GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

[nicholas.appleton]

Hi,

Sorry for not having a picture to attach at this stage. I will try and get one up tomorrow. Until then, here is a link to the manufacturers picture of board: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/...xp-939_big.jpg

I have a system at home with a GA-K8NSNXP-939 motherboard. It has been slowly becoming more and more unstable to the point where it sometimes does not even get to the POST messages. I had a look and found that almost all 7 of the Nichicon 3300uF 6.3V HM series bulk-storage capacitors for the CPU are showing signs of being bad. At least 4 of them have vented explosively out the top and the rest are either leaning slightly or looking like they are about to vent. Several of the Nichicon 1000uF caps for the RAM regulators also look like they are on the way out.

It's a very good system and I would like to keep it going, but new socket 939 boards are hard to come by and this motherboard was top of the line when I bought it.

Do you think that the Rubycon MBZ series caps (of the same voltage and capacitance values) available from Badcaps would make a good replacement to the Nichicon HMs? The Rubycon datasheets () seem almost identical to the Nichicon (...

I would just like some feedback before I order anything.

Thanks very much,

Nick

[sofTest]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Yes, MBZ' are an excellent replacement.

[nicholas.appleton]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Capacitors have been ordered and pictures are attached.

Picture 1: full view of motherboard showing a hastily replaced southbridge fan and Antec Neo power supply (I have read some stuff on these forums about certain Neo's containing dodgy caps - I have not had a problem with this supply in the 3 or more odd years that I have had it so I presume it's ok but will check out later).

2: the 1000uF 6.3V HM series Nichicon cap for the RAM regulator. It is bulging and leaking.

3: the 7 3300uF 6.3V HM Nichicon caps for the CPU regulator. 3 have vented the rest are all bulging.

Thanks for making this service available. I will post my results when the caps arrive.

Nick

[techman36]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Nick, I have the same board that now fails to post. I will be ordering the same caps you did. I am looking forward to finding out how it worked out for you.

On the same note, I have had issue with one of the lan ports being dead, and I'm curious if a bad cap(s) could be part of that problem as well.

Good Luck and I will let you know how it works out for me as well.

[paul_h]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

I've got one of them too with a problem, I think it's video card related though (AGP 6600GT), I can't see any bad caps either (on the mobo or GPU).
What happened is that every time the windows loading screen started scrolling the bars, it went to a black screen. If you reset power, you would be given the "windows did not load properly, choose normal, safe or last know config" page.
Sometimes if I used normal, it would boot fine. Sometimes as soon as I touched the keyboard it would lock up and I'd have to reset, likewise sometimes it would work if I selected safe mode or last known good config, but i was a lottery, it would work no matter what you picked sometimes, and not work not matter what I picked sometimes.

It wasn't frozen up, as pressing the power button turned the PC off. Normally went it's frozen you have to hold the power button down to force it off.
I thought it may have been a video driver issue, as I used to have an ATI card in there and there was a lot of crap in regards to software and drivers on that PC.
So I tried a reinstall, and the install goes smoothly until it reboots to that windows loading graphic with the bars, and black screen again.
This time I'm stuck to 4bit graphics, 480x600 res each time I load drivers and reboot, I get the same chance of a random black screen and back to 4 bit graphics, with the "my computer" -> "hardware" showing unknown device.
I was doing this all last night, stuffing around forever, eventually windows detected new hardware and the proper video drivers were installed.
Yay I thought, finally everything should work, all the pieces have fallen into place and that should finally solve this random black screen which is what I'm sure causes this windows boot into a black screen, but no, random black screen boots occur when trying to boot post the windows loading screen.
Old PCs just sometime suck and it's better to just replace them sometimes. Even if it's just a GPU fault, to replace a card like this is easily over $100 for AGP.
The cost of AGP over PCI-E is more than enough reasons really. BTW I had a 9600pro die last week, I just can't afford to replace AGP cards anymore. It's time for me to cut my losses, get any premium price S939 CPUs and AGP cards go for s/h right now, and 'upgrade' to platforms which have cheaper CPUs, GPUs and RAM to buy for upgrades and repairs.

[Scenic]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Had the same problem as paul_h described. reason was the graphics card.
someone knocked off a few surface mount caps and resistors as it seems.
result was that the GPU wasn't getting enough juice for graphics mode, and the over current protection shut it off
(black screen but comp. was still running ; lower GPU voltage -> more amps needed -> OCP kicked in ... textmode was fine)

AGP cards aren't really that much of a problem. i get a lot of those on ebay for around 10euros .. mostly GF6200/6600/7300 ... cards like the FX5200/5500 often go for just 1eur + shipping..
just bought a FX5200 128MB with VGA and DVI (passive cooled) for 1.50eur + 2.20eur uninsured shipping a couple weeks ago. works fine and it's enough to sell a mid-range Northwood P4 system as an office/internet box on ebay or elsewhere.. or just use them as test cards

[nicholas.appleton]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Hi all,

I would just like to say a MASSIVE thanks to the Badcaps service. I received the caps today and have replaced all of the blown caps on the board. The Rubycon MBZ caps were a perfect replacement and since powering up, the system has been working flawlessly. No screen glitches, no unexplained system "pauses", no system halting - it's working just like it did when I built it. I've been stressing the system for the last couple of hours by playing DVDs and have had no issues in the slightest (I could have never done this with the system as unstable as it was before).

