low or super low ESR + impedance caps

[trodas]

Anyone know, where to buy them? Europe preffered, as Im from it... :o

The story go like this. Im fanless maniac. I also like to OC a little Recently I have some stability problemy on clocks, where things worked well before. And I just readlized what my problems was - the caps blown with loud explosion on my mobo, so now Im in process looking for 1500uF 16V low ESR caps.

I also found out, that the caps are made by Chemi-con and their type KZG aren't even optimal for mobos! KZG versions are low ESR/impedance ones, correct ( http://www.chemi-con.com/files/KZG.pdf - compare to - http://www.chemi-con.com/files/LXZ.pdf ) yet they did not handle well impulse currents. Okay, they even claim "Super low ESR/impedance", but the sheet did not show any values.

Now check this out - they also made considerably more pricely LXY/LXZ versions of caps, specificaly engineered for long-live with impulse currents AND low ESR as well, as the KZG ones has!
Sure, they cost 250% of the KZG line, so DFI use the cost-optimized version and the results are that after 1,5 years they explode...
Not to mean the time degradation - now is pretty clear for me, why 2700Mhz was not a problem at start, yet recently it was complete lock-up. 2600Mhz was stable last winter, yet not this winter and the list could go so on and so far - no wonder, there are 6 (!) 100uF caps missing only in the PCI section a rather large cap close to the 12V support is missing too (that's wher the two ones that died was) and the 4 caps close to the main PSU connection are nowhere near to be found as well - not to mention what is missing into the CPU socket and close to the ram voltage regulators...
So much for DFI.

So, anyone know, where to get quality stuff?

[crodan85]

Look on digkey.com for the panasonic FA or FC series they should be ok replacment.

Thats all I have ever found for sale but here are some of the main low/esr caps I have found

Nichicon UPW, UPJ, UPY, UPL, UPF (not sure if you can get them on digikey or not)
Panasonic GA,FB,HFQ,HFG
Rubycon JXB, YXF, GXF
Yeago SC, SD, SX
Malory VTZ
Jamicon TL, WL, WG
EPCOS B41856, B41859, B41857
Elna RSH, RSR, RSG
Nic NRSX, NRSY, NRSZ

If you get any good links on where to get them please PM me.

[celemine1Gig]

www.rs-components.com

[hixie]

Trodas, your lossing clocks speed problem could be solved by changing the battery. Give it a try.

[trodas]

http://www.rsczech.com/cgi-bin/bv/br...oid=-987039405

These Philips FA ones look pretty good (at least in paper specs?):

Super Low Impedance FA Series Min Radial 105°C Capacitors

Philips FA 5600uF 10V - impedance 0.018 - ripple current 3010 (7000 hours)
Chemi-con KZG 1500uf 16v - impedance 0.013 - ripple current 2550 (2000 hours)
Chemi-con LXZ 1500uf 16v - impedance 0.037 - ripple current 1690 (5000 hours)
Hitano EXR 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.039 - ripple current 1660 (1000 hours)

Any better tips aren't probably exist, or anyone get something that has similary good specs as the Philips ones?

OTOH, the Chemi-con KZG aren't looking that bad, after all. They at least have, in contrary to the LXY/LXZ ones hight ripple current speed, with I feel (correct?) that is important

[trodas]

Specifications of some caps usefull for re-capping:

