Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

[Topcat]

Yet another Gigabyte motherboard with fried caps... This one was packed full of GSC's and those goofy-ass 330uF 25v Choyo's...







I replaced all those 330uF Choyo's with 1000uF 16v Sanyo/Nippons. I still don't understand why they use those 25v caps, none of their positions have more than 5 volts, most had 3.3 or less... It now runs perfectly.

[djdlc]

wow I have this same board........... although only 1 of the 330uf has poped but all four of the 3300uf 6.3v poped at the bottom leaking on the board they are all named choyo

hey topcat can you make up a kit for me on this board? by the way cool website and forums lots of info

[gregdeal]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

I recently started having problems where programs would hang, or the PC would freeze, requiring a power down. I tried swapping all my memory sticks but it still had problems. When I started looking a little closer, I saw these suspect caps. The 4 3300uf, 6.3V, 10mm GSC caps were all bulging and had brown crud on top. I'll be trying to acquire some replacements and will try to replace them myself.

[gregdeal]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

I got 4 Rubycon MBZ 3300uF, 6.3V, 10mm capacitors from AK0R, and finally got around to putting them in, after having even more programs freeze/reboot on me (that worked just recently, so I guess the caps were still degrading; it just died on a CD copy). I borrowed a conductive mat and wrist strap, then started with the motherboard removal, which came out easier than I had expected. I used a 40W Weller pencil iron and started with the cap removal, rocking them back and forth. The negative lead came out quickly, but the positive lead (for 2 of the caps) went to a larger metal land, maybe 1/2 sq. inch, and took a few seconds to heat up enough, but still came out without incident. Cleaning out the holes was more work, however. I tried heating up again, and used an old dental pick and a larger sewing pin to open them up. The actual hole was only the slightest bit larger than the cap leads. Soldering was also a little more difficult for the positive leads. A close up visual inspection looked OK, but I was worried about some solder I got up into the hole on the component side, It looked like it exceeded the metal trace on that side, and close to the white cap base picture on the board, but it looked like the half white circle was just paint/symbolization, so I called it done. Any other metal whiskers I may have left I hoped would just be short term fuses, and not affect the power supply or other components. Put the board back in, hit the power button, and things worked as usual. Whew! No sparks, lights dimming, or scary humming. It came up normally, so I tried running all the things that failed in the past. I used MS Windows Movie Maker to make an 800MB .wmv file, which would not work recently, and it ran cleanly to completion. I then used Power Producer 2 Gold to turn the .wmv file into files to make a DVD. This had died frequently with a PC freeze. Well, this ran cleanly to completion also. So, all indications would suggest these new caps fixed it. Some pictures are attached, with one showing the leads of the new cap sticking through. The negative lead goes through OK, but the positive lead needed more cleaning out. Thanks to this site/forum/posters for the information to do this.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

Congrats on the work gregdeal!

Man, that mainboard has the largest number of unpopulated capacitor spaces I have ever seen on a mainboard, Gigabyte sure has reduced cost on that one!

[AK0R]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

Congrats on the work gregdeal!

Man, that mainboard has the largest number of unpopulated capacitor spaces I have ever seen on a mainboard, Gigabyte sure has reduced cost on that one!

I only see five open spots. I recapped a co-worker's GA-SINXP1394 (see https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=800) that had fourteen. Based on size and location, guessing function, and using what I had on hand, I added thirteen; didn't have a large-value 16V for the 12V line going to the CPU VRM. Because this board has a separate daughterboard for the CPU VRM, which had all good caps, I wasn't too worried about it.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

AK0R, there are 9 missing caps in Topcat's overview picture of the mainboard...

But 14?! Man, that is just crazy, or very very over designed to begin with...

[AK0R]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

I only looked at Greg's second post, so I forgot to count the missing majors around the CPU (shame on me). All told, there's ten missing, although one is a small cap by the PCI socket, and probably isn't hurting anything.

As for my co-worker's motherboard, I don't believe it was overdesigned that much. He reported that it was often unstable under conditions of high CPU usage even when new, so I think they left off a few too many.

