Re: Biostar A770E3 and Antec Truepower Trio recap

A bit delayed, but I want to point out that this mobo is actually pretty good, but it doesn't like 1.5v RAM. It can't do less than 1.6v which is why I was having stability problems. After putting in some compatible RAM it has been rock solid with the new caps. Zero crashes ever. Super clean power matters.

Re: Biostar A770E3 and Antec Truepower Trio recap

Yeah. The link was just for the photo. I liked how the wire was exposed in the photo. I have no comments about the publisher.

It does seem that the chokes have some sort of shielding material around them. Mine appear to either be painted or coated in plastic, which would have me conclude they have a metal shielding. All just wild speculation on my part. The A770E3 has a lousy 3+1 CPU power supply.

Interesting note, I was able to unlock an extra core on the Sempron 140 and it's been stable for a night...

Re: Biostar A770E3 and Antec Truepower Trio recap

@ Toasty

That's not necessarily true. Without taking the chokes apart we'll never really know for certain. It would be quite a small toroid if that were true. In any case, if I were manufacturing a super cheap motherboard like this one, I'd expect a simpler inductor such as a wire wrapped around a ferrite core instead of the familiar doughnut shaped toroid which generally cost more to manufacture.

[URL="http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/fullimage.php?image=12434"]For Example...[/URL]Re: Biostar

Re: Biostar A770E3 and Antec Truepower Trio recap

Update. So the board was a little more stable after my last post, but apparently not enough. The CPU power supply just didn't have enough performance to deal with the strong mains line noise I was getting. I noticed that whenever my Isobar power strip started buzzing (dirty mains power) the computer would blue screen or do other nasty things. It was obvious that the CPU was unstable.

To confirm my suspicion I dropped in an isolation transformer. Buzzing on the power strip, no crashing. So I've replaced the wimpy CPU...

Re: Biostar A770E3 and Antec Truepower Trio recap

Yup. 12.5mm seems to fit ok for 3300uF but the 2200uF... well, I got it in, but not pretty. I'm not going to post any photos cause it's just embarrassing. In any case I'm typing this on the computer now and it seems stable so far.

For the Antec Trio I used a Panasonic TS-ED for the 400v cap. Better than the United Chemi-con SMQ it replaced. Again, not a perfect fit, but some artistic rearrangement of the heat sink fins and it was no problem. The rest of the caps were either Panasonic FM or FR's with one exception. I...

Re: Biostar A770E3 and Antec Truepower Trio recap

@PCBONEZ: Wow thanks!

Compared to a Panasonic EEU-FM1C332L, I'd say that's pretty unfortunate. The Panny's are likely more reliable too. So those will get swapped out. I'll leave the ones on the other side of the filters alone.

Offtopic: Many folks seem to think the block filters are better than the toroidal filters that we're used to seeing. I'd venture to guess that a toroid with a cheap core is still better than the ones on my board. I should have yanked the toriods off my old board and swapped them in...

Re: Biostar A770E3 and Antec Truepower Trio recap

Hmmm. Can anyone ID those solid capacitors in the closeup of the motherboard? I'm tempted to replace the v16's with 2200uF Panasonic FM's. My guess is those are 270uF's. They ought to have a good ESR, but without looking at a datasheet it's anyone's guess. The FM's have long life and very good ESR and the added bonus of capacity.

Re: Biostar A770E3 and Antec Truepower Trio recap

@PCBONEZ: Thanks for the tip.

I got a good close look at the Trio last night. One thing I like about this PS is that there is some wiggle room in the layout. It's a real hodge-podge collection of values in there though. I'll post a list later.

Obligatory disclaimer: Most switching power supplies have one large high voltage capacitor. BE SURE THAT CAP IS DRAINED BEFORE WORKING!!! A high voltage shock can be lethal!!! For example the Trio has a gigantic 400v 390uF cap that would seriously hurt/kill you. Use...

Hi Folks!

So my 5yr old computer started to get funny. Too many charred parts on the motherboard so it went to the trash. I quickly discovered that for the same price as used 939 socket motherboard I could just replace the motherboard, RAM, and CPU with more up to date parts. A Biostar A770E3 for $30 is hard to beat, but you get what you pay for. I had to RMA the first board and I should have the new board today.

Since I had some downtime with the home computer, I figured I do a visual inspection of my Antec Truepower Trio 550 which probably has between 10,000 and 20,000...