Chemi-con KY 2200uf 16V - impedance 0.027 - ripple current 2230 (10000 hours) 12.5x25
Chemi-con KZE 2200uf 16V - impedance 0.018 - ripple current 2770 (5000 hours) 12.5x25
Chemi-con KZG 1500uf 16V - impedance 0.013 - ripple current 2550 (2000 hours) 10x20 - this was there and failed
Chemi-con KZG 1800uf 16V - impedance 0.012 - ripple current 2800 (2000 hours) 10x25
Chemi-con KZH 2200uf 16V - impedance 0.017 - ripple current 2480 (6000 hours) 12.5x20
Chemi-con KZJ 2200uf 16V - impedance 0.009 - ripple current 3230 (2000 hours) 12.5x20
Chemi-con LXZ 2200uf 16V - impedance 0.030 - ripple current 1950 (7000 hours) 12.5x25
NIC Components NRSG 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.018 - ripple current 2770 (4000 hours) 12.5x25
NIC Components NRSJ 1500uF 16V - impedance 0.013 - ripple current 2550 (2000 hours) 10x20
NIC Components NRSK 1800uF 16V - impedance 0.012 - ripple current 2800 (4000 hours) 10x23
NIC Components NRSX 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.022 - ripple current 1800 (5000 hours) 12.5x25
NIC Components NRSZ 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.037 - ripple current 1700 (5000 hours) 12.5x25
Hitano EXR 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.039 - ripple current 1900 (5000 hours) 13x21
Panasonic FA 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.025 - ripple current 2310 (5000 hours) 12.5x30 (discontinued)
Panasonic FC 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.030 - ripple current 1945 (5000 hours) 12.5x25
Panasonic FM 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.015 - ripple current 3190 (7000 hours) 12.5x25
Samxon GA 1800uF 16V - impedance 0.007 - ripple current 4140 (2000 hours) 10x25
Samxon GC 1800uF 16V - impedance 0.009 - ripple current 3190 (2000 hours) 10x25 - 12.5x20 (2200uF can do 0.008 and 3270mA - 12.5x25)
Sanyo WG 1800uF 16V - impedance 0.012 - ripple current 2800 (4000 hours) 10x23
Sanyo WX 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.018 - ripple current 2770 (4000 hours) 12.5x25
Nichicon HD 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.018 - ripple current 2770 (5000 hours) 12.5x25
Nichicon HE 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.027 - ripple current 2230 (10000 hours) 12.5x25
Nichicon HM 2700uF 16V - impedance 0.010 - ripple current 2900 (2000 hours) 12.5x25
Nichicon HN 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.009 - ripple current 3190 (2000 hours) 12.5x20 (12.5x25 can do 0.008 and 3370mA)
Nichicon HV 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.016 - ripple current 2725 (6000 hours) 12.5x20
Nichicon HZ 1800uF 16V - impedance 0.006.5 - ripple current 4140 (2000 hours) 10x25
Nichicon VZ 2200uF 16V - impedance ??? - ripple current 1058 (1000 hours) 12.5x20
Nichicon PM 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.026 - ripple current 2010 (5000 hours) 12.5x31.5
Nichicon PW 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.030 - ripple current 1945 (7000 hours) 12.5x25
Rubycon MCZ 1800uF 16V - impedance 0.009 - ripple current 3230 (2000 hours) 10x25
Rubycon YXG 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.027 - ripple current 2230 (6000 hours) 12.5x25
Rubycon YXH 1800uF 16V - impedance 0.027 - ripple current 2230 (10000 hours) 12.5x25
Rubycon ZL 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.018 - ripple current 2270 (5000 hours) 12.5x25
Rubycon ZLG 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.012 - ripple current 2900 (5000 hours) 12.5x25
Rubycon ZLH 2200uF 16V - impedance 0.017 - ripple current 2480 (10000 hours) 12.5x20
Rubycon ZT 1500uF 16V - impedance 0.024 - ripple current 1900 (2000 hours) 12.5x25

...so as you see, some are certainly great ones, like the Samxon GA line or the Nichicon HZ line - but the major of the caps are"t as good as the original Chemi-con KZG ones, so... now worth looking for.

Bottom line - I was wrong about DFI using too poor caps. The Chemi-con KZG line of cap's aren't tha bad. It todays might look little bit bad, tough, however at them time the board was projected, there aren't some of the best caps highlighted up there now... like the amazing Samxon GA series or the Nichicon HZ

So it become obvious that I have to look of for these caps types - sorted from the best to the worser alternatives:

Samxon GA
Nichicon HZ
Rubycon MCZ
Chemi-con KZJ
Samxon GC
Nichicon HN
Panasonic FM

Now if anyone can help me point me out where to get them, I would be very grateful.

[trodas]

Now images:


Yep, these two are faulty...


