Think I just threw out $75 worth of RAM for no reason...

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OhioGuy said:
I've got a system that has been running unstable lately. It was based on a
roughly 7 year old ECS K7VZA board, with Duron 1.3 CPU. I used the ultimate
Boot CD to run some tests.

Memory kept failing. I ran several other memory tests. That failed too.
I snapped the 512 MB PC133 stick in half and threw it away. I then ran the
same test on some other old 256 MB stick of PC100 I had laying around. That
failed 3 different stability tests, so I snapped it in half and threw that
away, too.

So, then I put a third PC100 256MB stick in there, and it failed, too. I
started thinking, WAIT A MINUTE... not too likely.

So, I ran tests on the CPU, on the motherboard. Motherboard failed a few
of the tests here and there, so I took it out to look it over.

Guess what? Half of the large capacitors were bulging, and two had
actually burst open. It was a wonder the thing even booted up properly as
often as it did.

Now I'm thinking I probably threw out two perfectly good sticks of RAM,
just because the tests were giving me errors when testing them. I wish I
had thought to look over the motherboard better first.

Does anybody make motherboards that use a different type of capacitor
other than the common electrolytic ones that tend to bulge and kill a board?
I've had this happen to 3 of my motherboards now, and I think those cheap
capacitors are the only thing that has actually gone bad. I'm sick of
losing perfectly good boards because of electrolytic capacitors going bad.
Click to expand...
Actually it's not the cheap capacitors but the cheap power supplies or
power supplies going bad. People come along and use a DVM and say
everythings cool it reads +5 volts or whatever. Put a scope on it and
you have 200mv of trash.
 
I've got a system that has been running unstable lately. It was based on a
roughly 7 year old ECS K7VZA board, with Duron 1.3 CPU. I used the ultimate
Boot CD to run some tests.

Memory kept failing. I ran several other memory tests. That failed too.
I snapped the 512 MB PC133 stick in half and threw it away. I then ran the
same test on some other old 256 MB stick of PC100 I had laying around. That
failed 3 different stability tests, so I snapped it in half and threw that
away, too.

So, then I put a third PC100 256MB stick in there, and it failed, too. I
started thinking, WAIT A MINUTE... not too likely.

So, I ran tests on the CPU, on the motherboard. Motherboard failed a few
of the tests here and there, so I took it out to look it over.

Guess what? Half of the large capacitors were bulging, and two had
actually burst open. It was a wonder the thing even booted up properly as
often as it did.

Now I'm thinking I probably threw out two perfectly good sticks of RAM,
just because the tests were giving me errors when testing them. I wish I
had thought to look over the motherboard better first.

Does anybody make motherboards that use a different type of capacitor
other than the common electrolytic ones that tend to bulge and kill a board?
I've had this happen to 3 of my motherboards now, and I think those cheap
capacitors are the only thing that has actually gone bad. I'm sick of
losing perfectly good boards because of electrolytic capacitors going bad.
 
OhioGuy said:
I've got a system that has been running unstable lately. It was based on a roughly 7
year old ECS K7VZA board, with Duron 1.3 CPU. I used the ultimate Boot CD to run some
tests.

Memory kept failing. I ran several other memory tests. That failed too. I snapped the
512 MB PC133 stick in half and threw it away. I then ran the same test on some other
old 256 MB stick of PC100 I had laying around. That failed 3 different stability tests,
so I snapped it in half and threw that away, too.

So, then I put a third PC100 256MB stick in there, and it failed, too. I started
thinking, WAIT A MINUTE... not too likely.

So, I ran tests on the CPU, on the motherboard. Motherboard failed a few of the tests
here and there, so I took it out to look it over.

Guess what? Half of the large capacitors were bulging, and two had actually burst
open. It was a wonder the thing even booted up properly as often as it did.

Now I'm thinking I probably threw out two perfectly good sticks of RAM, just because
the tests were giving me errors when testing them. I wish I had thought to look over
the motherboard better first.

Does anybody make motherboards that use a different type of capacitor other than the
common electrolytic ones that tend to bulge and kill a board? I've had this happen to 3
of my motherboards now, and I think those cheap capacitors are the only thing that has
actually gone bad. I'm sick of losing perfectly good boards because of electrolytic
capacitors going bad.
Click to expand...

