MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

[Louiscar]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

Where in the UK are you?

Hi Sean,

I'm in Brighton.
Yes the expensive irons can fail just a easilty. They really do seem expensive for what they are. You can buy a good combintation microwave oven for those prices. :-)

The problem is I won't need it for anything else, my 25w has served me well for anything that I tend to need it for. So once done this will sit on the shelf gathering dust I expect.

I thought the Maplins on on offer was a reasonbable bet but why do they always supply a spike tip? On their site the product for spare tips leads no where. I might pop in tomorrow.

I'm just about to order the caps from badcaps shop but they aren't going to arrive in a hurry by the looks of it.

Edit:

Ordered the Nichicon as the sizes were compatible.

10 - 1000uF 6.3v 8mm HN Series
9 - 1500uF 10v 10mm HZ Series
7 - 2200uF 6.3v 10mm HZ Series

Just have to wait .. hopefully not too long

[Louiscar]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

Just thought I'd post these up. My first try.

I had a socket 7 board lying around. So I thought I'd see what the 25w iron would do.

It actually wasn't too bad but I may still nip down to Maplins and get that cheap 50w. This way I can compare the differences but I'm pleased with the result. The left hole on TC39 looks blocked but it's clear, just the background light is duller than the flash.

What I noticed is that hole with the square pad is larger in diameter in both cases. Is this normal?

[PCBONEZ]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

The square and the circle have the same minimum cross-section which is to hold enough solder.
IOW: The square is the same size as the circle diameter + corners added, so it's bigger overall.

So far as why one is square and the other round, I think that's just an alternate way to mark polarity used mostly to aid the assembler that sticks the cap leads through the holes. --- I've never actually checked if one shape is always ground on a given board though,, that's just a guess.

You need to raid your [mom, wife, GF]'s sewing box for good sized SS needle and find a way to hold it. [I use an exacto knife handle with a -metal- collet.]
- Great assist in clearing stubborn globs of solder from holes.
Gently push with needle on one side while heating the other side until needle slides through.
'Gently' is imperative - so you don't push out the via.
.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

SS needle = stainless steel needle so that the solder and the needle don't bond.

[Scenic]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

wait a second.. motherboard mounting hole inside the CPU socket..?! wtf!

for holding the needle, i use a luster terminal (i don't even know if that's the right name for it)
a 3 hole ceramic one is pretty much perfect. just put the end of the needle in the middle and screw it down

a plastic one would work too, but those aren't as sturdy (for obvious reasons..)..

[PCBONEZ]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

wait a second.. motherboard mounting hole inside the CPU socket..?! wtf!

That is rather unique.

[Louiscar]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

The square and the circle have the same minimum cross-section which is to hold enough solder.
IOW: The square is the same size as the circle diameter + corners added, so it's bigger overall.

So far as why one is square and the other round, I think that's just an alternate way to mark polarity used mostly to aid the assembler that sticks the cap leads through the holes. --- I've never actually checked if one shape is always ground on a given board though,, that's just a guess.

You need to raid your [mom, wife, GF]'s sewing box for good sized SS needle and find a way to hold it. [I use an exacto knife handle with a -metal- collet.]
- Great assist in clearing stubborn globs of solder from holes.
Gently push with needle on one side while heating the other side until needle slides through.
'Gently' is imperative - so you don't push out the via.
.

The square appears to mark positive on this motherboard.

re the needle. Funnily enough that's what I resorted to after posting. I went on to a third cap and this was not fun. I had a hell of a time clearing the hole. So I used the needle method and that managed eventually to clear it.

Problem is the amount of time I had to apply heat and the board had some marks after which I don't think scratched through the laquer but I'd worry about that on the caps where there is a concentration of tracks very close to the solder points.

BTW. I bought that 50w from Maplins with some spare tips. I used the screwdriver shaped one but frankly it was less effective than my 25w. Maybe I didn't do something right but it also smoked from the handle which they told me 'that's because it's new'. It continued to do that so I just returned it.

[Louiscar]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

wait a second.. motherboard mounting hole inside the CPU socket..?! wtf!

Yeah not unusual for these. This board was one that we used to sell when I worked in a computer shop around 2000. It's a socket 7 board, brand new still I just never got around to using it.

for holding the needle, i use a luster terminal (i don't even know if that's the right name for it)

I ended up holding with pliers. It needed quite some force to get it in. First try the needle although looked thin enough didn't want to go in and was hard to get back out. I found an even thinner one and that worked just.

I practiced soldering a cap back in which was fine on one of those in the pic but that third one was a pig and I gave up.

So I'm kind of worried about doing this. I'll keep practicing with this board for a bit but I'm now wondering if I should perhaps find a board on ebay.

I think I have to shut this down either way since it's now becoming unstable again which can only mean it's getting worse.

[Louiscar]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

That is rather unique.

There were a couple of those cheap socket 7 boards that did it, depended on where the cpu socket was placed. These are tiny boards (pretty much square) so they made use of space.