I include this foto for fun - look, how sharp it is Never mind the blurry caps, the PCI slots behind them are "razor-sharp", aren't they?


Focus on the first one - got beated up pretty bad, fella...


Focus on second one - you can almost see the black stuff inside into the crack - please note that both was bumped much more, when I pulled them from the mobo... The bump on their top must shrinked a little.


From side - like I said - the bump was higher when it happend - now are only mediocre...

Another observation - I looked on one of older photo I made, this one:
http://ax2.old-cans.com/s.php?p=wc&id=114&c=8&d=1&v=v2
...and I definitively notice that the cap is already bumped a little...! Yes, this one in the middle of the picture, near the additional 12V connection to the mobo + visually close to the hose going into the chipset block. Full size there:
http://ax2.old-cans.com/wc/0115_full.jpg
(on the mosfets was cooler, sadly not glued to one of them, that is why they are with silver top - Arctic Silver epoxy used. And the black crap in the coils? A hi-temp silicone meant to quiet them. Unsucesfully. I should rather install decent caps, but how the hell I was supposed to know?!)

[trodas]

I would like also elaborate now a bit by bit, how the cap problems are come to the final loud thud from my computer, witch after a 15sec or so ended up with complete lockup.

Even from the very beginning, I was not able to break 200Mhz "barrier" (not even 202Mhz) w/o sound distortions. First these distortions happen only on key press. Then all the time.
Backing down to 200Mhz make them disappear completely.
I have no solution and none of all the overclockers as well.
Yet still, play AC3 hi-bitrate movie, pause and un pause it resulted sometimes from strange loud noise from all 5.1 channels. It happened mostly with AC3Filter, since it use 24bit output, normalizations, amplifications and so on - and therefore stress the machine (PCI bus and so on) more. Later it move from the occasional to 100% sure noise from all speakers when I pause/un pause AC3 movie. I blamed AC3filter. Yet no-one else seems to experience such bug, so...
Recently I realized that my max. OC is severally limited. My max. post was 2813Mhz and CPU-Z record was 2700Mhz - yet when I try it now, I get complete lockup! Also last year I run with 200x13, and now it is not stable and after few hours a strange lockup come. (no blue screen, no reset, lockup) I blamed 6800GT card, witch for sure draw more power and therefore might limit my max. OC, but as we know now, it was also false accusation.
Then sometimes, depends on BF2 initialisation, phase of moon of whatever else, BF2 game play was interrupted with noise. Usually when more sounds has to appear on the game. I blamed drivers, then changed to the better U-pack ones, yet no help. I blamed game, but reboot fixed it. Always. I was clueless and think about adding a additional grounding wire from the mosfet on Audigy2zs to the mobo (as I once did with suggestion from the overclockers to get past 200Mhz w/o bugs) and/or capacitor to better filter/hold the voltage when spikes of energy consumption occur.Another idea was to slap a chipset heatsink on the Audigy2zs chip. Tough all these ideas are probably worth implementing, I'm now almost convinced that they would not help, at least except the cap not much...
But back to the problems.
Then USB stopped working and any attempt to install it end in lockup. Also, some of the services are a bit ficked up, since I cannot even change status of the service (eg. how it run, Automatic, Manual of Forbidden ) - the process always lock up. I thought that it was probably something screwed up in winblows and reinstall will fix it. Hell, if things are THAT simple to fix...
And then finally a week and half before final showdown the machine used to lock during booting. Sometimes. Later most of the time. No increasing voltage helps, nothing. Right when the GFX card driver deg initialized it simply freeze. Reboot fixed it, always and I blamed winblows. It turns out that winblows are innocent at this time.

So, this is just my short story how bad caps happened to change my machine behaviour.

[sluggo]

Caps explode when the electrolyte boils. Heat is the problem, and heat mainly comes from the cap's location (next to a radiating object) and from high levels of ripple current.

If you're experiencing exploding caps, I would look at getting a replacement with a higher ripple current rating. You might also mount a simple metal shield between the caps and any hot devices nearby, or directing a fan onto the caps.