Now there's a perfect example of what I have been saying for a Lonnnnngggggg time. You
cannot test anything that remains in the suspect machine. Your results are tainted, and
rightly so, you're using a machine that is ALREADY known to have a problem. Allot of
people get bad advice when it comes to running software based memory testers.
BAD CAPS ....Been seeing more now than when the issue began and the panic was in full
force,,, something ain't right.
 
Some of the certain green GSC type caps from Taiwan are dodgy, the
Japanese type's are ok and not affected here, apparently due to some
industrial espionage...! See-:

http://www.niccomp.com/taiwanlowesr.htm More interesting reading -:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,939887,00.asp
http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm

May not be the case with your mobo, thought it might be worth reading,
all from my post in 'News n Stuff' 'Bad Taiwan caps in mobos'.

Caps are used to decouple the supply lines reducing the HF ripple
caused by the clocking pulses and the switch mode power supply unit,
as the internal resistance rises the heat will build up and this is
the start of it's demise, because it just can't handle the ripple
current.... the reason why you should always use hi-temperature 105
deg. C low ESR types.

Davy
 
I've got a system that has been running unstable lately. It was based on a
roughly 7 year old ECS K7VZA board, with Duron 1.3 CPU. I used the ultimate
Boot CD to run some tests.

Memory kept failing. I ran several other memory tests. That failed too.
I snapped the 512 MB PC133 stick in half and threw it away. I then ran the
same test on some other old 256 MB stick of PC100 I had laying around. That
failed 3 different stability tests, so I snapped it in half and threw that
away, too.

So, then I put a third PC100 256MB stick in there, and it failed, too. I
started thinking, WAIT A MINUTE... not too likely.

So, I ran tests on the CPU, on the motherboard. Motherboard failed a few
of the tests here and there, so I took it out to look it over.

Guess what? Half of the large capacitors were bulging, and two had
actually burst open. It was a wonder the thing even booted up properly as
often as it did.

Now I'm thinking I probably threw out two perfectly good sticks of RAM,
just because the tests were giving me errors when testing them. I wish I
had thought to look over the motherboard better first.

Does anybody make motherboards that use a different type of capacitor
other than the common electrolytic ones that tend to bulge and kill a board?
I've had this happen to 3 of my motherboards now, and I think those cheap
capacitors are the only thing that has actually gone bad. I'm sick of
losing perfectly good boards because of electrolytic capacitors going bad.
Click to expand...
<http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/NewTech/2006_motherboard_newtech/article_02_all_solid.htm>
 
Now there's a perfect example of what I have been saying for a
Lonnnnngggggg time. You
cannot test anything that remains in the suspect machine.
Click to expand...

You can if you're looking for a positive result.
Your results are tainted, and
rightly so, you're using a machine that is ALREADY known to have a
problem.
Click to expand...

The result is perfectly good if the test is good, since it
suggests/proves the part you are testing is not the cause.
 
I've got a system that has been running unstable lately. It was based on a
roughly 7 year old ECS K7VZA board, with Duron 1.3 CPU. I used the ultimate
Boot CD to run some tests.

Memory kept failing. I ran several other memory tests. That failed too.
I snapped the 512 MB PC133 stick in half and threw it away. I then ran the
same test on some other old 256 MB stick of PC100 I had laying around. That
failed 3 different stability tests, so I snapped it in half and threw that
away, too.

So, then I put a third PC100 256MB stick in there, and it failed, too. I
started thinking, WAIT A MINUTE... not too likely.

So, I ran tests on the CPU, on the motherboard. Motherboard failed a few
of the tests here and there, so I took it out to look it over.

Guess what? Half of the large capacitors were bulging, and two had
actually burst open. It was a wonder the thing even booted up properly as
often as it did.

Now I'm thinking I probably threw out two perfectly good sticks of RAM,
just because the tests were giving me errors when testing them. I wish I
had thought to look over the motherboard better first.

Does anybody make motherboards that use a different type of capacitor
other than the common electrolytic ones that tend to bulge and kill a board?
I've had this happen to 3 of my motherboards now, and I think those cheap
capacitors are the only thing that has actually gone bad. I'm sick of
losing perfectly good boards because of electrolytic capacitors going bad.
Click to expand...



HA HA that's somthing i learned

SAVE EVERYHTING!!!

even if you think it is junk

NEVER Compleatly kill anything
 
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