[Fatal0E]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

I have a 7VAX that I replaced the 4 3300 OST caps around the cpu, put it back in use. Then the 3 caps in a straight line by the 4vrms blew, replaced them. Ran for a long time just fine, then it got a bit unstable and I had a USB wifi adapter plugged into the usb ports that plugged into the header by the front panel pins. Wifi deal would disapear randomly and had to unplug it and plug it back in several times to get it to work. Took the board out eventually and the 4 1000uf Supacons around northbridge were bulging, 1 little 1000uf cap between the pci slots, 1 cap above the usb headers, 3 1000uf caps between the 20pin power connector and dimm slots.

It is now a mixture of Rubycon MBZ 3300uf and 1500uf, Rubycon YXG 1000uf, Sanyo WX 1000uf, Nichicon HMM 1000uf, and the little yellow caps with a K vent 560uf. Cluster f*ck but it works great again.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

Fatal0E; wow, that is a really sad story! Sure would have pissed myself off if I had to fix it so many times... Atleast on your next mobo I guess you will swap out all caps at once ;-)

AK0R; Guess I need better eyes

[Gigabyter]

GA-7VTXE+, going on seven years thanks to Badcaps

I am typing this on a nearly seven-year-old PC built on the Gigabyte GA-7VTXE+, which is the same as the GA-7VTXE except with the IDE interface upgraded from ATA100 to ATA133. It is, amazingly, still running about as well as it did when I built it back in February of 2002. However, if not for Badcaps.net, it would have died about two years ago. Hooray for Badcaps!

My story is probably similar to what others have shared here, but I think it's worth telling anyway. My PC had been a stable workhorse for the first 4 1/2 years of its life from early 2002 until late 2006, at which point it was afflicted by a few mysterious freezes and reboots. The event that clued me in to what was wrong -- the smoking cap, if you will -- was a hiss followed by a loud pop that came from inside my PC's case. Upon opening the case I found that a capacitor had blown its casing. I slipped the casing back on the bulging capacitor and tried to use my system again, but found that it wouldn't last more than a few minutes before it rebooted itself.

A bit of Googling led me to Badcaps.net, and after educating myself about the problem and noting that several other caps on my motherboard looked bloated, I ordered a kit of new caps from Badcaps.net for about $25. I then visited a local hardware store and bought a soldering kit, which set me back another $20, but I figured it might be a decent investment for future DIY projects.

I also considered the alternative of buying a used Socket-A motherboard to swap into my system. At that time such a board would have cost about $50, I believe, which was comparable to the cost of the replacement capacitors and the soldering equipment. But I realized that the replacement mainboard might have capacitor issues as well, so I decided that I had to confront the bad caps problem on my GA-7VTXE+ or else invest in a completely new PC, which was beyond my means at that time.

My replacement capacitors arrived a little more than one week later. I followed the Badcaps cap-replacing instructions step by step, using my kitchen range as a work surface (I chose it for its built-in overhead exhaust fan). It had been a few years since my last soldering experience, which was not nearly as involved as this job, so I worked cautiously and somewhat apprehensively, unsure whether my skills were up to par. The project took the better part of a weekend morning.

With the soldering complete, I felt some trepidation as I reinstalled the motherboard in the case, but to my relief, it booted on the first try. And I have not had a single hardware failure with this motherboard in the two-plus years since.

I plan to retire this PC in the coming months and build a new one from scratch, but I would be remiss if I did not express my gratitude for Badcaps, which has helped extend the lifetime of this motherboard by almost 50% -- and who knows how much longer it could go if given the chance? While long in the tooth, this PC still adequately handles light work such as web browsing. Maybe I'll keep it around as a backup.

Aside from the capacitor issues -- which I don't blame on Gigabyte, as the leaky caps problem seemed to infiltrate the entire motherboard industry in the early '00s -- my experience with the GA-7VTXE+ has been almost uniformly positive. Its stability is remarkable compared to previous systems I've had. I tentatively plan on going with Gigabyte for my next motherboard as well.