If you want to dramatically reduce your ESR you can parallel additional caps, but I think the first thing you need to address is the heat.

BTW, as you boost the voltages from your supply, you increase the current requirements, and ripple current starts to increase greatly as you approach or exceed the controller's design limits.

[trodas]

sluggo - I think they are just faulty... And yep, I looking out for caps that have higher (or notably higher - Samxon GA ) specs, however they are extremly hard to find - not to mention some companies did not ship everywhere, so in some cases a help of resident in USA or UK or Tchaiwan could be very helpfull just to re-send them to me
Weird, but very true.

For example http://uk.farnell.com to my BIG my surprise did NOT ship to Czech republic (CZ)... It (on shiping options) says that the caps come directly from US of A and then it says that "I cannot expoert the caps to my country." Now what the fick...
So I tried a trick that worked few times for me before - as shiping I say country is Germany and County is Czech republic. Americans let it go, they have no clue that it is terribly wrong, and German post is extremly great - they pass it to Czech post and it get delivered, elieve it or not. It took a extra weekend, tough...
Yet I got the same stupid message: "You cannot expoert the caps to this country."

Not that they have something very interesting in stock, tough, but still - it give you a idea...

Fan in not a option, but I will consider the heat-shield That is not bad idea, after all!

For too much parallel caps is there not a room, however this also has the catch that puting caps in parallel reduce the ESR, however in increase the ESL on the other hand. It looks like (remember what Last Viking did to his mobo) that ESL did not matter that much, but still, the space problem remaining. Samxons GA that can deliver such punch:

Samxon GA 1800uF 16V - impedance 0.007 - ripple current 4140 (2000 hours) 10x25
Chemi-con KZG 1500uf 16V - impedance 0.013 - ripple current 2550 (2000 hours) 10x20

...woudl be great choice. But getting them - well - try and see for yourself.

And no, I did not boosted voltage from my PSU - yet there are few guys on badcaps forum that seems think that my PSU might generate hi-frequency ripple spikes and therefore killing the caps. I lack oscilloscop ATM, but I think it will be worth to check this as well. After all, I should bypass every of the bigger caps with 47nF to 100nF ceramics SMD one for much better filtering of the hi-frequency spikes/noise. Might be helpfull too...

However I also get my hand on Nichicon HE 2200uF 16V caps. They are in pretty wrong casing - 17mm in diamater and only 15mm high. So I somewhat managed to "get em' there" and tried the mobo. First it does not boot at all, only all 4 diagnostic led's on and no autotest, and then, after some bios resetings W/O battery (?!) it kicked in and even it was extremly unreliable, it somewhat works (bios, post). When I added other devices (HDD to boot) it stoped working. I repeaded this two times and I don't know what to blame. The HE caps did not match the KZG specs, true. Is this up to blame? Or the 5-6mm long wires on witchare the caps over the mobo are up to blame?
Well, todays I cleaning up the mobo and preparing it to solder caps where there aren't cap before (yet the space is left) and then I - for fun - tried power it on. I did this few times before but no luck, yet after the cleaning (witch should have no effect on the mobo functionality, I basicaly just sucked the tin from the empty holes, so I can now just "lump" the cap there and solder...) it booted right away. It does NOT show any sign of unreability - even I set up pretty tight timings on memory (my super-tight ones) and 200Mhz FSB and 1.850Vcore (200x10) ...
I was amazed. So, I added on primary channel CDROM and Zip drive to boot for some DOS-stress testing. First I switch the devices both to master and the mobo refused to even post then! 4 lead of death - I know that, all DFI users does... Yet unpluging make it work, then I discover my failure and fixed it, attached again and whoa - it worked.
So, after I realized that everything in DOS works, I decided that the best stress-test will be installing winblows. So, I moved the CDROM+ Zip on secondary channel and attached 80G Seagate testing HDD - and mobo again refuse to post - 4 leds of death (4LOD later).
And this time nothing ever helps. It looks like the mobo need another day or so to "cool down" and erase it's flash rom...

