8RDA Needs Surgery

[shadowdr]

The problems you guys are having was a known issue with the 8rda series boards from the begining.The heat from the mosfets is just to much for the nearby capacitors.I was aware of this from the AOA forums before I purchased my 8rda+ 1.1 revision mobo.I don't think the capacitors are the same batches as the ones that were going bad on all the other mobo's as they were produced later.There are just to many mosfets in close proximity to the capacitors which also happens to be in a place that doesn't get much air circulation even with air cooling.

Even before I installed my board I modded the mosfets with cut up heatsinks so that the 5 volt line would not suffer from the extreme heat.Even with the mod the haetsinks can be very hot and even burn your fingers without some active cooling.I also went with an 80 mm fan on my 60 mm sk7 so the overhang would cool the other heat sinks and PCB as well.Of coarse I voided my warranty before I even installed it but I knew the risks and benifits when the N-Force chipset was so new.I will attach a pic so you can see the the mods.I have an early revison non crush chipset so 200 mhz was a little more than I was expecting.

 

[{BC}Helix]

Was this only a problem with version 1.1, or did they fix this in later versions?

 

[shadowdr]

I don't know how much was changed but later revisions had some design changes,moving several capacitors and mosfets around.This was done after production on the board was temporarily discontinued and was no longer available to the US market.

 

[G-PHoRCe]

here i have a couple of link about capacitors removal and change....
http://www.abitvp6.com/caps1.htm
http://www.overclockers.com/tips469/
http://www.abit-usa.com/news/2004/20040309.php
http://www.freedombyfaith.com/Tech/mba.htm

and this was taken from active-hardware.com:
The capacitors. Todays electrolytic capacitors quality is very uniformised and i could'nt realy tell you of any very bad brand. However, a good rule of thumb can be applied to make sure that your motherboard capacitors are not likely to generate problems and its by looking at their voltage ratings. There are 2 main voltages circulating on your motherboard and they are respectively 12dc volts and 5dc volts so these are the two highest voltages that the capacitors will be faced with. So, if you see a 6vdc capacitor it could mean that it is plugged on a trace where 5dc volts is circulating and this is not good because its pretty close from the maximum rating of the capacitor and 10vdc would be more suited while a 16vdc would be optimal. However if you only see 16vdc capacitors of the board this can be good news as well as bad news. Its good news because it mean's that where there is only 5vdc circulating the use of a 16vdc capacitor is a good thing but if there is 12vdc circulating its a bit tight and a 25vdc capacitor would have been much better. The potential problem is that the electrolitic solution used inside of the capacitor tend to dry wile time is passing by and this make's the capacitor loose its property, so, according to this, if the capacitor is used too close of its maximum ratings there is no room for a good security margin and when the capacitor will reach a point where it can no longer tolerate this situation the isolation envelop between each of its layers will break and cause a short circuit wich will destroy the capacitor and probably many of the surrounding components if not all the motherboard itself. In résumé avoid motherboard using 6vdc capacitors and look for 16vdc and 25vdc capacitors.


A last word about capacitors would be concerning the "Tentalum" type capacitors wich look like a water drop. These capacitors are very unpredictable and very unstable and i would highly recommend to avoid any board using this type of capacitors. While i have been working as an electronic technician i have seen countless problems generated by this type of capacitors compared to much much less problems caused by standard electrolytic capacitors, the ratio i observed would give about 25 to 1. The electrolytic capacitors can be distinguished by their barel shape while the Tentalum capacitors looks like a baloon, a water drop or a pear shape if you prefer.


Finally, i would like to mention that capacitors are very heat sensitive devices and if you want to enhance their life expectancy you must ensure a good colling of your computer case. Most of the time large capacitors are used very close to the voltage regulators and this is not good at all because of the heat generated by these regulators so i will never say enougt that computers need a good cooling if you want to avoid problems. But, what exactly is good cooling are you asking? A simple answer would say that its not the kind of cooling that come's installed by the manufacturer of your computer! A fan can have a good CFM (cubic foot air minute) production and be unefficent because of restrictions caused by the lack of venting holes in your computer case so before to buy a case make sure that there are sufficient venting holes so the fan wont be restricted in its work. Next try to look for the fan CFM rating and if it's under 25 CFM then you will have to change it. Anyway most of the time the stock installed fans are of the bushing type and this type of fan is just nothing but crap so look for a ball bearing fan and try to find something between 30 and 50 CFM but not much higher because the higher the CFM the higher the air flow noise will be so a good balance between the CFM capacity and the noise should be established.

ps: i know i did put some abit link in this epox thread...but i think the point is the same for all motherboards...BAD CAPICITORS SUCK !!!

