And me thinking that the gold plated P-Pro IHS was a bit over the top :

The Millennium Edition part of the equation is a series of modifications to the AX6BC Pro II design that go above and beyond the call of duty - almost into the realm of the ridiculous. This includes the use of a 24 karat Platinum-plated heatsink ...

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

... should go with larger ratings for the caps that I'm replacing?

... and monster 2200uF for better heat dissipation and enhanced stability, respectively. Those capacitors are the same low ESR (equivalent series resistance) capacitors from the AX6BC Pro Gold and further enhance stability.

The AX6BC for some reason spawned all kinds of revisions over the years. The original AX6B and AX6Bplus were bigger PCBs with four memory slots and four PCI slots. They didn't last long on the market, mid-1999 seems to be the latest they were made receiving the last BIOS update in 2000. At the time I crossed off the AX6BC from consideration due to the limited number of ISA slots.

AOpen was also known for their feature rich BIOS. These boards have Suspend-To-Disk support in ROM, plus you can run them without a battery since you can save the CMOS settings to an onboard EEPROM.

Yea it's pretty nifty. It has jumperless design and auto-detects what CPU you have. You can OC in the BIOS.

Also comes with W98 software for monitoring the voltages and things like that.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

- Weird floppy port location behind the CPU

If floppy cable length allows, I'd plug the cable while mobo is still out of the case, then pass it from the left side and under the mobo, then attach mobo to case so that cable emerges from under the mobo from the right side.

Ok got my other two AOpen AX6BC boards.

They are a little bit older. They PS/2 connectors are not coloured and the sticker on the BIOS chip has a lower BIOS loaded.

Also slightly different colours on the PCB and there are differences with the caps:

All boards post fine and seem to be working 100%. I always remove these Slot 1 CPU brackets. They annoy me, or I hurt myself trying to remove a CPU, or I need so much force that I fear of the motherboard. So I just remove them.

Those three Taicons look like late intruders into the party ...

TELVM wrote:

Those three Taicons look like late intruders into the party ...

Both boards have them. It's odd but what can you do 😀

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

I just call it like I see it, and what I've seen is that most of the Samxon caps I've encountered have been bad. That covers multiple different series (GF being the most troublesome and most commonly encountered, but also GD, RS, LP, and KM, with the LP being primarily in audio equipment and the KM being in LCD TV/monitor power supplies) and over a fair range of date codes. Granted, I haven't seen all that many of them, but percentage-wise, it's enough of an issue for me to mistrust the brand.

Can you back that up?

Samxon GA/GD/GC (Out of production by the way), RS, and GT are all reported to be reliable series. I am still personally using equipment with GC and RS series, and so far I haven't experienced any problem (Though I haven't actually taken them out of circuit and measured their ESR). Yours is the first ever report of GD and RS failing, so until I see some proof, I'll treat it as purely anecdotal.

Then go ahead and treat it as anecdotal if you want. I never bothered to gather any proof, for one because that would've taken much better psychic forethought than I possess, and also it would've been more trouble than I care to go through just to make sure that some random unimportant person on an internet forum would believe me.

I simply presented my opinion based on my experiences. It's no skin off my ass whether you like that opinion or not.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

... What about using other types of caps like these silver ones on many graphics cards? Is there tolerance for the capacity (+/- a certain value) and what about the voltage ...

Have a look at this interesting article from fellow australian C_Hegge's Hardware Insights website: Poly-Modding: Does it actually work?

Be aware however that replacing lytics with polys in old mobos is a more adventurous and expensive exercise, and polys ain't fail proof:

I finally got around to replacing the 4 3300uF caps on that Gigabyte board.

Three got some nice Panasonic FR. The last one just an FK because the FR was too wide to fit 😀

Board installed W98SE fine. Now what I should I do? 😊

While you're at it you could heatsink those mosfets and see if case needs improving ventilation to allow your fresh lytics to live long and prosper.

Made a video about recapping that GB motherboard.

I had slight issues with de-soldering and mayor issues with soldering. So if anyone has some tips and comments please let me know 😀

Feel free to use this thread to post your re-capping projects, hopefully with lots of pictures!

Replacing the capacitors on a Gigabyte GA-6VTXE-A motherboard

I had written some part in an other topic (what retro hardware did you bought topic)

Some to improve your solder skills. Please read, maybe it will help you.

Did Mau1wurf1977 made an topic about that recapping that motherboard?? I have not had found one here..
But what i can say about his solder skills, i think he doing it wrong.. He doesnt use flux for to get better contact on the pads.. Also he choose maybe to wrong solder tip. ( i should take a smaller shishle, the pads are tiny. You need to look on the size what you are going to solder, and than choose the right tip that match the pad). Because if you need solder small pads, then you need a smaller solder tip, otherwise the heat transaction to the pad would be to limited, and never would heat much up as needed. (about the tips, i better can recommend shishle tips over point tips.. Shishle ones heat up more quick.

So before i should desolder, take the solder iron and some good quality solderwire with flux inside.. Best is to go for 0.6mm solder wire.. because you can add it more precisely. If it would to thick then it would add to much solder to the joint and the pad.. Its not needed to much solder on the pads. You need to solder like they do it in the factory, then its an more stronger connection.

