HELP! MOBO CAP Exploded...advice needed.

[ChoppedBroccoli]

Hey guys,

My Gigabyte GA-7VRX rev 2.0 Motherboard just crapped out on me today. I was randomly getting BSODs on bootup lately, and finally this morning when I turned on my computer I heard something pop and my computer turned off. Sure enough, when I looked in my case I saw a capacitor (near my AGP slot) had popped and had started smoking.
I hear the Gigabyte mobos made in 2002 have been prone to poor Caps, although the GA-7VRX rev 2.0 was supposed to be more stable than rev 1.1 (so much for that!).

Anyway, being a CS major and having a major program due this Wednesday doesn't help in this situation. I bought my computer from ABS and I am going to ask them for an RMA and a new mobo, but this may take a while.


THE BIG THING IS:
I want to get a new mobo obviously, but my friend was telling me that if I don't get a new mobo with the same chipset (HDD chipset ?) as my current Gigabyte, then I would have to reinstall Windows to get my computer up and running again, since my current HDD was set up on my Gigabyte mobo...is this true? I really can't afford to reinstall windows at this point, I have way too many programs and settings set up on this HDD that it would take forever to get everything back in working order (and I have little time right now since Im in the middle of an intensive school quarter). What are my options...browsing the newegg site I found a refurb of my current mobo for sale for only $39 (but not in stock)? Would this do the trick? Chances are the caps on the refurb are still low quality, but if I can make it through spring break, or even better summer, (when I have more time) that would be good enough since I plan on getting a new computer then anyway .


Are there ANY other mobos that I could replace my current Gigabyte one with, that doesn't include reinstalling windows on my HDD?



Here are my system specs (or look at my system rig):

Windows XP Pro w/SP1

CPU: AMD Athlon 2000XP 1667MHz


Motherboard: Gigabyte GA7VRX rev2.0


Memory: 1024 MB of Kingston Value Ram PC2700 DDR 333


Video Card: Sapphire 9600XT ATI Radeon


Hard Drive: Western Digital SE WD800JB 80.0 GB @ 7200 RPMS


Additional Hard Drives: Western Digital WD2500JBRTL -WD250GB Internal


Monitor: Envision EN-9110 19" LCD


DVD Manufacturer & Model: Lite-on LTD163 OEM


CDR/CDRW Manufacturer & Model: Lite-on LTR40125 Retail


Storage Interface: IDE


Sound Card: Sound Blaster Audigy OEM


Speakers: Klipsch ProMedia 2.1


Internet Connection: SBC Pro Package xDSL @ 2400/350


Operating System: WinXP Pro


Other Components: Leadtek Winfast 2000XP Deluxe TV Tuner, Netgear FA311 Ethernet Card, Enermax Black Tower Case, Enermax 350W PS, Artic Cooling Copper Silent 2 TC (rev 2) HSF, Logitech Dual Optical Mouse, Logitech Elite Keyboard, Grado SR-80 headphones, Sony Clie SJ-20

Linksys WRT54G router - wired/wireless network

 

[ribbon13]

if the drive isn't SATA, i don't see why you couldn't get a differnt mobo, boot into safemode and install the chipset drivers for whatever board you get.

 

[ChoppedBroccoli]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
if the drive isn't SATA, i don't see why you couldn't get a differnt mobo, boot into safemode and install the chipset drivers for whatever board you get.

But even to boot into safe mode would require to be able to read from my hard drive right? Basically if I install a new mobo it must boot from somewhere, and my friend was telling me that if I don't use a mobo with the same chipset, then it won't be able boot from my hard drive at all.

 

[phisrow]

If you are feeling somewhat gutsy, it may be possible to replace the cap. Any chance you could get us some pictures of the board?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: ChoppedBroccoli
But even to boot into safe mode would require to be able to read from my hard drive right? Basically if I install a new mobo it must boot from somewhere, and my friend was telling me that if I don't use a mobo with the same chipset, then it won't be able boot from my hard drive at all.

Correct. NT-based OSes, will give a BSOD "INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE" error, if there isn't a currently-installed disk controller driver for the controller that the OS's boot HD is on. Booting in "Safe Mode" won't help with this, not like Win9x OSes that were still based on DOS, and could use the BIOS to access the HDs as a backup if the protected-load drivers couldn't load. In NT, it's protected-mode drivers or bust (well, BSOD).