 

[squeakygeek]

I have an 8rda+ and have noticed that the same 4 caps have been bulging for quite a long time, but with no leakage. The other day when I had my system apart I noticed a smaller cap just above the south bridge actually has some leakage out the top and bottom. Today I notice that the top cap of the 4 mofset caps has major leakage, and the other three have minor leakage, all of which must have happened in the past 24 hours. From a quick glance around I see that there are at least 9 caps that are bulging, 5 of which are leaking, so my board is going to need some surgury

 

[squeakygeek]

Does anyone think it would be a good idea if replacing caps anyway to replace with a higher capacitance, like 2700uf instead of 2200 uf? Maybe it would increase stability in some cases? Maybe it would cause problems? Any ideas? The 4 caps next to the mofsets obviously seem to be the dc ripple smoothing variety, but what about some of the random smaller ones that I will need to replace? Could some of them be for resonance or have some application where using a different capacitence wouldn't work?

 

[G-PHoRCe]

Does anyone think it would be a good idea if replacing caps anyway to replace with a higher capacitance, like 2700uf instead of 2200 uf? Maybe it would increase stability in some cases? Maybe it would cause problems? Any ideas? The 4 caps next to the mofsets obviously seem to be the dc ripple smoothing variety, but what about some of the random smaller ones that I will need to replace? Could some of them be for resonance or have some application where using a different capacitence wouldn't work?

what are the exact specs of all te capacitor you want to change??? but be careful, do not swap 2200uf with 2700uf you'll burn something on your board!!!
if you take a couple of minutes and read everything i posted before you'll see that the only values you can "change" is the voltage of the capacitor.
ex: -swapping 12v with 15
-or 5v with 8v...

i personaly don't have my overclocking monster with me since i gave it away as a present; but at the fisrt opportunity i'll get to "show the world" some good capacitors upgrades i'll take it and post it...

 

[squeakygeek]

what are the exact specs of all te capacitor you want to change??? but be careful, do not swap 2200uf with 2700uf you'll burn something on your board!!!
if you take a couple of minutes and read everything i posted before you'll see that the only values you can "change" is the voltage of the capacitor.
ex: -swapping 12v with 15
-or 5v with 8v...

i personaly don't have my overclocking monster with me since i gave it away as a present; but at the fisrt opportunity i'll get to "show the world" some good capacitors upgrades i'll take it and post it...

I did read what you posted. In one of the links you posted, someone said something about replacing caps with higher capacitance. For the caps used to smooth out the DC current, one could possibly benefit from higher capacitance because it would result in smoother power. Why do you say I would burn something on my board?

 

[squeakygeek]

Ok, this thread is mostly about the 4 2200uf 10v caps on the 8rda+. Anyone notice any problems with their 1000uf 6.3 volt caps? There are 9 of them on my 8rda+, and none of them are perfectly flat, and one of them is leaking, so I will be replacing all of them along with the 4 big ones. It's amazing that I haven't had stability problems from the caps yet. I will try to order new ones tonight.

 

[g0dM@n]

I sold my EPOX 8RDA+. My green caps are also bulging with the orange stuff. Is my friend going to experience problems?

 

[squeakygeek]

I sold my EPOX 8RDA+. My green caps are also bulging with the orange stuff. Is my friend going to experience problems?

yeah. If not now, eventually.

 

[Oni]

I sold my EPOX 8RDA+. My green caps are also bulging with the orange stuff. Is my friend going to experience problems?

I hope he knows how to solder.

 

[squeakygeek]

I just replaced all offending capacitors, 13 in total, all GSC brand. I had a pretty close call exposing and actually bending a trace, but I don't think I broke it and it seems to be working fine.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Well, I'm having this problem now

My system started randomly locking up. Took the RAM out of DC, didn't help. Lowered the overclock, didn't help. Replaced the RAM, didn't help. Underclocked, didn't help. I finally started thinking: Hey, could it be the motherboard?

Turns out, it is.

http://24.150.152.18/bulge/bulge1.jpg
http://24.150.152.18/bulge/bulge2.jpg
http://24.150.152.18/bulge/bulge3.jpg

The last three caps are bulging ever-so-slightly. At this point, I'm wondering if it's even worth sending away for repair. I've been looking at a DFI Infinity (ncix.com has it for $124 CAD). I could also try to replace the caps myself and give the board to my dad or something. I'll have to see.

Is it safe to run the board this way for long periods of time? I'd rather not have to start using my server as a main box if I can avoid it.

Web site problem, can't access. Thus down.
(The connection was refused when attempting to contact 24.150.152.18)

 

[squeakygeek]

This thread is over 9 months old.

 

[g0dM@n]

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=393103

Check that one out... I had the same issue.