ABIT KW7 CAPACITOR LIST

[clh333]

I have a self-built system from around 2004 using an ABIT KW7 board and an Athlon XP processor. I had not used the system for several years but recently fired it up and found the system unstable. Trying to reinstall WIN XP I found it would blue-screen at XP startup.

Research turned up a couple of facts: ABIT is out of business and their boards, along with others, suffered from faulty capacitors. Some vendors offer cap "kits" but I can't find one for the KW7 and can't find a listing of the board's components' specs. If anyone has a lead on either of these please reply.

I found one capacitor (16V 1200uF 105C) on the board with a cold solder joint. I suspect there may be other problems: I can see a few smaller caps that appear to have "tilted", indicating possible leakage. As a related question: Does anyone have a suggestion for a competent repair technician familiar with these boards?

Thanks in advance for your reply.
CLH333 (newbie)

 

[OptyTrooper]

Your best bet is to do it yourself and as to the specs they all you need to know is listed right on the side of the cap and a quick search will point you towards y number of vendors that sell them. I recommend using Rubycon brand replacements. If you really, really don't want to do it yourself I or a couple other folks here could do it for you if bad caps are indeed the only problem.

 

[Mandrake4565]

It takes patience to Re-Cap a board but it's not hard. I get my caps from DigiKey, they have great service.

 

[clh333]

Thanks for the responses.

I'm only concerned about professional repair because the board is now irreplaceable. The hardware has an FDC and the BIOS can speak to 5.25 floppies. I have a couple of TEAC drives and a raft of old floppies that I would like to investigate.

I guess I'll give it a shot.

Caps on the board are Rubycon; didn't know whether they were among the suspect caps mfd in earlier '00s. I can solder well enough to replace the caps, it's diagnosing them that challenges me. Digikey is a long-standing supplier.

CLH333

 

[Lvcoyote]

Found one on eBay that looks pretty good.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ABIT-Comput...390870535?pt=Motherboards&hash=item462c4bb807

 

[clh333]

Update on KW7 MOBO

I have a self-built system from around 2004 using an ABIT KW7 board and an Athlon XP processor. I had not used the system for several years but recently fired it up and found the system unstable. Trying to reinstall WIN XP I found it would blue-screen at XP startup.

Research turned up a couple of facts: ABIT is out of business and their boards, along with others, suffered from faulty capacitors. Some vendors offer cap "kits" but I can't find one for the KW7 and can't find a listing of the board's components' specs. If anyone has a lead on either of these please reply.

I found one capacitor (16V 1200uF 105C) on the board with a cold solder joint. I suspect there may be other problems: I can see a few smaller caps that appear to have "tilted", indicating possible leakage. As a related question: Does anyone have a suggestion for a competent repair technician familiar with these boards?

Thanks in advance for your reply.
CLH333 (newbie)

Thank you for all your suggestions. I obtained an inexpensive capacitor tester and found the 1200uF Rubycon cap to be right on the money and holding voltage. Yesterday I re-soldered it back into place and reinstalled everything else. The board POSTed and I completed the WINXP installation and several service packs and driver installs; in all about 4 hours of run time.

Whew! Thanks again for your help.
CLH333

 

[clh333]

Update and final post, I hope...

Repaired the board by re-soldering the faulty cap, which I determined was within spec. Re-installed board, which ran for a few hours or so and then crashed again. No blue screen, just lights-out.

Found a replacement board from local CraigList and populated that with my old processor, XP 3000. DOA. Got a 2500 XP on eBay with cooler; installed that . BIOS ran for ten seconds after POST, then shut down with two-tone siren. BIOS search says temperature or voltage problem. Reseated cooler, re-applied therm paste, no soap. Replaced power supply with higher-rated unit. Same results.

Bought another XP 3000 CPU from eBay and installed that using my old cooler. Board is now running without incident - so far - after about a week or ten days of intermittent use.

Thanks again to all who contributed.
Charles Hudson