VOGONS


First post, by lowlytech

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I have a chaintech 5vgm m101 mainboard that has a strange issue. Every 10 boots or so I get no post. Press reset and it usually will go ahead and start up. Well it has gotten worse. Now it doesn't work more than it does, and it starts doing weird things where the directory listings will be strange symbols and smile faces, reboot and the files are fine again for a short while then have lockups and other issues. I have swapped power supplies, disconnected all drives, changed CPU's, memory, hard drive, changed memory settings, turned external cache off, wiped cmos settings, flashed the bios to new version and the ghost still remains. All caps look great, but nontheless since the behavior mimic's that of bad caps, I did a recap, and tested the old caps, they were all in spec. About to give up I just happen to see a SMT area where it looks like something was broke off. It doesn't look like the other areas with solder are that never had anything mounted there, you can still see an indention like something was there. Only problem is I don't know what a BC is. Only thing I can think of is bi-polar capacitor? The other BC's on the board look like capacitors. I don't know the history on this board as it was an ebay purchase, but does anyone know what I should put there in BC12?

Thanks a bunch..

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Reply 1 of 6, by Brickpad

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BC could mean "bridge circuit" by the looks of it, but I can't find anything that lists that abbreviation in a circuit diagram. That trace appears to lead to the keyboard controller. My guess is that "BC12" uses the same capacitor as "BC13", and part of the Resistor network (RN)?

[EDIT]

Also, D3 and D4 are supposed to be diodes, but it looks like just straight jumpers, which doesn't seem right.

Reply 2 of 6, by lowlytech

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I have had no issues whatsoever with keyboard not found or anything of that nature. I did re flow some solder joints on the AT power supply pins and so far the system has posted about 20 times in a row. Not sure if BC12 is needed, but I can tell from the pads that something looks to have been there at one time.

Reply 3 of 6, by lowlytech

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Got the multimeter out and I do get 5 volts on the Right pad of BC12, nothing on the left side. Continuity tests on the left show that the other side of the pad goes to about 3 different pins on the Amikey chip.

Reply 5 of 6, by lowlytech

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The pad on the left of BC12 does go directly to ground as the meter beeps when I put the other probe to the AT connector ground pin 6. I tested the other two BC parts in that area and the meter shows 4.71mF. I know nothing about capacitors this small, does that sound like an exceptable value to connect to BC12? I did a few google searches and I can find a picture of this board, and there is indeed something in the BC12 spot, however it seems to work fine other than the occasional POST glitch.

Reply 6 of 6, by Jepael

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You can't measure the caps that are still on the motherboard, you are measuring all caps summed together, and every chip that loads the supplies will affect the measurement as well.