shamino wrote:Sometimes I just melt the solder and work the new cap through without actually clearing the hole. It helps to add solder so you […]
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Evert wrote:Before I continue on my journey to nowhere, can anyone offer any advice on how to clear the remaining solder in the through holes? I only have solder wick (which was a disaster since I almost burnt through the trace) and a manual solder sucker. I'm going to leave it to try for the next 2-4 days and hopefully it will post when I install the new capacitors.
Sometimes I just melt the solder and work the new cap through without actually clearing the hole. It helps to add solder so you get better thermal contact.
Another method is to melt the solder and push a stainless steel pin into it. Solder won't stick to that, so after it cools you can twist it and remove, leaving a hole.
I've used a "safety pin", which I don't actually know what it's made out of, but solder doesn't seem to stick to it so it works. It's a tight fit though which makes it a little difficult sometimes.
Thanks for the advice! I'll give it a go.
I played around with the EP-3VBM+ board a little and it doesn't want to POST. The capacitors all look good on it, but they Tayeh and GSC so they're probably not. The CPU fan spins but nothing happens and there is no POST screen. When you plug an internal speaker into the PC_SPK header the same thing happens, but the CPU fan doesn't spin and there's no noise. I am aware that this could be a sign of bad capacitors or maybe there's something wrong with the BIOS chip. What else could cause this? I've tried res-eating the RAM, plugging in all the basics, I used various AGP and PCI display cards and it just won't POST.
Edit: Some more information
I hooked my multimeter up to the ATX IO connectors and sure enough there is power being supplied to the LEDs, the IDE connectors etc. Interesting enough, when you short the two leads of the multimeter on the pc_speaker connection the CPU fan stops spinning, just like it does when you attach the PC speaker.
Here are some photos of the EP-3VBM+ Ver 1.2 board:
Visually the Tayeh capacitors look okay, but it is showing symptoms of bad caps since it won't POST. The MOSFETs and other chips also look okay. I can't see any signs of burning or discoloration. To help anyone who has to deal with the motherboard, I've attached the latest BIOS I could find.