Blame Abit not me.

[Roadrage]

At last, I'm not crazy, the Abit board is, thanks for creating the site.

Why not start a class action law suit against Abit ? :idea:

The week or so I spent fault finding to 2am every day / all day with no luck Abit owes me something, I can't be anything but mad.

Just a curious question, are Abits the only board that die this way as I have another dozen boxes of mixed brand boards ?

Having had three working Abit VP6 boards, now only 2, I hope the other two keep going, they are older than the one that died, or was there a dodgy batch that may be distinguished by the serial number ?

[petabyte]

Hi Roadrage.. (i welcomed you in another thread)

The problem will be amounst many brands of boards.. and not just motherboards but a wide variety of electronics..

IBM has said they purged out the bad caps.. but I wonder if they have.

as for a suit.. I don't know.. ABIT is the only mobo manfacturer to acknowledge responsibility.. but I think they'll just offer some rebate on future products.. or some other scheme.

[zia]

Agreed with you on abit

I agree totally about abit. Fortuneately for the world, Topcat is brilliant when it comes to computers. Or should I say genius There were no real batches. Just bad caps.. As he stated in his site the problem resulted from a stolen incomplete formula for the boards. Best thing to do would be to e-mail him about your board that died. Either he can talk you through it or if you prefer he offers repair services

[petabyte]

now zia.. take this in a humorus way ..

whoa.. that's some serious ass-kissing..
my guess is that either you're on the payroll, a relative of TC or he already fixed one of your boards..

which one ? .. hehe..

oh, and welcome to the forum

but now that the forum is here.. there's not as much need to email topgod..
oops I meant topcat.

[Topcat]

JEEZ!! Don't look in on things for one day, and look at all the activity!!

HMM Zia on the payroll?!? HELL, I'm not even on the payroll, and I own the site/servers... HEH :!:

HMMM class action suit against Abit............ Well, as much as Id love to, I don't think that'd fly... I've recapped plenty of Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, and even an old Supermicro... Abit was without a doubt hit the hardest by this, but there's plenty of others we'd have to sue also... The problem really wasn't the board manufacturer's fault anyway...

Was sure a good thought...
<sits in a daze, dreaming of spending Abit's money>

[zia]

I definitely don't get paid lol

wish I did, the queen doesn't get paid lol

[petabyte]

WHAAAAT ? the queen doesn't get paid ? what an outrage :evil: all that praise for naught ?

gee TC.. she deserves one free cap kit for that genius remark, no ?

[Topcat]

Well, UMMMM....

OFF THE RECORD, she has a Compaq......... The caps are the only thing in that box that are good... HEH...

[zia]

How mean lol

Yes I have that nasty compaq lol, Somebody needs to hurry up and build me something decent and worthy of a queen lol.

[petabyte]

a compaq ? ahhhhhhh hahahahahaha..

oops.. sorry.. i should mourn for you, zia..
yeah, we need to get you a good mobo.

I'll start a new thread.. how about.. ?

\"the donate to zia for a new mobo\" thread.

[zia]

OHHH boy

well it's being worked on lol, getting a really nice one soon

[petabyte]

that's good..

I guess I should apologize to Roadrage for my part in taking his thread OT.

but.. naaaahhhh.. I'll do it later..

[Roadrage]

It's all good, carry on.

I did go down to the local electronics retailer and got the caps for about 80c USD each a solder sucker for abouut $5 the rest I allready have.

If it works there will be a party happening, never mind that the new Iwill DVD266u-RN purchased to replace the Abit is long paid for and on a plane somewhere between the Geek shop and Australia.

I was shocked to see the Price Watch value of a P3-1G chip $69 USD, 1.4 Tualtins are somewhat EXE @ $200 USD each geez the p3-1G cpu's are up to $250 each AUD here, more than a XP-2800, how they figure those prices are beyond me.

Sure my main PC's use XP3200's and 3000's, my smallest single is a 2400 on an old MSI KT3 Ultra, but I always liked using the 1G duals.

Don't get me wrong the VP6 when it worked did 40% better \"without even using the raid\" than an XP-2400 both 2G in total so they must have built them well back then, but paying $200 USD for a P3-1.4G Tualtin cpu is a giant price miss match.

Anyway I guess my small soldering iron will do if i'm carefull, it's not like i'm going to kill the board now is it ? it's allready dead.

[petabyte]

It's all good, carry on.

it's not like i'm going to kill the board now is it ? it's already dead

well.. it might not work even if you replace the caps either.
that's another thing that came up in some discussions I looked at today.

(Tc.. help me out here.. shed some light)

forgive me if i get \"wordy\"
from what i understand, if the board is showing signs of weakness.. BOSD's with memory/video/audio kind of error messages and then even trying to reformat or reinstall windows.. (the same weirdness you'd see with a real cheap noisy power supply) you get hangs.. so if you can replace the caps before it totally dies there's a good chance you can fix it. you see, the caps job for the most part is to filter out ripple and help cut down on any high frequency spikes.. and when go bad they either open up.. allowing no protection for the sensitive parts they are helping to regulate the power with .. the onboard voltage regulators..

OR.. they short.. and when they short.. they pop. and when they pop,
guess what else can pop ? well ,mostly the regulators still.. BUT.. if the timing is right, and the current is raging..(hehe) and murphy's law is somewhere closeby.. then an additional misery may occur.. video cards, memory,cpu.. BLAM.. all dead.

so.. I'm thinking.. if you had a \"blowout\" you might have some bad regulators.

Let's not forget, most likely many of these cheap PSU's are going to ave suspect caps in them as well.. dirty power shortens the life of everything.
BOY, I sound depressive, got carried away. hehe sorry.

gee.. I hope I didn't jinx you.. take your time & do it right..