That's one reason that I'm a fan of Promise PCI IDE controller cards - I can trivially swap mobos/systems out from under my installed OSes on my HD, and I just drop the HDs connected to the same controller into the new system, and it works, more or less.

If you're running XP, I think that you can do an overtop repair re-install, but you may lose some of your customization settings, and have to re-install some update patches. But you can "hit F6" when prompted to insert 3rd-party disk-controller drivers during the installation phase, and keep your installed apps, etc.

There's also a more complex way to "fix" the problem - if you have a spare HD or extra partition, once you get the new board, you can do a parallel OS install, and then mount the regitry hives of the original install, and manually merge in the registry entries for the updated disk-controller chipset drives (and copy over the binaries)... but that's a bit more involved.

 

[ChoppedBroccoli]

Thanks for all the help guys.

I think I may have found some good news. There is a guy at http://badcaps.net/fees/ that does capacitor replacement on motherboards for a relatively cheap $40 - $50. Considering a refurb of my current board was going for $39 (newegg just took it down from their site), I'd say thats a decent deal. He replaces any bad capacitors with high qualtiy ones from japan and then does a 72hr burn in to test everything. Also, turnaround time is within 6-8 days, which is pretty darn good.


Anyway if your interested here is where the bad capacitors are located on the board:
IMAGE

The entire board seems to use some decent G-Luxon capactiors, which I can only assume are made in Japan (maybe not tho). However, two capacitors are the infamous crappy GSC ones that are bulging. The one below the GSC one is a G-Luxon which popped. Looking at the board, only these 3 capacitors are bad. I am assuming the crappy GSC ones bulged and created some sort of ripple effect that made the G-Luxon pop. Also, this may also explain why my G4ti440 went kaput last summer, since the caps are in close proximity to the AGP slot.



SO ANYWAY...what do you think about the badcaps.net repair service...any experiences?

 

[ribbon13]

Hey Virt, care to elaborate on that? Seems interesting.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: ChoppedBroccoli

Originally posted by: ribbon13
if the drive isn't SATA, i don't see why you couldn't get a differnt mobo, boot into safemode and install the chipset drivers for whatever board you get.

But even to boot into safe mode would require to be able to read from my hard drive right? Basically if I install a new mobo it must boot from somewhere, and my friend was telling me that if I don't use a mobo with the same chipset, then it won't be able boot from my hard drive at all.

This is true, but if you get another board based on the same chipset, that would also work fine.

 

[ribbon13]

I solder PCBs all day long, heh.

What controller on the board is the hard drive connected to?
http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-7VRX%20(Rev%202.0).htm

I'm sure you could find a new board with the indentical controller.

 

[ChoppedBroccoli]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
I solder PCBs all day long, heh.

What controller on the board is the hard drive connected to?
http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-7VRX%20(Rev%202.0).htm

I'm sure you could find a new board with the indentical controller.

Im not sure...its goes into the IDE1 slot (the green one). Looking at the pdf manual http://america.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/FileList/Manual/manual_7vrxp_e_1101.pdf the closest controller to the IDE slots is the VT8233ACE. Here is some other details from the manual:
Chipset
VIA KT333 Memory/AGP/PCI Controller (PAC)

VIA VT8233A(CE) Integrated Peripheral Controller (PSIPC)
Memory
3 184-pin DDR sockets

Supports DDR DRAM PC1600/PC2100/PC2700<Note 1>

Supports up to 3.0GB DDR (Max)

Supports only 2.5V DDR DIMM
I/O Control
IT8705
Slots
1 AGP slot supports 4X/2X mode & AGP 2.0 Compliant

5 PCI slots supports 33MHz & PCI 2.2 compliant
On-Board IDE
2 IDE controllers provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM (IDE1, IDE2) with
PIO, Bus Master (Ultra DMA33/ATA66/ATA100/ATA133)
operation modes.

