I was thinking the same, as this has happened to me in the past with the KT7a, however the PSU I have now (and was using at the time) is rated at up to 61 amps on the +5 (most psus are 30-40) and 28 amps on the +12. I tried another PSU (Allied Truepower 450w) that had 50 amps on the +5 and 18 amps on the +12. Doesn't explain why though even with the CPU not sucking a lot of power (clocked it down to 500MHz, 1.3v or so) and the +5 was still low on the board. Usually you back off the wattage, +5 will go back to normal.. in this case it stays low, constantly. Weird stuff.....

Yes, measured the voltage in the 4 pin molex connector (type that you plug into hard drives), and also measured the +5 coming out of the ATX connector itself with and without it connected to the motherboard. To test it non-connected you can turn the ATX PSU on by shorting the green wire with any ground wire....

All 3 psus show stable voltages on all lines (+5 = 5.00, +12 = 12.00, plus or minus a little bit). During operation the +5 molex connector line (that is open, unused) will sag a little bit, +4.7-4.8 or so with a 2.4-2.5GHz Athlon XP at 2 volts.. but upon testing the middle mosfet pin & ground will show around 4.4v, which is also what the bios shows on the +5. When I connect the 3 mosfets directly to the +5 line on the psu then I get a 0.3v boost on the +5. Seems like maybe there is something being lost between the ATX connector (supplying the power fine) and the mosfet itself.. I can always...

I did test the middle pin on 3 of the mosfets and it showed +4.4v (same as my +5 rail in the bios). I did a quick mod (I did the same thing back in the day on a KT7-a that had a 2.2v Tbird 1.0 @ 1.7GHz, WAY more than the board could handle) that involved running the PSUs +5 directly to the mosfets middle pin. It did raise it 0.1v per mosfet, so it got it up to 4.7v total. Trying to get 2.6GHz on it was better, a little more stable, but I gave up on that mod a while back.. as I didn't want the chance of a wire breaking off of that middle mosfet pin and going loose with a live +5 line dragging all...

I appreciate the replies. Yes, I've had problems with burned ATX connectors before. In all cases the PSUs were bad. This time isn't the case however.

For now all I have is a multimeter, the voltages coming out of the psu were solid, and I have since replaced the PSU with a 600+ watt server psu. Same deal. Ended up getting an Abit NF7-S v2.0 with all Rubycon (woohoo!) caps. All is great now.. back up to 2.6GHz on the XP.. works like a charm. No idea what was up with that Epox 8RDA. Replaced ALL caps on it except a few of the sanyos. Maybe the +5 mosfets are going bad? Not sure what...

Alright. Replaced the four 2200uf low ESR Nichicons with four ultra low ESR. Also replace two of the 3 suspected Sanyos (I would have done all of them, but there is no room w/ 12.5mm caps). End result was a marked stability increase. Now 2.6GHz is stable again, finally. Still power problems however. +5 rail is sagging all the way down to 4.4v(!). Blah :\

That HSF was just my quick "test" setup (and Athlon 800), so the water-block is on there normally. Any possible way I could test the caps with a standard multimeter to make sure they aren't completely dead? I know I need some special probe to check it properly but unfortunately a simple multimeter is all that is available for now....

Got everything modified.. left the Sanyos in. Well, guess what? Upon inspecting the close up pictures (I didn't pay much attention to the Sanyos other than getting pics), I notice *3* of them are slightly leaking on the top. No wonder my +5 rail on the board was still ridiculously low! With my Athlon XP underclocked to 600MHz it was 4.81v (should be 5.00 of course), and at 2.65GHz it was 4.4v.

They aren't bulged in any way, but it looks like they're leaking. They are the Sanyo WG series, 3300uf 6.3v.

Here is a pic of two of the Sanyo caps, 6 in all, 2 not shown....

Hello. I'm curious about some of these ratings I've been seeing in the various tech docs. Is a higher ripple better? Also, how about ESR?
This is to replace 5 GSC caps that went to absolute hell after I put in my Radeon 9800XT and a new A+GPB 510w psu. The cpu is an Athlon XP barton core overclocked to 2.65GHz (not PR, true MHz). Put a bit of strain on the caps I believe and now my +5 is unstable and drooping to 4.75v even with an 800MHz Athlon installed sitting idle. The board is the original Epox 8RDA.

My system experienced instability and blue screens out of nowhere.....