[Topcat]

All of this is explained in detail on badcaps.net. My original article on recapping the VP6 is available at www.kabalsrealm.com/systems/projects/vp6/. York over at vp6-board.com mirrored ot for me, but didn;t update it when I changed a couple things, so the one I just posted is the most current.

Traditionally, the caps are designed to handle most slippage from a power supply, however, when they're made of lousy materials, they die extremely young. https://www.badcaps.net/causes/ There's some info on what actually happens to the caps.

This was taken from my F.A.Q. Page:
QUESTION:
Is my power supply the reason my motherboard has this problem?

ANSWER:
That's very possible! Low-end power supplies can emit what's known as 'ripple', which is caused by poor filtration amongst the PSU's rectifier and regulation modules. Ripple is A/C oscillation slipping through your PSU (Power Supply Unit) to your motherboard's regulation circuits. Motherboard regulation circuits, also known as VRM's (Voltage Regulator Modules), were designed to further regulate the clean voltages from the PSU, not filter out 'dirty power'. Dirty power thus causes unnecessary stress on its polarized component, such as capacitors, ultimately resulting in premature failure. With ANY computer system, I strongly recommend a sufficient power-rated and quality brand power supply.

I hope that helps a little. If you plan to recap your board, I would recommend a good soldering iron... Nothing less than a 60w. Otherwise it probably won't get hot enough, and you could damage the board.

[Roadrage]

NP, I'll get wordy, beware of the new multimedia MS K/B tho it makes mistakes.
First things, I have never seen an error message of any kind, although it would initially at first it would not boot fully after it had been sitting for 6 months, it would stop just before the welcome screen and stop on a grey screen with ANY hardware.
Over the week I tried everything, and then some, with no luck.
I tried a new HDD and the install for XP Pro stopped at the \"now installing windows\" roughly 2 mins into the install.
Now it does the exact same thing with W2K Pro, at the exact same spot.
All BIOS controls work fine and it finds all the hardware NP.
Everything was changed and no luck.
ALL parts were tested 100% or came from working boxes, literally a dozen times.
Several HDD's were tried same same, stops in the same spot of the O/S install.
Now as a last resort I tried to install 98se, it refused to have a bar of it and would not install one bit of it, at least XP and W2K loaded to the same point, and stopped locked tight.
ALL hardware was changed so many times I forget how many, several PSU's were tried, same same.
Gets to the point after the thing boots from the CD and installs all the drivers etc, once the words say installing windows, \"or whatever it is\" it stops cold.
Basically I tried all I know, the only thing that was not changed was the board, all else including the cpu's were tried in other boards.
If I missed something I will be eternally gratefull for anyone to show my error.
BTW, I have a total of 6 / \"5 now\" dual systems, 2 intels on VP6 boards and 3 2400MP's (my servers) on S2466N-4M Tyans, and the rest total 14 complete boxes, 13 now that work fine.
After just over a week I gave up and ordered a new board, that's my insurance policy no matter what happens.
Should it not work I will donate it, after all the new board will be going in first, once that is done the Abit can be messed with.
BTW one of the PSU's tried was a 480w Antec, brand new, if that won't boot it nothing will.
I have read all the documents end to end over and over and i see the word random freezes, there lies the problem the freezes are not random, they occurr at the exact same point.
Sorry for the long story.

[petabyte]

long story yes.. but good.. sooner or later googles bots will come by this forum and spider it.. it happens about once a month on a few places i go to..

THEN.. your story will be available to anyone who has a net connection.
pretty soon you'll be famous.. and write books that'll amaze the world. Like me..

/a large trout slaps peta upside the head.. he wakes from his delusion.

and to TC... yep.. i read most of your stuff.. can't say i disagree with anything.. you did seem to give too much credit to the designers of mobo's.. i think a lot of them have to design in lower quality parts overall to keep the prices down. that that's why this business with caps came up..
cost reductions.. a supplier says I'll give it to you cheaper.. and cheap is what you get. so as \"hardware hackers\" we'll mod or seek out the best stuff.

[Roadrage]

Famous ? great stuff, 5 million will do me I'm not greedy.

Infamous perhaps, being one known to speak the hard naked truth, something that many of some un-named forums seem to not take to so kindly to, but that's just me, the truth never changes, lies do, and it's just a personal trait, I hate liars.

I doubt Abit will like me after I spoke my mind regarding their product, but being an eternal optimist they may come to the party and offer newer boards in a sort of changeover / upgrade situation to proven faulty boards at a very reduced price of course.

Smaller matters have caused bigger companies to go broke, imagine what would happen when no one wants to buy an Abit board of any description ? one cheap company for sale.

Anyone want to be the CEO ?

I want the R & D job.

[Topcat]

HMMM Since it originated on my forum, I think the CEO job is fitting for me... Although, I'm not greedy either, only half of the 5 million will be fair compensation... HAHA

[Roadrage]

Many may not figure why the amount of 5 million, well that was figured over a few slabs of beer one night.

One mill AUD is not enough plain and simple, a house around here on acerage is 500K so there goes half of it before you have a couch to sit on or a fridge to keep the beer cold.

Then comes the furnishings etc and the pool, the new 4WD, the car for the misses, the boat, the bike, etc etc, so by now your way over 1.5 pushing 2

Interest rates suck so at least 2 mill has to be invested in a business of some kind or a term deposit so you never have to work again.

Build a good shed, every man needs a shed, full of tools.

Blow a heap on new clothes and big boys toys, yeah the new PC or three too.

Any left, have a damm good party, there went 5 mill.

Enjoy the hangover.