There are no degrees of uniqueness - btw. :-)

[PCBONEZ]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

There are no degrees of uniqueness - btw. :-)

Nope.
A screw in the CPU socket is flippin' weird.
You might have seen a lot of flippin' weird stuff so it seems normal to you but it's still flippin' weird globally.
.
Can you give make/model of the board and/or photos.
[PCBONEZ <- Mobo junkie]
.

[Louiscar]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

Nope.
A screw in the CPU socket is flippin' weird.
You might have seen a lot of flippin' weird stuff so it seems normal to you but it's still flippin' weird globally.
.
Can you give make/model of the board and/or photos.

.

Lol! Understood.

[PCBONEZ <- Mobo junkie]

Ok that explains it. :-)

Well it's a Gigabyte GA 5AA rev 2.2 with ALi chipset.

It's so small that if that screw hole wasn't there, there would only be one screw on the front side to hold it down which is by the ISA bus .. yep we are going back a while and this still has the old bus slots on it.

I'll post a photo at some point but I've shut the MSI down - I've bought an Asus board to replace it with and am just hoping that it's going to work - then I've got to fight windows if I want to boot up from my hdd without BSODs.

To cap it all my other system is up the creek only reporting half the ram so I'm not doing to well at the moment.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

Thanks. - Interesting little board.
http://www2010.gigabyte.com/Products...ProductID=1439
I like to keep small boards like that for RAM checkers because they take less shelf space but I already have that kind of RAM covered.

[seanc]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

If you get BSODs when booting Windows, I can give you a hand.

[Louiscar]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

Thanks. - Interesting little board.
http://www2010.gigabyte.com/Products...ProductID=1439
I like to keep small boards like that for RAM checkers because they take less shelf space but I already have that kind of RAM covered.

Yes that's the boy.

I hung on to mine as a backup just in case I still have a few K7 cpus but it never got used, so now it's got 3 caps missing.

Always liked the Gigabyte boards especially of that era.

[Louiscar]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

If you get BSODs when booting Windows, I can give you a hand.

Thanks Sean. The only way I know to do it is not to let the hdd boot and do a repair install of windows. If you know of a more graceful way to achieve the swap over it would be good.

Then phone activation which has become mandatory on my system since I changed a few mbs before getting the MSI in. They don't trust me. :-) Luckily I'm not running an OEM copy on that machine. I am worried though at some point they'll just refuse to activate it.

[Scenic]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

uninstalling all unneeded drivers (especially the chipset drivers) before swapping boards helps usually. it will probably be slow as hell afterwards (no drivers), but it usually doesn't BSOD on the new board, so you can just install the right drivers for that board and be done with it.

as for activation of windows.. on XP machines, i just use wpakill/antiwpa nowadays. fed up with calling MS all the time, as the web-activation seems to stop working if you do it more than X times in a certain time frame..

All my XP setups are genuine.. it's just that i fiddle around with hardware a lot so calling MS every couple days/weeks gets frustrating pretty quick :P

[seanc]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

If you're going from AMD/Intel you'll want to remove any AMD/Intel specific drivers.
Change the mass storage controllers to Standard Dual Channel IDE controllers and you're all set.

If of course you can't boot your OS there are ways around it. What is your OS?

[Louiscar]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

uninstalling all unneeded drivers (especially the chipset drivers) before swapping boards helps usually. it will probably be slow as hell afterwards (no drivers), but it usually doesn't BSOD on the new board, so you can just install the right drivers for that board and be done with it.

I've found that to fail in the past but I can give it a try.

as for activation of windows.. on XP machines, i just use wpakill/antiwpa

As it is I have never agreed to the wpa terms so I'm denied certain updates. Does that kill the activation completely then? I figured I'd ring them anyway, after a bunch of motherboard changes they said any new changes will involve a phone call. This is a development copy so it's good for any amount of changes. I had two motherboards fail before putting the MSI in and it all happened in a short period. If they refuse activation I'll try the above, thanks for the link.

If you're going from AMD/Intel you'll want to remove any AMD/Intel specific drivers.

Change the mass storage controllers to Standard Dual Channel IDE controllers and you're all set.

If of course you can't boot your OS there are ways around it. What is your OS?

I'm using winxp pro on this machine and to keep processor the same I've gone for a similar nforce2 board by Asus.

whether I can get rid of the drivers (I'm assuming booting in safe mode) will depend on getting in. On the MSI I could no longer get into safe mode for some reason, it hung at the end of the driver chain.

[seanc]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

Even if you can't boot the machine, we can add your device IDs into the registry and drivers into the XP install so that it will boot.
The fact that you're keeping the same processor should ensure that we don't run into any HAL issues.

[Louiscar]

Re: MSI K2N2 Delta 2 LSR

Even if you can't boot the machine, we can add your device IDs into the registry and drivers into the XP install so that it will boot.
The fact that you're keeping the same processor should ensure that we don't run into any HAL issues.

Ok so just the storage drivers should do it. I presume that I can do that by uninstalling in device manager in safe mode and Standard Dual Channel IDE will be installed automatically on next full boot?