Dead Nforce2 capacitors blown - what are my options

Ugley_Matt

Ugley_Matt

Ugley_Matt

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8 Jul 2005
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Last night my motherboard died, opening up the case shows about 4 capacitors have blown so I am guessing its pretty much terminal.
I currently have a Atholon 1700XP@2000, 2x256 3200 DDR ram and a Radeon 9800 GFX card.
Do i try to get a second hand motherboard and carry on as normal.

or

Buy a new motherboard that will be backwards compatible (is that even an option?)

or

Sell the CPU and RAM and get a new motherboard, CPU (and probably cooler) and Ram

I'm guessing it would be wise to future proof a bit but have been out of the loop so got no idea what socket numbers we are currently on.
 
Probably best to try and source another NForce 2 board. Try and find a Abit NF7-S, or Epox 8RDA+. I dont think OCUK stock any Socket A boards anymore so you may have to look second hand. Other suppliers may do though.

A switch to an A64, Socket 939 will be quite expensive for you even if you went with the Asrock Dual SATA board (it has both AGP and pci-e, so you could use current vga card). You'd still need a new processor and probably a new power supply as well as the board. Your ram should be ok, although you may want to replace it with a 1Gb or 2Gb dual channel kit. If you went with a NForce 4 board you'd need to replace your graphics as well as it only accepts PCI-E cards. Probably better just replacing your board with another NForce 2 at the moment, saving a bit and then make the move when you are ready.
 
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It would also be wise to check your psu,the only time you tend to get that kind of damage is if either the psu has popped its clogs or youve had a spike in the mains.
 
I Am trying to source a spare board from work so i can do a bit of testing but have read quite a bit on Epox 8rda+ boards and seems somewhat common fault.
In the process of taking out a mortgage (completes on Friday) so the timing is not great and i am having to resist the temptation to sell the parts that work and upgrade the whole thing.
 
I am just upgrading to 64 bit from an abit nf7-s and 2500 barton and the prices these items are fetching at the moment on the unmentionable auction site are nuts. Average price for the mobo boxed with manual etc is 35 - 45 quid and about the same for the cpu ! Will get back almost what i paid for them 18 months ago.
 
You could always consider the cheapest route which is to fix your motherboard. Lots of motherboards have capacitors fail. My graphics card had 3 fail a while back but, half an hour with some new caps and a soldering iron fixed it for next to nothing. Interesting enough the mean time before failure for the caps on my graphics card was just 2000 hours!
 
ive got some caps from my nf2 msi k7n2 plat (good 1's) if you want them lol


i would maybe try for a 754 set up mate- can be had for well cheap these days :)
 
find out what caps they are, go to RS or Farnell, or that highstreet parts shop i cant mention and buy them for about £1. Solder the new ones in. youd have to be stupid not to be able to solder a capacitor.
 
Will have a look into the soldering option as that would be the cheapest option. I spotted a guide when i was searching out and about for info.

Will resist the temptation to spend money that should be going on the house repairs on my PC ;)
 
email epox, the dodgy caps are well know, they are normally very good about this problem, from what I gather will over various option even on out of warranty boards
 
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