Just as a side note, I had been checking the USPS website daily to see the status of the shipment, but it never (and still hasn't) acknowledged they had been shipped. I may have received the capacitors several days ago as I don't check the box very often.

Thanks again and I will definitely use this service again if I have problems with any of my other boards.

Nick

[crucialcolin]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Hello all looks like you can add me to the list of someone with a bad GA-K8NSNXP-939. Just discovered the system with that board today would no longer boot and when I opened it up I found the cpu caps leaking. I'm not sure on the RAM regulator but I would assume those will be going as well. They seem to be smaller sized though.

Only problem is I'm not exactly sure on what replacements to order and amounts needed.

Oh yeah pardon the dust :P

[nicholas.appleton]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

The bulk storage caps near the CPU are 3300uF, 10mm 6.3V types and can be replaced with Rubycon 3300uF 6.3v 10mm MBZ series caps.

The ones near the RAM slots (which I had found had blown also on my motherboard) are 1000uF, 8mm 6.3V types. They can be replaced with Rubycon 1000uF 6.3v 8mm MBZ series caps.

Just count the number you have on your board and add a few to the order in-case something goes wrong while soldering.

Good luck.

[crucialcolin]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Ok cool it sounds like the Rubycons may the way to go

I was looking at the Panasonic NHG 3300uF 6.3v 10mm for the CPU ones on Digikey since I have a bunch of other stuff to order for other projects. They are slightly shorter then the Rubycons at 20mm vs 25mm. It seems the ratted ripple current is lower at on the NHG at 840mA vs 3230 on the Rubycon MBZ.

As for the RAM slots it looks like the 1000uF 6.3v 8mm MBZ has been discontinued and replaced with the 1000uF 10v 8mm MCZ according to this site. So hopefully that will work. Who knows I might not even need to replace these as they haven't failed yet and look perfectly fine.

I still need to count how many i need for the RAM but I know i need at least 7 for the CPU plus a few extras before I make an order.

How fast was shipping? I'm hoping it will take about 3-4 days similar to digikeys with USPS since I need to get this computer back up and running quickly.

[kc8adu]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

just get the mbz/mcz.digikey does not have any vrm output lytics.they have polys but thats another thing entirely.experimental.

[c_hegge]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Panny NHG are general purpose caps, so they are completely unsiutable for motherboards

[crucialcolin]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Yeah I went with the Rubycons here plus it helps support the site

Now hopefully my soldering skills are up to par.

I may practice on removing caps from an old ECS socket A mobo i got floating around here someplace first. Its caps went a few years back and i swapped it for an ASUS board at the time instead of a repair.

[shovenose]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Whoever said they use an antec neo power supply. If its not the new neo eco version, but an older version it may have lots of bad caps in it. Wven if your computer works the pau may be delivered out of spec ripple

[PCBONEZ]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Yes, the original Neo [not the HE] had crap Fuhjyyu caps which are motherboard killers.

The Neo HE had OST which are a -little- better but still not good caps.

I dunno what the eco has.

.

.

[crucialcolin]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Just finished replacing the cpu caps on this mobo from the parts I ordered off this site. So far so good it now posts again

Now I just have to decide rather or not to replace the smaller RAM regulator ones as well. So far they look to be in good shape. However they are the same brand/model as the bad ones all Nichicon HM(M)'s with the only diff being 1000uF vs 3300uF.

Actually there is 1000uF 6.3v ones all over the board so its hard to tell which are the RAM regulator ones or others like AGP, etc.

[crucialcolin]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

I did find out the smaller 1000uF caps are manufactured in 2004(same range as the CPU ones) so they should be replaced. Problem is I'm not sure which ones go to the RAM regulator circuit or to other parts of the boards. I didn't get enough of these to do the entire board esp pci slots, etc.

The Rubbycon replacements are 1000uF 10v as well which worries me thinking they might throw something off.

[c_hegge]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Replacing a 6.3v cap with a 10v won't cause a problem. it's just the maximum the cap can handle.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Correct. The voltage rating is the upper limit. You can use caps with a higher limit.

You should replace all the HM with bad date codes.

[crucialcolin]

Re: GA-K8NSNXP-939 bad caps

Ok cool I'm glad i at least bought a few extras. That will allow me to replace most of them for now until i order some more.

*Side note* I actually suspect these bad caps were the cause for a stability issue with this board when it came to ram when I originally set it up I never could get the thing to run in dual DDR mode reliably plus I had to manually set the RAM timings in the bios in order to keep the thing from BSODing within windows. This is with good quality higher end RAM too such as Kingston or Crucial(not particular sure what i used atm).

I have a feeling performance will improve once I replace the rest of the caps.