Then you need a good solder station, and single iron is possible, but you cant adjust the temperature of the solder tip, because the temperature is fixed on an single iron..
Its very helpfull / handy when you use a good brand station that will heat up quick and senses the temperature on the solder tip.

If the tip is new, you need to use some stuff to countersink the tip first, otherwise the soldering just dont work.. You can also countersink the tip with just solder wire.. When the tip have solder on it you just need to clean it with the wet sponge, or use an copper wire cleaner.. Also look that you have adjust to the right temperature configured on the station.. You can test it with some solder wire what the best melt temperature is.
You dont need have to wait to long when the solder tip and temperature is right.. If you have the wrong tip, but the right temperature it would still be hard to solder.. And it just take to much time to get some heat from the iron..

Then before you go to desolder, heat the pads what you want to desolder with the solder iron, and add some solder wire to it. ( this is because, back then the quality of the solderwire was different, and when the solder joint is older it also can give problems on heating the solder up. So to mixture the old and new solder together the melt temperature of the older solder will defently get lower, so its much easier to heat up the pad now.

When you have mixture the old and new solder then its the time to desolder it.. I think then you getting an better result, and mosty of the solder would much easier get sucked out of the holes..

When solder a new capicator in, i should recommend some flux on the pads, this give the solder more support so the solder will much easier flow on the pads.

He also said that he burned the board, i guess if was some flux or PCB protector that burned.. I think then you getting an better result, and mosty of the solder would much easier get sucked out of the holes..

When solder a new capicator in, i should recommend some flux on the pads, this give the solder more support so the solder will much easier flow on the pads.

He also said that he burned the board, i guess if was some flux or PCB protector that burned.. I think that it should easy been removed with isopropanol alcohol.. You always need to clean you solder stuff when finished on soldering. So take an swab or so and rub the board clean with isopropanol alcohol.

Whats actually the brand of the capacitors that last 10.000 hours, and where does pricey?

I have to check if I can replace the tip. I don't think I can, but it's a proper solder station with temperature control.

I have ordered thinner solder, I believe 1mm is too thick.

Now flux. I believe the solder has flux in it's core? Or are you talking about something extra?

The caps are Panasonic, mostly FR series, I believe they are top notch 😀 Not too expensive, but the larger ones cost a few dollars each. I got them from Element14. I think de-soldering is fine, I did a video card later and this worked much better. I noticed that I didn't clean the de-solder gun. It had a big lump of solder inside the metal spiral and I had to use the solder iron to get it out. After this de-soldering worked much better.

So I just need to practice the soldering and it will be fine.

The motherboard works great, it crashed before the mod during Windows installation. The caps had round tops...

Just had a closer look at those mainboards I got this week, and noticed that all aluminium caps on the Dell board (with OPL4) are huge 2200µ Panasonic HFQ, and the rest is all 100µ tantalum. Seems ridiculously overkill, considering it's just a simple LX board 😳

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

... So if anyone has some tips and comments please let me know 😀

You should be a bit gentler inserting fresh caps in the mobo 🤣 . Also a more pointy tip would allow you to reach the pads easier when soldering the fresh caps.

jw27 wrote:

Just had a closer look at those mainboards I got this week, and noticed that all aluminium caps on the Dell board (with OPL4) are huge 2200µ Panasonic HFQ, and the rest is all 100µ tantalum. Seems ridiculously overkill, considering it's just a simple LX board 😳

The larger the size of the 'can' , the lower the ESR in lytic caps. And the lower the ESR, the happier the VRMs. See here how ESR decreases as uF increase.

Capacitance ain't that important. See here how you can replace lytics with polys of less than half the capacitance (because polys have a much low ESR per se than lytics).

Now, i'm also affected by the topic "caps- disease". Since i have put my mainboard into the original box 5 years ago, i've never checked in detail the board status.

Yesterday, when i had a closer look at that board, the Epox EP-8K9A3+ (socket 462, VIA KT400), i saw a lot of caps with lifted upper metal plate. 😠
And then one of them where also already brocken and some of it's content can be seen at the top. 😢

Here i have marked them with a red circle, i'm thinking they are already bad and need to be replaced: 8 smaller caps, and 7 bigger caps where two of them are little better but it's detectable.

Here are several pictures with a closer point of view:

But the worst cap i've found was this little near the USB/Paralell/Serial ports:

I know that this board comes from an era, where a lot of crap caps have been built on the mainboards. But i was running this board many years, and i'm thinking for a replacement of all these caps.
I know, you can also try to buy a further socket 462 board without bad caps, even maybe the faster nforce2, but later it can happen also to this board.

Also this Highpoint HPT374 IDE-133 4x Raid controller is really rare onboard and special to me. So in my point of view, it's worth for a try.

Now I'm searching on video's and guides for a cap replacement on mainboards, and if someone has a good info or link, i would appreciate it.

I don't know if it was said, but I got a VERY useful advice by my old friend who messed with electronics long time before I was even born. He said: "Doesn't matter if other caps are looking good, if there are dead caps on the board, change them all, it will save you problems and it doesn't cost much."

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Now flux. I believe the solder has flux in it's core? Or are you talking about something extra?

I've also done lots of recap work on video-cards and motherboards, etc. and when I got to install new caps, I always end up putting tiny dabs of actual flux (I have a little tube of it) on the solder-pads so that the solder is guaranteed to bite. I also use a flux-core solder, and it never guarantees it's going to stick without adding flux to the pads.