ABIT BP6 Toroidal Inductor at L18

[bigbeark]

I have two of these boards, one works, loaded Ubuntu, toured the web, tetc. The second one almost loads.

I knew the VRM caps on both boardswere bad, bulging 10v 1000uf caps. I was going to recap the boards, but I notice that the Inductor at L18 on both boards has blackened coils and whatever coats the inner iron(?) ring is flaking away. Looked at the back of the board and there is some browning of the PCB under L18.

At Location L17 on both boards, the Inductors are shiny and new looking.
It appears that the VRMs consist of 8 1000uf caps and 2 inductors, arranged in 2 groups, ie 1 inductor and 4 caps times 2.

Do I recap the boards, ignore the look of the burnt inductors and assume that the new caps will fix this, or do I attempt to replace the inductors, or do I assume, that even though both boards sort of work, that the boards should be scrapped.

Looked like an easy project but need advice.

[shadow]

Re: ABIT BP6 Toroidal Inductor at L18

I do not too much about this.

However it appears that the coils are being stressed too much and are overheating...hence the coil and the PCB are being discoloured.

This suggests that over voltage could be an issue. What sort of power supply do you have, if it is one of the known bad power supplies. There is a chance that the power supply is supplying very very 'dirty' power to the motherboard which is affecting the motherboards VRM in a negative manner.

[i4004]

Re: ABIT BP6 Toroidal Inductor at L18

notice the caps ON THE BOARD were bulged.
much more ripple(resulting from that) is what was overheating those coils.

i would recap(if my intention was to save those mobos), but keep an eye on the coils, ie monitor if they're getting too hot etc.

>or do I assume, that even though both boards sort of work, that the boards should be scrapped.

you won't mistake if you do that either, given that these boards are so old they're practically worthless.

but i guess that depends on what you intend to do with them, do you want to sell them(and can you sell them?) or will u use them etc.

[bigbeark]

Re: ABIT BP6 Toroidal Inductor at L18

If I do not replace the coils, I would want to restore whatever insulation was there previously to prevent the copper coils from coming in contact with the iron core.

I am assuming this is an important detail.

I would rather perfect my skills on old boards than ruin something hi-tech.

Also, I am running Linux exclusively and the older boards are alot more Linux-friendly!

[bigbeark]

Re: ABIT BP6 Toroidal Inductor at L18

I replaced 9 1000uf 10v caps, 8 of them in the VRM, on the almost-working board.

Result, up and running, and the Inductor stayed cool,

Surprising performance considering it uses Celeron Mendocinos and I haven't done the other caps yet.

It detected 3 258MB registered ram as 655MB, a bit strange, but way better than my Asus P2B-D which insists on seeing 4x256 as a total of 512MB. Never figured out what kind of memory those boards want.

So I'll recap both the BP6 boards - I have the needed caps on hand.

These were highly-regarded boards in their day; there's probably a nostalgia market for these.

[kaniki]

Re: ABIT BP6 Toroidal Inductor at L18

It detected 3 258MB registered ram as 655MB, a bit strange, but way better than my Asus P2B-D which insists on seeing 4x256 as a total of 512MB. Never figured out what kind of memory those boards want.

It may be the type of ram that you are using. Some boards need low density RAM and if you put a high density 256 MB stick it, it will read it as 128 MB. that is probably the reason that the 1 gig of ram is reading a half gig.

[fackie]

Re: ABIT BP6 Toroidal Inductor at L18

I replaced 9 1000uf 10v caps, 8 of them in the VRM, on the almost-working board.

Result, up and running, and the Inductor stayed cool,

So I'll recap both the BP6 boards - I have the needed caps on hand.

These were highly-regarded boards in their day; there's probably a nostalgia market for these.

And so I've found you. Yeah, you bigbeark , the person with the BP6 with exactly the same symptoms as mine - even if some 14 years apart!

Thank you for posting your results in here. I will immediately replace my caps and keep an eye on that inductor, which is VERY dark now and it even smells a bit.

If I were to replace it, what part should I be looking for?

Cheers,

fck

[fackie]

Does anyone know the induction value of L18, please?