K7T266 Pro2 (MSI MS-6380), damaged caps!

[Tormi2k]

Hi Guys!

For my retro machine I was looking for a mainboard with 3.3V AGP support. Luckily I found several being one a K7T266 Pro2 from MSI. The board runs fine, but after a brief visual inspection I could find physically damaged caps around the socket area. My guess is that during the installation of the CPU cooler they got damaged. To be on the save side I want to replace them.
My main concern are the five RUBYCON MBZ 2200uf, 6.3V. But if I start the process I am also looking on the other ones around the socket area.

In total there are

8x RUBYCON MBZ 2200uf, 6.3V (10D/20L)
3x RUBYCON MBZ 1500uf, 16.0V (10D/20L)

I figured out that MSI also put Chemi-Con KZG on other KT266 boards, but same like the MBZ there is in my understanding no direct replacement available nowadays. Many posts in forums are quite old.

Does anyone have a recommendation what I can use? Maybe PANASONIC FR? I know that ESR/Ripple doesn't match, but I am relatively new to the topic so any hint would be of help.

Thanks a lot, regards from Germany!

Florian

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: K7T266 Pro2 (MSI MS-6380), damaged caps!

For my retro machine I was looking for a mainboard with 3.3V AGP support. Luckily I found several being one a K7T266 Pro2 from MSI.

not to nitpick but the board u have picked has a universal agp slot, therefore it will work with both 3.3v and 1.5v agp cards so u can use many gpus from the ati rage series or nvidia tnt2 series to the 9800 series or gf6 series. so thats a wide selection of gpus u can use there.

panny frs are fine for p3 boards. there are many topics on here where frs were suggested as replacements for p3 boards. they will work fine because the p3 cpu vrm design uses a low switching frequency. u can tell when the coils besides the cpu have several turns on them. low vrm switching frequency prefers capacitance. esr is less important, so keep capacitance the same when picking replacements.

i also noticed u have teapos on the board. teapos can be spotted by their characteristic Y vent with three notches. those are also no good on motherboards. replace them also with panny frs, same capacitance and size.

so now the motherboard should last u a long time. happy retro gaming and computing!

[Tormi2k]

Re: K7T266 Pro2 (MSI MS-6380), damaged caps!

Thanks for the reply, you are absolutly right, it is a Universal AGP. Most of the time I will run a Voodoo5 5500 on it. That‘s why I was only focused on 3.3V support.

Please allow me to ask, you are talking about the VRM design of Intel P3 and the less importance of esr. In my case it‘s an AMD Socket A, so this rule of thumb works regardles of AMD of Intel as long as I can find coils in the CPU area with several turnes?

Maybe in this case a stupid question, but I should in this case also not be worried about ripple current?

Thanks for your Taepo advice, I will also replace them with Panasonic FRs.

[zunasthegreat]

Re: K7T266 Pro2 (MSI MS-6380), damaged caps!

From the caps you linked it seems that MSI used some nice staff on that board, If I had to bet I would say that these caps will still perform Okish considering their age. Also remember that AthlonXP CPU's put some major strain on the VRM thus the temp around CPU is higher than a P3 board.

[Tormi2k]

Re: K7T266 Pro2 (MSI MS-6380), damaged caps!

Yes, the caps are still fine. At least what I can tell visually. However, at least two of the RUBYCON MBZ seem to be "depressed". I assume because it has some scratch marks on it it is due to removal/installation of the heatsink.

@zunasthegreat: When you say strain on the VRM, do you mean I should stick to a similar capacity as ChaosLegionnaire stated and buy some high quality caps or switch to polys to meet or exced the original ESR/Ripple values...I wonder if that would work?

[zunasthegreat]

Re: K7T266 Pro2 (MSI MS-6380), damaged caps!

High-quality lytics are fine imo and I find it hard to justify the extra cost of polymer caps for such old machinery, unless of course you already have a large bank of caps around.

[momaka]

Re: K7T266 Pro2 (MSI MS-6380), damaged caps!

The board runs fine, but after a brief visual inspection I could find physically damaged caps around the socket area. My guess is that during the installation of the CPU cooler they got damaged. To be on the save side I want to replace them.

Can you post a close up picture of the caps?