P.S. Regarding the comments in this thread about the large number of unpopulated spaces on the motherboard, I think they can be explained by the fact that the GA-7VTXE is a stripped-down version of the GA-7VTXH, which has some extra on-board features such as LAN, Creative audio, and overclocking options.

[gdement]

Re: GA-7VTXE+, going on seven years thanks to Badcaps

P.S. Regarding the comments in this thread about the large number of unpopulated spaces on the motherboard, I think they can be explained by the fact that the GA-7VTXE is a stripped-down version of the GA-7VTXH, which has some extra on-board features such as LAN, Creative audio, and overclocking options.

The caps around the CPU look like the same layout as the GA-7VAX. So it's probably the same design:

At least on the 7VAX, all 9 of those cap positions are in parallel on Vcore, but Gigabyte chose to just populate 4 of them with 3300uF. It was probably cheaper that way.
It can just as well be recapped with 9x 1500uF caps. I did one of them with 9x 2200uF, which worked well but that's an increase. Using more caps also means lower total ESR and less stress on each cap.

[Weedy]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

I hate to necro a thread twice (thrice?) but I have a problem with my GA-7VAX r1.1 . I pulled the 3300uF and 1500uF caps because they had failed and pulled all the 1000uF for good mesure but I have lost my notes on what size went where!! (f*** me I know) So if anyone could list where the caps go that would be much appreciated.

Also would it be recommend to swap the 4x3300uF for 9x1500uF (or something around 1500uF)? Lower total ESR makes me think I should.

[Scenic]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

dunno if that helps..

http://www.hw.by/images/7VAX/
http://www.hw.by/images/7VAX/board.jpg

[gdement]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

I hate to necro a thread twice (thrice?) but I have a problem with my GA-7VAX r1.1 . I pulled the 3300uF and 1500uF caps because they had failed and pulled all the 1000uF for good mesure but I have lost my notes on what size went where!! (f*** me I know) So if anyone could list where the caps go that would be much appreciated.

As it happens, I apparently did a diagram of this board. I found it on my hard drive, so I've attached it here (too big to post inline).

Also would it be recommend to swap the 4x3300uF for 9x1500uF (or something around 1500uF)? Lower total ESR makes me think I should.

That's what I would do. The board was laid out for 9 caps, so the switch to 4 big caps was probably just to save money.
Using more caps makes it easier to get lower ESR, and it should be better for reliability.

[BBDrick]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

I replaced the 4 - 3300uf caps with 9 - 1500uf, both 1200uf for the agp and 2 bulged 330uf caps. After soldering in the new caps, all of the ones for the VCore & AGP that I replaced measure about 30 ohms (no charge/discharge indication as they should) with my dvm. ESR meter shows low resistance on all as well and the drains of the 2SK3405 mosfets also measure 30 ohms to ground.
I have gone over the board with my lighted magnifier multiple times to verify my soldering and to find the source of the problem. I am beginning to suspect that the mosfets may be causing this ohm reading. I have checked the caps that were not replaced both with dvm and ESR meters - they read correctly.
Any help would be appreciated.

[jonl60]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

Nooby here, what a great forum/site. Today I had a look at an old PC I want to resurrect into a FreeNAS NAS.

The PC still works but I found several of the caps had bulging tops so decided to replace all the caps on the GA-7VTXE Rev 1.1 board.

Does anyone have a complete list of the required caps for this board and Topcat, are you able to make up a kit of parts for this board?

TIA, jonl60

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

Gigabyte is rather random meaning that if you have five GA-7VTXE Rev 1.1 then you might have five different assortments of caps.
Most of the time they aren't all bad brands or series'.
So,, you are better off evaluating the board in question so you only buy what you need for THAT one.
.

[jonl60]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

I took the plunge and dismantled my PC. I have examined the caps and find that all but 4 are Choyo and the remaining 4 are GSC and those are the ones with bulging tops.

I will replace all of them and take on board Topcat's advice about swapping to better values earlier in the thread.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps

OUCH!
Yes, all of those need to go.
.