Bought that motherboard off eBay, like, 2 months ago. Looked fine at the eye, so I used it for a month. Got my ML-30 CPU to 333 x 8 at start which I was happy about. After some fizzling during the month of use I noticed that I couldn't overclock like before, no matter the voltage I couldn't get past 330 anymore.
Noticed during the whole time that I used it that, if I did not have the right settings in, the computer would display a "nVidia IDE RAID" search screen then restart. It was VERY picky about the RAM settings and HT speed. Something that nobody using that board before saw.
Also during that time I found out that this board seems to have bad RAM slots. The 3rd one is not working anymore, the second one has issues when going past 225+ MHz RAM (no matter the timings). The first one has no problems whatsoever. When using the 1st and 2nd slots, it was a bit more stable at the beginning but at the end I just couldn't overclock it anymore past 220MHz on the RAM.
I decided I would keep the CPU alive and try another one... dumped a Mobile 3000+ Clawhammer in there, with board at default it would not boot into Windows... weird. Bumped the voltage, it got in there but was unstable as heck. I also noticed during that time that I had two SATA ports not working.
That's when I saw a cap that started creaming. Right beside the two bad SATA ports. Coincidence? I think not, because the ports could see the hard drive when plugged in but wouldn't do anything else, Windows' disk would just hang while detecting the drives.
Also found out that there was a cap bulging right beside the RAM slots. It's kind of.... going in. It's weird, it's not leaking at all, it's just round-ish on the edge. I'd take a picture but it's really hard to see.
You guys think I should re-cap the whole boards? There are, I believe, 58 caps in total. 20 nichicons HM (the two that appears to have failed are HM), the rest are Chemi-Con, mainly KZG, alot of small KMG and some KMA.
Also, I could get another identical board (with all Chemi-Con caps, or so it seems) that is dead, but the caps all looks fine, for free. Could I transfer the caps from the dead board to my board? Or should I go with brand new stuff, and if so, which ones?
Quick listing of the caps and numbers:
- 20 x Nichicon 1000uF 6.3v HM 105C
- 5 x Chemi-con KZG 1000uF 10V
- 1 x Chemi-con KZG 470uF 16V
- 4 x Chemi-con KZG 1500uF 16V
- 6 x Chemi-con KZG 3300uF 6.3V
- 18 x Chemi-con KMG 100uF 16V
- 4 x Chemi-con KMA 100uF 16V
Noticed during the whole time that I used it that, if I did not have the right settings in, the computer would display a "nVidia IDE RAID" search screen then restart. It was VERY picky about the RAM settings and HT speed. Something that nobody using that board before saw.
Also during that time I found out that this board seems to have bad RAM slots. The 3rd one is not working anymore, the second one has issues when going past 225+ MHz RAM (no matter the timings). The first one has no problems whatsoever. When using the 1st and 2nd slots, it was a bit more stable at the beginning but at the end I just couldn't overclock it anymore past 220MHz on the RAM.
I decided I would keep the CPU alive and try another one... dumped a Mobile 3000+ Clawhammer in there, with board at default it would not boot into Windows... weird. Bumped the voltage, it got in there but was unstable as heck. I also noticed during that time that I had two SATA ports not working.
That's when I saw a cap that started creaming. Right beside the two bad SATA ports. Coincidence? I think not, because the ports could see the hard drive when plugged in but wouldn't do anything else, Windows' disk would just hang while detecting the drives.
Also found out that there was a cap bulging right beside the RAM slots. It's kind of.... going in. It's weird, it's not leaking at all, it's just round-ish on the edge. I'd take a picture but it's really hard to see.
You guys think I should re-cap the whole boards? There are, I believe, 58 caps in total. 20 nichicons HM (the two that appears to have failed are HM), the rest are Chemi-Con, mainly KZG, alot of small KMG and some KMA.
Also, I could get another identical board (with all Chemi-Con caps, or so it seems) that is dead, but the caps all looks fine, for free. Could I transfer the caps from the dead board to my board? Or should I go with brand new stuff, and if so, which ones?
Quick listing of the caps and numbers:
- 20 x Nichicon 1000uF 6.3v HM 105C
- 5 x Chemi-con KZG 1000uF 10V
- 1 x Chemi-con KZG 470uF 16V
- 4 x Chemi-con KZG 1500uF 16V
- 6 x Chemi-con KZG 3300uF 6.3V
- 18 x Chemi-con KMG 100uF 16V
- 4 x Chemi-con KMA 100uF 16V
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