So - good news - the mobo can work. Bad news - there is likely also something else (most likely into the SB powering and stuff) wrong.

[sluggo]

Trodas -

Many manufacturers set up exclusive distribution agreements on a country-by-country basis. That is, Chemi-Con (for example) might give Farnell the rights to distribute Chemi-Con caps in UK, but not Czech Republic. Chemi-Con might contract with another distributor to handle the Czech business. If the UK distributor sells into the CR, the CR distributor gets upset. Sounds petty, I know, and for low volume business it shouldn't make a difference, but there you have it.

The other possibility is that Chemi-Con never applied for an export license to Czech Republic - licenses are expensive, and if the level of business does not justify the expense of the license, Chemi-Con simply will not sell (knowingly) in CR. You have to go "gray" market (which you did). Send me a PM here and I'll see if I can help.

Many times caps are placed too close to a heat radiating part. Just as you can get a sunburn in the winter, a cap can get very hot internally via radiation from a mosfet (or CPU), even if the air temperature in only 40C. A few layers of aluminum foil works just fine to protect your caps.

Try vertical bus-bars to get additional caps in without adding inductance.

[Charles Wirth]

Stuck, good info guys and thanks.

[sang]

..Try vertical bus-bars to get additional caps in without adding inductance.

i dont get it. "Vertical bus-bars" ??? Maybe its my bad english but could you be more specific about this? Thanks.

[sluggo]

i dont get it. "Vertical bus-bars" ??? Maybe its my bad english but could you be more specific about this? Thanks.

I wish I had some drawing skill to show what I mean, but I'll try to describe it. If you take a cap out of a board you are left with two holes drilled through the board. You can insert in each of these holes a stiff wire of appropriate length (2-3 inches). You can then solder several caps to these wires in a parallel arrangement. Install the package onto the board in the original two holes and you have multiple paralleled caps where before you had only one.

What I've done as a quick and dirty setup is to take a couple of paper clips and straighten them out (they don't have to be perfectly straight). Solder the caps to the paper clips and bond the caps together with some RTV silicone adhesive. Trim all excess wire, but leave a couple inches of paper clip exposed from one end. Now insert the paper clip ends into the board (observing polarity), solder, and trim the excess wire on the other side of the circuit board.

You'll want to mechanically secure the capacitor bundle in some way, because if they vibrate they will flex the wire and eventually the wire will fatigue and break away at the circuit board. A simple bracket mounted to one of the motherboard screw mounts and attached to the cap bundle with a nylon strap or some RTV works fine.

If paper clips are too big for the holes you have you can use any solid wire of the right diameter.

I like to put caps on both sides of the wire for balance and aesthetics, if there's room. The nice thing about this is you can twist the two wires up to 90 degrees to make room for whatever sort of capacitor arrangement you have and whatever sort of space you have above the motherboard.

Obviously, it's much easier to do all the cap soldering first and then solder the package onto the motherboard.

sluggo

[sang]

its very clear now.Thanks for the detailed explanation.

And this is the classic way which works for me just fine.

[trodas]

sluggo - well, you explained it pretty well and I'm affraid it did not sound petty, but more likely terrible for me, as I don't care about anything like this, I just want my mobo(s) get fixed and that it is. Companies should not apply such insane limits and crazy stuff on low-volume sales at all...!
And yep, you got PM mate

FUGGER - you are welcome

About the "vertical bus bars" - I think that since they add a hell lot of lenght of wire on the PCB and into most mosfet voltage regulators suggested applications you can read "place cap as close to the mosfet as possible" - this is terrible idea. It most likely make the OC notably worser. At least that is what I think it does. I already hit a guy who did it and he says:

About the lead of the caps, i dont think you should "hang" the caps even for 5mm above the PCB. I know because i've tried it & it just make overclocking worse. The caps need to be as close as possible to the circuit/PCB or it will negate the low esr/impedance value.

witch make sense to all the theory behind the electronic stuff.

