MSI 6340 recap

Some five years ago my friend Peter give my this MSI 6340 micro ATX mobo with the Duron 750 CPU. It allegedly worked, but very, very unstable. However I got intersed, because I see mainboard back from 2001 for Socket 462 processors - Duron, Athlon - that got interestingly designed Vcore regulator and mainly a polymer Fujitsu caps. The yellow ones are polymers - regardless that they have the top perforations like elektrolyte caps:

http://s24.postimg.org/vvvzgn53p/MSI_6340_01.jpg

Also as they say - everything small is nice. And this board is really small, almost like just fit tomy hand:

http://s17.postimg.org/6t5kadtwv/MSI_6340_02.jpg

The fact that the mainboard is unstable is understandable. It is only enough to look, what caps are on it - many bad caps like these Chhsi ones:

http://s14.postimg.org/5iwoagaf5/MSI_6340_03.jpg

And these terrible caps are combined with polymers, witch is trully interesting combination, witch in the end probably allow the board to survive all the time working. At least sort of...

http://s22.postimg.org/7ch19ba7l/MSI_6340_04.jpg

Near Vcore output coil, witch get pretty how when the caps in Vcore are bad, the Chhsi cap is leaking now:

http://s16.postimg.org/v80bqilzp/MSI_6340_05.jpg

...but it looks like these two good polymers hold him pretty well, so the computer somehow worked.

http://s24.postimg.org/4x5wqpms5/MSI_6340_06.jpg

Except quality polymers there are on the mainboard also good caps - Chemicon KZE - as input filter caps, witch sure worked well. Even I did not trust Chemicons much, the bad batches of them are only the KZG, KZJ, TMV and TMZ series, not the KZE. And on top of that, they are nicely green:

http://s24.postimg.org/5p3zc61lh/MSI_6340_07.jpg

However all that is not going to stop the instability of chipset, witch power voltage is "filtered" Chhsi terrible cap...

http://s21.postimg.org/bc0ssvnk7/MSI_6340_08.jpg

But all it all this looks like a decent Vcore design (for 2001):

http://s21.postimg.org/gou8kr0uf/MSI_6340_09.jpg

560uF 4V Fujitsu polymers and 2700uF 6.3V Chhsi terrible caps is almone relatively qualite Vcore filtering, unless they start to break down, of course:

http://s15.postimg.org/g1gg0x0pn/MSI_6340_10.jpg

For rams and USB ports voltage filtering are used these bad caps Tayeh:

http://s21.postimg.org/5qiz2kc93/MSI_6340_11.jpg

Of course the big problem is, when you push to big and heated coil a capacitor. This cap is really having a troubles, when the whole cascade is start to overhat:

http://s12.postimg.org/tntvxm571/MSI_6340_12.jpg

However as you can see, bad caps are bulging even when they are long away from all typically overheating componets, like coils and mosfets:

http://s23.postimg.org/7446edavv/MSI_6340_13.jpg

MSI 6340 v1
--------------
2x 4700uF 6.3V d12.5 (Chemi-con KZE) -> 2x 4700uF 6.3V Panny FM d12.5 - P12347-ND
4x 2700uF 6.3V d10 (Chhsi) -> 4x 3300uF 6.3V Samxon GC d10
2x 820uF 4V d10 (Fujitsu) -> 2x 2700uF 2.5V Samxon ULR d10
2x 560uF 4V d8 (Fujitsu) -> 3x 1000uF 4V Samxon ULR d8
6x 1000uF 6.3V d8 (Chhsi) -> 6x 1000uF 6.3V Samxon GC d8
3x 330uF 6.3V d6.3 (Tayeh) -> 3x 470uF 6.3V Samxon GD d6.3
2x 47uF 16V d5 SMD -> 2x 47uF 16V Panny FK SMD d5 (16V) - PCE3397CT-ND
4x 10uF 16V d4 SMD -> 4x 10uF 16V Panny X5R SMD ceramic (4V) - PCC216CT-ND

(one polymer I added near the CPU, because it was removed and these 47 and 10uF SMD little caps I did not yet replaced, as I did not have anything to replace them with ATM)

So years ago I already gather for this recap the caps, witch give me Big Pope - at lest these Samxon caps. Adding the 1000uF 4V cap increased the total Vcore output capacity to 18 300mF in 8 caps! (for example the famous Socket 462 mobo DFI Lanparty B have Vcore output wth only 4 caps and 13 200mF total capacity - and no polymers!)

http://s18.postimg.org/mngna8x9l/MSI_6340_14.jpg

Whole look at the Vcore part of the mainboard after recap:

http://s22.postimg.org/lme71p181/MSI_6340_15.jpg

Look at the bottom caps from Vcore and for the AGP powering:

http://s9.postimg.org/8hni3vfzz/MSI_6340_16.jpg

Much smaller todays polymers (560uF was - 1000uF is) for the same voltage is really just small "bits" compared to these 3300uF Samxon GC caps near them:

http://s23.postimg.org/wchnm1wt7/MSI_6340_17.jpg

On the other hand, a 2700uF Samxon URL polymers are quite big pieces of caps:

http://s22.postimg.org/c5tfs6nox/MSI_6340_18.jpg

And at the end, whole look at the MSI 6340 mainboard - little mobo:

http://s2.postimg.org/ms8gelmop/MSI_6340_complete.jpg


Fun fact - after powering the mobo for the first time it show up, that for whole five years the real time clock is running. And on top of that, it even show good time - only +30min, witch is for 5 years w/o usage and with desoldered caps something amazing, I did not expect that :) And mobo is working quite well after the recap, even that the new CPU-Z version does not detect FSB, witch is weird. But the CPU-Z autor is already asked for some info to fix this, so there is a hope that this get fixed:
http://valid.canardpc.com/vblm4v
FSB 0 is not looking really truthfully :D
Also is worth noting, that the mobo has a pretty detailed setup in the bios (especially considering that this is VIA KT133 chipset and SDRAMs) and even overclock possibilities, where one can choose from Default setting (100MHz) to 117MHz FSB (37MHz for PCI). However the result from this last settings (with so quality caps I did not expected and problem so I tried this right away) is, that CPU is working at 256MHz when using this setting :D (30x7.5) Well, there is a good deal of fun with this little MSI mobo... :)

super cool bro. does it have good overclockability? never really heard of this board ( i had a 754 dfi when 939 was new so i'm kinda a newb on socket 462 )

Heheh, thanks. Yea, it is a fun project... and yes, like I mentioned, there is overclocking options in the bios. However just up to 117MHz FSB by roughly 2MHz steps.

What is pretty weird is, that when I choosed the 117MHz setting, the CPU reported 255MHz on POST, 262 in CPU-Z and the system was sluggish at best... lol.

So I tried, if the Super Pi 32M did not need more that 12h (HWbot Achievement) but no. 8h and bit only... :( Gotta unlock the Duron multiplier and lower it to get over 12hours, lol.

As for overclocking, I tried then again 104MHz settings and again sluggish performance and 255MHz in post. So it seems that it does not work or require some jumper that make it work? Dunno. But some people get the 118MHz FSB on the board:
http://hwbot.org/submission/2202823_...340_118.01_mhz
So it somehow have to work.

Other WR with this mobo seems to be easy to beat:
http://hwbot.org/hardware/motherboard/ms-6340/vv