luckybob wrote on 2020-02-17, 20:08:

mosfets don't pop like that without reason (generally speaking) […]
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mosfets don't pop like that without reason (generally speaking)

I see two likely scenarios:
#1: Shorted caps. you should replace all the large electrolytic caps (and the bad part), should be right as rain after that.
#2: You plugged something into the agp port that overloaded that mosfet

The only thing I plugged into that AGP port was a Radeon 9600 AGP card that was previously working in another machine. Caps are cheap so I might as well try a recap.

luckybob wrote on 2020-02-17, 20:08:

#2: You plugged something into the agp port that overloaded that mosfet

seeing as it's that close to the AGP slot I'd assume that as the culprit, with the whole "plugging in a wrong card will damage your motherboard" thing ^^

it might have not fried anything else, but probably won't be able to replace that without a hot-air rework station.

Horun wrote on 2020-02-17, 02:06:

Both socket A and socket 370 cpu's had no thermal limiting and no LID. If heat sink was not attached properly would very quickly fry the cpu, sometimes in a matter of seconds.

Socket A would burn itself up like flash paper, but socket 370 CPUs had a thermal diode that gave the motherboard a punchers chance at shutting things down, if was designed correctly.

https://nanopdf.com/download/intel-pentium-ii … esign-guide_pdf

douglar wrote on 2020-02-20, 03:15:

Horun wrote on 2020-02-17, 02:06:

Both socket A and socket 370 cpu's had no thermal limiting and no LID. If heat sink was not attached properly would very quickly fry the cpu, sometimes in a matter of seconds.

Socket A would burn itself up like flash paper, but socket 370 CPUs had a thermal diode that gave the motherboard a punchers chance at shutting things down, if was designed correctly.

https://nanopdf.com/download/intel-pentium-ii … esign-guide_pdf

That document from Intel is from 2001. They released socket 370 cpu back in 1998 and Socket 370 was replaced by Intel with Socket 423 in 2000. The early 370's had no thermal protection but guess Intel does not want people like us to know that (they removed all docs related to early 370 errata). yeah I burned a s370-700Mhz back in the day and a buddy ruined a 1Ghz for same reason.

The AMD Palomino core introduced on chip thermal diodes. Board and firmware support was dicey, but when implemented properly the sensors were able to cut power and save the CPU.

I remember this guy who ran out and bought a 1400mhz thunderbird core (pre-palimino) back in the day when they were new. When he was building his system, he turned on the power before putting on the heat sink just to see if he had the parts together correctly. It didn't boot. He touched the CPU with his thumb to check if it was warm. I didn't find out about this until later that day, but I could make out the mirror image of the text "AMD Athlon" burned into a rectangle on his thumb. Reminded me of the guy from raiders of the lost ark.

I've had a number of Socket A board with burned out SOT-23 package transistors or power switching components that were preventing them from even powering on.
Some fiddly soldering to replace the part and a re-capping fixed a few of them.

Others, the problems can be harder to find. Damage to chips isn't always visually apparent. If you have a FLIR camera, you can sometimes spot shorted components by how hot they get when powered on. If you have a logic probe and a data sheet, you can also test ICs for functionality.

That said, virtually anything is possible to repair, it just depends on how much effort you want to put into it. I'm not going to measure and re-solder corroded RAM bus lines, but maybe you want to? Who am I to say no.

DNSDies wrote on 2020-02-25, 19:54:

I've had a number of Socket A board with burned out SOT-23 package transistors or power switching components that were preventin […]
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I've had a number of Socket A board with burned out SOT-23 package transistors or power switching components that were preventing them from even powering on.
Some fiddly soldering to replace the part and a re-capping fixed a few of them.

Others, the problems can be harder to find. Damage to chips isn't always visually apparent. If you have a FLIR camera, you can sometimes spot shorted components by how hot they get when powered on. If you have a logic probe and a data sheet, you can also test ICs for functionality.

That said, virtually anything is possible to repair, it just depends on how much effort you want to put into it. I'm not going to measure and re-solder corroded RAM bus lines, but maybe you want to? Who am I to say no.

I'm only taking a chance on this board because it's about as high end as Socket A gets, and thus trying to replace it would cost more than trying to fix it. Similar boards sell for $80 and up and I paid $47 shipped for this one.

EvieSigma wrote on 2020-02-26, 03:31:

I'm only taking a chance on this board because it's about as high end as Socket A gets, and thus trying to replace it would cost more than trying to fix it. Similar boards sell for $80 and up and I paid $47 shipped for this one.

GA-7VT600 is surely good, yet I would not call it "as high end as Socket A gets". After all, it's pretty standard aside from SATA. It sucks that it died, but I would not keep it or try too hard to repair it if I had one dead on my hands.

RacoonRider wrote on 2020-02-26, 07:06:

EvieSigma wrote on 2020-02-26, 03:31:

I'm only taking a chance on this board because it's about as high end as Socket A gets, and thus trying to replace it would cost more than trying to fix it. Similar boards sell for $80 and up and I paid $47 shipped for this one.

GA-7VT600 is surely good, yet I would not call it "as high end as Socket A gets". After all, it's pretty standard aside from SATA. It sucks that it died, but I would not keep it or try too hard to repair it if I had one dead on my hands.

Sorry, when I say that, I mean that any Socket A board I've found with similar feature set costs double what I paid. Even another of the same board I found listed for something like 90 dollars...

EvieSigma wrote on 2020-02-26, 22:22:

Sorry, when I say that, I mean that any Socket A board I've found with similar feature set costs double what I paid. Even another of the same board I found listed for something like 90 dollars...

No need to be sorry!

Aren't the ebay prices outrageous?.. I'm from Russia and here you can source similar boards for $4... https://www.avito.ru/perm/tovary_dlya_kompyut … location=642320

Perhaps it's time to browse through local ads? Craigslist?

RacoonRider wrote on 2020-02-27, 04:03:

No need to be sorry! […]
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EvieSigma wrote on 2020-02-26, 22:22:

Sorry, when I say that, I mean that any Socket A board I've found with similar feature set costs double what I paid. Even another of the same board I found listed for something like 90 dollars...

No need to be sorry!

Aren't the ebay prices outrageous?.. I'm from Russia and here you can source similar boards for $4... https://www.avito.ru/perm/tovary_dlya_kompyut … location=642320

Perhaps it's time to browse through local ads? Craigslist?

Nah, Craigslist is barren of stuff like this. Any old PCs I'm likely to come up with are almost always Core 2s or P4s, typically OEM stuff. I wouldn't be trying to fix a board with a blown mosfet if I had alternatives.

RacoonRider wrote on 2020-02-27, 04:03:

No need to be sorry! […]
Show full quote

EvieSigma wrote on 2020-02-26, 22:22:

Sorry, when I say that, I mean that any Socket A board I've found with similar feature set costs double what I paid. Even another of the same board I found listed for something like 90 dollars...

No need to be sorry!

Aren't the ebay prices outrageous?.. I'm from Russia and here you can source similar boards for $4... https://www.avito.ru/perm/tovary_dlya_kompyut … location=642320

Perhaps it's time to browse through local ads? Craigslist?

Umm... what do those guys think of international shipping?

gdjacobs wrote on 2020-02-27, 18:39:

Umm... what do those guys think of international shipping?

I think it is not impossible that they would ship internationally, however:
- there is no buyer protection;
- the items can be DOA;
- international shipping costs quite a lot;
- there is a general misconception in Russia that foreigners are very rich, so the seller becomes greedy the moment he hears of international shipping.

So overall this would not be a good idea. It is risky and probably would not be that much cheaper.