So, I just going to stuck there bigger caps (and preferably - if I can get hold of them - the most quality caps I could obtain), but no wires. Never. Ever. Last Viking suggested this:



He added the caps from back of the mobo in parallel to the existing ones. Sure it could help the mediocre Chemi-con KZG ones, however it is not a perfect (nor a usable) solution. I believe he could gain much better results by using Samxon GA caps, witch are far, far better the the KZG ones (see the table) and also maybe adding caps where they aren't anymore.

So, when I finally (3 weeks!!!) get my Panasonic FM caps from customs (help!) I started my project. Basicaly, I use the Last Viking recommendations and come up with this:



So, as you can see, I added a lot's of caps there. It looked amazing. However the mobo refused to post, always ending at diagnostic LED3 only on, witch is "Testing memory presence". So, since not even long cleaning of CMOS helping there, I pulled out the 470uF cap 11. It passed now the testing memory presence and end up at LED4, witch is "Early program chipset register before POST". In short - VGA is not present/inicialized. So, I pulled out caps 16, 17, 18 and 10 and it finally posted! Hoooray! Everything seems working well, untill I inserted Audigy and FX5600 card. Then 4LOD and nothing more - time for another 30min cleaning procedure
So, I keep pulling out caps that I added there, but nothing improved. I ended up in mobo w/o any extra caps, but I still cannot insert any more power hungry deviced to the PCI / AGP Looks like the mosfets there or something get damaged as well?
The 12V support power connector get a bit yellow from the power that goes there when things failed and since my PNY 6800GT and Audigy2zs working well (I'm using them right now) then I have to suspect something wrong up there into the powering part...
Other than that - the mobo is EXTREMLY stable and working well right now folding for me - with very poor oldie Barton witch has "wall" at 2200Mhz that not even 2.00Vcore can break - so the mobo running right now at 200x10.5 - 11-2-2-2-9-12-0-0-3-3-2-0-3-E-E-F-E ultra DFI timings and entierly stable. I installed WinXP on it and folding 100% CPU load and no crash or problem are there.
So - sucesfully recaped.

However there is still a large problem with powering of the slots, so any suggestions where to look and what to measure, yet, I'm affraid I have first remove the heatsinsks from the mosfets that powering the slots:
http://ax2.old-cans.com/s.php?p=badt...4&c=8&d=1&v=v2
As you can see, I got two of them covered...


PS. as you can notice, I omited replacing the two 1000uF caps bellow the Vdd / Vdimm mosfets as Last Viking suggested with bigger ones. Basicaly because they are in line with AGP GFX card and therefore I can't add big caps there...

PS2. some caps are definitively not need to be pulled out for sure. I measured the connections and cap 10 is directly connected to the ground AND to the power imput connector, so pulling it out aren't necessary. Same goes for the caps 12, 14 and 15, however not the cap 13 - this one is NOT directly connected to any of the pins at power connector close to him, so I'm not sure about it. Same goes for the rest of the caps, even it should be good add them. All added caps was Panasonic FM ones.

[[cTx]Philosophy]

LOL I cant read spanish...

[Raja@ASUS]

HI,

Sanyo oscons are available, they are solid aluminium (a certain mobaord is coming out soon, using hype of alu caps). In any case the oscons are virtually top dogs in digital circuits, they have a lower impedence than virtually anything else. The only other caps that are comparable are the rubycon za series, these may be avaiable from RS. There are also Black Gate caps, but they are too expensive and also seem to keep impedences secretive.

Raja

[Raja@ASUS]

Hi,

I'd stick to original values, some regulators are only specified for limited capacitance on the rails. Sometimes low esr caps can trigger oscillation.
What you can do is use the same value in uf, but go up a value in voltage, like 20v instaed of 16v. Some caps have poor tolerance of over voltage, so this may help.


if those caps shorted in the first place you may have a faulty regulator, especially if it does not have built in over current protection...............


use a DMM, and measure the voltages at all the caps you replaced, see if it is at specified value, that should give you a clue as to what the problem is.

