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Heat is the enemy ~ Asrock n68-S3 UCC example

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First post, by giantclam

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The n68-S3 is not really an 'old' mobo, being released in 2010 ~ this board did 24/7/365 service as video surveillance recorder ; it was retired in 2017 after a couple of spurious lockups ~ I could see the issue back then, and thought "that is a great example of how much heat plays a part", bagged it up for future repair 'one day' ....only took me 6years to get around to it... =)

EENY33V.png

This is my fault for not noticing how truly underwhelming the original design is, with the CPU socket orientated such that hot air being blown out of the CPU heatsink, goes straight onto those 2 bulged capacitors, and the NF-7025-630A-A1 chipset heatsink....and the 1st DIMM on the other side ~ I really should've picked that up, and fitted a liquid cooling solution instead, my bad =( ..or else Asrock gets the blame...

The real bad cap top-right, I believe is on the phase directly feeding the MMU ... only DIMM slot 1 closest to CPU tested clean, with the other DIMM slot throwing inconsistent, never twice the same result errors. Replacing just that cap cured this issue ~ obviously I'm going to replace other caps but one can learn a bit about how the board is wired, by validating the cause/effect relationships ... rather than just replace all caps at the sight of a single bad one =)

Reply 1 of 3, by shevalier

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I'm sorry, but I don't agree.
nForce 7 is not nForce 2 - the king of chipsets for the K7 platform.
This is the cheapest legacy solution installed on the cheapest motherboard.
It’s a miracle that it lasted through the warranty period.

If you wanted something cheap but reliable, you would have to buy a more expensive nForce 7025 board, such as the GA-M68MT-D3P (rev.3.1)
1000
Or N68-GS4 FX R2.0(L2) if you prefer ASrok.
N68-GS4%20FX%20R2.0%28L2%29.png

Aopen MX3S, PIII-S Tualatin 1133, Radeon 9800Pro@XT BIOS, Audigy 4 SB0610
JetWay K8T8AS, Athlon DH-E6 3000+, Radeon HD2600Pro AGP, Audigy 2 Value SB0400
Gigabyte Ga-k8n51gmf, Turion64 ML-30@2.2GHz , Radeon X800GTO PL16, Diamond monster sound MX300

Reply 2 of 3, by PcBytes

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I would recommend switching to ATi. Far less headaches and more reliable than nVidia. nVidia boards have the bumpgate issue and such should not be used.
file.php?mode=view&id=173892
Gigabyte's GA-78LMT-S2P R4.0, based on the 760G.

Or, if 4x DDR slots are needed, 880GM-UD2H should suffice.

file.php?mode=view&id=173893
The 880GM-UD2H, rev 1.5.
(despite the 880GM-UD2H having a white socket, it does support FX chips like the 78LMT. It supports Zambezi core chips and unoficially Vishera as well.)

Regarding nVidia chipsets, this is why they must be avoided:

piernov wrote:
Chips affected are mostly from 2006-2008. MCP and GPUs are affected, both in laptops and desktops. Some articles list G86, G86A2 […]
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Chips affected are mostly from 2006-2008.
MCP and GPUs are affected, both in laptops and desktops.
Some articles list G86, G86A2, G84, C51, G72, G72M, G73, G72A3, MCP67 and NV42. But these aren't the only ones, some G9x and other MCPs were affected too.
That's some later GeForce 6000, almost all GeForce 7000, almost all GeForce 8000, some early GeForce 9000. Affected MCPs are MCP5x (northbridge only, not southbridge), MCP6x and early MCP7x.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 3 of 3, by shevalier

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PcBytes wrote on 2023-09-16, 09:10:

I would recommend switching to ATi.

We're talking about the past tense.
ATI chipsets were pretentious and fresh. And more expensive.
nForce 7025 from 2006, a single-chip budget solution for AM2 non plus platform. With a HT frequency of 1.6 GHz (ATI were already at 2 GHz).
It was just worth buying a little more expensive motherboard.

Aopen MX3S, PIII-S Tualatin 1133, Radeon 9800Pro@XT BIOS, Audigy 4 SB0610
JetWay K8T8AS, Athlon DH-E6 3000+, Radeon HD2600Pro AGP, Audigy 2 Value SB0400
Gigabyte Ga-k8n51gmf, Turion64 ML-30@2.2GHz , Radeon X800GTO PL16, Diamond monster sound MX300

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