GHz Willamette is only my test-CPU for Mainboards... just tried to OC it for fun on this MB

[zandrax]

Re: EPoX 4PCA3I fixed

ECS? o.O it's an EPoX Board!

Ehm ... sorry. This lack of attention for details is not normal for me: am I going mad?

Zandrax

[bgavin]

Re: EPoX 4PCA3I fixed

There seems to be no end of Prescott 2.8 on eBay. I got one very cheap, but it does work. Hot as hell, though.

Epox boards have been kind to me. I have a 462 board that requires recapping in the VRM, but runs fine other than that. It uses a 1400 T-Bird.

[trhisdone]

Re: EPoX 4PCA3I fixed

I have an Epox EP-4PCA3+ that I recapped. Replaced all the 1000uf and up caps. Several GSC 1000uf 6.3v caps were swollen. Replaced everything with Rubycon. The board had been having random hard freezes. Now its rock stable. A very very good motherboard. My board had Hermei 2200uf 16v input caps. Sanyo 3300uf 6.3v VRM caps and a bunch of GSC 1000uf 6.3v caps. Some GSC caps were swollen, before recapping voltages were all over the place and random hard freezing. Now the voltages are rock stable and board is rock stable. The hardest part was clearing the holes. todd

[goagola]

Re: EPoX 4PCA3I fixed

Hi trhisdone,

I have this very same board, very clean and nice looking, just like in the pic above, but also very dead. Started by suffering random resets, and ended up stuck, wailing a repetitive hi-lo banshee tone. I retired it befor capacitors exploded, but a good number are nicely fat and round, and dried up goo is visible is places.

Did you recap from an existing kit from this site, or did you make a custom selection? I am so encouraged by your success, and am already seeing the board back in action, complete with the SATA RAID and all... With its support for numerous HDs, it used to form the core of my video capture/storage system, which i miss dearly.

I would like to try and revive it, and another (MSI) P3 MoBo that went the same way...


Agola G.O.
Nairobi, Kenya.

[trhisdone]

Re: EPoX 4PCA3I fixed

It wasn't that hard to do. You must have the right soldering iron and practice on a scrap board. The hardest part is getting the caps off and clearing the holes. Once you do it a few times its pretty easy actually. PCB's can take a lot of abuse before they "die" they are not as fragile as everyone thinks. It does take some practice though. I got caps from ebay but this would be a good place to get them all at one time. Read the how to's and good luck. All the caps cost me less than $15.

Todd