Thanks
Raju

[trodas]

Well, the question is what to measure and WHERE
I'm a bit clueless there

[Flash53]

HI,

Sanyo oscons are available, they are solid aluminium (a certain mobaord is coming out soon, using hype of alu caps). In any case the oscons are virtually top dogs in digital circuits, they have a lower impedence than virtually anything else. The only other caps that are comparable are the rubycon za series, these may be avaiable from RS. There are also Black Gate caps, but they are too expensive and also seem to keep impedences secretive.

Raja

Yes those Sanyo Oscons are impressive. Some years ago there was a AMD reference board using Oscons only. Also some video cards are using Oscons. I have one older Elsa Geforce 2 card here using them also. But most manufacturer just are using cheap caps. Asus often is using Rubycon or Nichicon caps what are of the best brands. But you can´t expect very good caps on cheap boards.

With electrolytic caps the Nichicon HN are really good. I´m using them in other application than computers.

[Raja@ASUS]

Hi,

Oscons are dry organics, and last a lot longer than the electrolyte types, with age and heat those esr figures soon drop!

Trodas, if youre unsure where to measure, you need to study some basic electronics, this is concerning and I do hope you got the caps the right way round in the first place..........

You can use a dmm at the legs of the caps, use the red wire to the positive and black to the negative. The voltages measured should match approx what you have set in your bios for that circuit. If the caps are pre regulators then they should be around 5v to 12v

If the voltages are substantially below where they should be it will tell you that the regulators are done for.

Thanks
Raja

[Revv23]

yes the new saphhire grouper board uses oscons, its is an impressive board indeed.

Trodas, glad to see you again, you dissapeared so suddenly so long ago i feared for your health!!

Very nice work with that NF2.

I got so fed up with mine i finally sold it and got a board that wasn't so tempermental, i hated how on some days the board would clock like mad and others getting it stable at stock was diffucult.

IMO the board is only as good as the worst cap on it, why not replace all of the power circuit caps with higher quality caps of the same ratings? i can order some and ship them to you if you have trouble obtaining them... On the other hand... im not sure if your problem is cap related anymore anyways...

have you tried blowing a fan at it? I know you run striclty passive but it may help you diagnose the problem powering the slots.

[trodas]

Revv23 - well, I catch terrible cold and problems, but I'm ready (just with a little help, pls!) fight them and defeat them! And the work aren't done yet, besides in some places (cap 11) is NOT recommended to add caps - the mobo did not kicked in then - at least when the mosfets are "problematic", now we have to test this again - sigh
And I answer your questions in PM!


And now - I reporting sucess!

Imagine this - yesterday I removed the heatsinks from the AGP/PCI voltage regulators - it is Arctic Silver epoxyde, however when you heat it up with big 250W soldering iron to 160°C, it get off easily. But WTF? Machine become really stable after this "modification", so I get a little theory what happen and why.
IMHO when the caps fail, the regulator(regulators) started to overheat like mad. They will for sure get burned-out, luckily the heatsing on them and it's weight pulled them out a little, when the tin get melted and therefore the mosfet lost's it's contact. That was the few sec after the explosion and before the hangup witch started all this...
Now, when I heating them up, I made them solder a little better their backs to the mobo, so that is why the mobo started to like PCI devices... So, I soldered them real good, reseted bios (long time, it was quirky again) and then even with the added capacitor 470uF at the position 10 it booter right to WinXP with FX5600 and Audigy inserted, where before it produced only 4LOD
I was wanted to test 6800LE as well (replacement card), however due to the big SB cooler and the 6800LE equiped with a Silencer it won't fit. So the final test will be done into the box, seems

Happy!

I probably better wait for the SMD ceramic caps to make the filtering better and also add the caps from back to support higher FSB where Last Viking suggested

(yes, replace the two 1000uF 10V ST RLG 352 caps with Panasonic FM ones and add two 2200uF 10V Panasonic FM ones at the bottom of the mobo - hell, another hole to the metal backplate on witch the mobo get screwed up is need, LOL - like my machine don't have enough holes already!)

[k0nsl]

trodas,

Another place in the European sphere which sells all sorts of components, including capacitators and much more, is Elfa.

http://www.elfa.se/



-k0nsl