If the caps are dented or scratched only a bit, I wouldn't worry about replacing them. However, if they are very deformed, then you may consider replacing them.
... though in all honesty, if the board works, the caps are more than likely OK. The main problem with a dented/deformed cap is that it can become short circuited. And if that was the case, you would have likely seen either the VRM not start or burn out the cap. Since that hasn't happened, the cap(s) are probably OK.

Does anyone have a recommendation what I can use? Maybe PANASONIC FR? I know that ESR/Ripple doesn't match, but I am relatively new to the topic so any hint would be of help.

Since it's socket 462 and this particular board appears to have a good number of caps for the CPU VRM low side, I think you probably will be able to get away with Panasonic FR.

Or if you really want to make this as close as possible to the original and you don't mind spending a bit more on caps, you can mix wet electrolytic caps (like Panny FR) with some solid polymer caps. Anywhere from 50/50 wet e-lytic/solid to 2/3 wet e-lytic and 1/3 wsolid caps. The solid caps will bring good low-ESR/impedance properties in the circuit, while the wet caps will provide the higher capacity.

But like zunasthegreat mentioned, for an old piece of equipment like this, I probably wouldn't spend so much money to convert it to solid caps - it just won't be necessary.

they will work fine because the p3 cpu vrm design uses a low switching frequency. u can tell when the coils besides the cpu have several turns on them. low vrm switching frequency prefers capacitance. esr is less important, so keep capacitance the same when picking replacements.

I don't necessarily find that to be always true. Some P3 boards did actually use relatively medium to high switching frequency VRMs.

The main concern with older boards, besides the VRM switching frequency, is also how many phases they have on their CPU VRM. More phases = lower output ripple. This is how modern boards get away with low output capacitance on the VRM (in addition to the VRM using much higher switching frequency), despite the really high CPU current draw.

So for older boards that use a single-phase VRM for the CPU (many P2, K6, and P3 boards), this is another reason to keep capacitance the same or somewhat similar to original. Of course, if the VRM uses higher switching frequency, then some low-ESR caps in there would also greatly help reduce ripple output.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: K7T266 Pro2 (MSI MS-6380), damaged caps!

yea i feel sheepish... because i mistook it for a p3 socket 370 board. the sockets look too similar! forgot the k7 part on the model number on it means athlon xp not p3. and yes the athlon xp is more power hungry than the p3. the athlon xp was meant as the direct competitor to the p4.

ah well... nobody's perfect! lol!

[Tormi2k]

Re: K7T266 Pro2 (MSI MS-6380), damaged caps!

Can you post a close up picture of the caps?

If the caps are dented or scratched only a bit, I wouldn't worry about replacing them. However, if they are very deformed, then you may consider replacing them.

... though in all honesty, if the board works, the caps are more than likely OK. The main problem with a dented/deformed cap is that it can become short circuited. And if that was the case, you would have likely seen either the VRM not start or burn out the cap. Since that hasn't happened, the cap(s) are probably OK.

I tried to make a picture of the damaged ones but it's nearly impossible for me to get a close up when the heatsink/chipset cooler is installed. The board is currently installed in the case. But I hear what you say, maybe I worry too much.

Nevertheless, I will install some Pany FR and a view polys to see what happens. For me it will be a tryout and my first recap. Maybe a good idea before I take hands on other boards...

Anyway, I want to thank all of you for answering my question.

Cheers!

Florian

[momaka]

Re: K7T266 Pro2 (MSI MS-6380), damaged caps!

Nevertheless, I will install some Pany FR and a view polys to see what happens. For me it will be a tryout and my first recap. Maybe a good idea before I take hands on other boards...

Sounds good.

If you intend to do more motherboard recapping in the future though, then make sure you have a good soldering iron. Motherboards can suck out a lot of heat, especially for the caps around the CPU. So for that, I recommend you get a temperature-controlled station with T12 -type tips. Avoid stations that use 900M tips - a lot of the cheap ones (and even not so cheap ones) tend to have poor thermal recovery, and that can sometimes make them perform worse than a regular 40-50W wall plug-in iron.

[Tormi2k]

Re: K7T266 Pro2 (MSI MS-6380), damaged caps!

"So for that, I recommend you get a temperature-controlled station with T12 -type tips"

Yes, actually the soldering iron I had was an ERSA TIP260, 16 Watt ;-)

But this week I made a good deal on a Weller we1010. Not a fancy thing, just an entry level soldering station. But it‘s an improvement over the 16 Watt iron;-) I also got different tips in various sizes.