IDE3 and IDE4 Compatible with RAID,Ultra ATA133/100, EIDE

 

[ShadowBlade]

whats the problem with your current chipset

 

[ChoppedBroccoli]

Originally posted by: ShadowBlade
whats the problem with your current chipset

Nothing. I think the deal is that if I don't want to reinstall Windows, then I should try and have a mobo with the same chipset and IDE controller as my current one (did I get that right?)

 

[boomerang]

If you have the time, get the board repaired. It will simplify your life.

No concerns regarding a reinstall. This guy has been around for while and appears to do good work at a fair price.

Others of us would explore different possibilities, but for you, I feel the repair is best. :thumbsup:

 

[ChoppedBroccoli]

I was going to try the badcaps.net route, but ABS was relatively helpful.
I called ABS and I was able to get them to RMA the board AND cross ship it, so it will be here by the end of this week...hopefully. Once I return my board they'll refund the cost of the new board, so the replacement will be free. Considering that I have had a PS, HSF, Video Card, and now mobo fail (all under completely normal use)...I figure this is the least they could do.

They said the board will be replaced with the same model (unlikely since neither ABS nor newegg lists it in stock) or something guaranteed to be 'compatible' w/o requiring a reinstall of Windows. Hopefully the mobo will ACTUALLY be compatible and Windows we will be nice and let me run my current install with minimum boot problems.

Maybe what I'll do is as soon as my RMA replacement shows up online, I'll post it here and you guys can give me advice on 1) how good of a mobo it is and 2) thoughts as to the chipset being compatible with my current install

Thanks for all your help guys. I'll try what was suggested and let you know how it goes.

 

[asm0deus]

even if you have to do a windows reinstall it isn't that bad, it won't delete your installed programs or files. It will simply overwrite you're windows files and keep the rest of the system intact. This is using the repair install feature. I've done this on a number of computers when changing chipsets. It's not a big deal as long as you can get all the drivers just in case.

 

[boomerang]

asm0deus has got it exactly right.

See my post here for info on doing a Repair of your XP install. I just did another late last week with no problems whatsoever. This works so slick.

 

[ChoppedBroccoli]

Well my mobo arrived today and I found out my free replacement is this ASUS KT400 nForce2 mobo (A7N8X-E DELUXE).

From what I have read about it so far it seems to be a sweet mobo...so I'll give it a go (seems a bit overkill for my old Athlon 2000XP, but whatever...its free!).

Anybody want to chime in on this board?

 

[ChoppedBroccoli]

Originally posted by: boomerang
asm0deus has got it exactly right.

See my post here for info on doing a Repair of your XP install. I just did another late last week with no problems whatsoever. This works so slick.

Hey I read that and that sounds pretty cool, but I am confused about one specific thing:

- Reportedly, Windows 2000 and XP can be tricked into doing this stuff for you. The procedure is this: Shut down, install your new hardware, power on, and enter your system BIOS. Make sure your First Boot Device is set to CDROM. Insert the Windows 2000/XP setup CD and boot from this disk. (You may have to "press a key to boot from CD" as the prompt says.) Skip the initial prompt asking to repair your existing installation. Then proceed to the screen where you select a partition, and choose your existing Windows partition. Setup will detect your existing installation and ask you to repair. Say yes. When Windows Setup is complete, you should have a fully working installation with all your old user and application profiles. Everything should be intact, except your hardware and driver settings, leaving it fresh for your new motherboard.

Will I be able to see/select the partition to do a repair install? My new mobo should be able to pick it up without problems I guess...even if it is mapped do a different name (ie C vs D)?

Thanks again.

 

[boomerang]

Yes, you will be able to see and select.

That guide was written a few years back. There are some things you should know.

You will need the Product Key. During the repair process you will have to provide that key.

Also, you will need the drivers for any hardware which XP does not recognize. From a driver standpoint, the system will be stripped as if this was a clean install. Good opportunity to update any drivers from what you may have on install disks that came with your hardware.

You say you are running SP-1. You will be fine, except you will have to reinstall all the updates from SP-1 and any additional updates since. This may mean you'll be getting SP-2. If you've stayed away from it thus far, you should know how to resist it now.

If you are in fact at SP-2, you will need a slipstreamed disk or an XP disk at the SP-2 level to even do the repair. There are enough changes in SP-2 that repair will not work without a SP-2 disk.