Mondodimotori wrote on 2024-09-07, 17:56:

Maybe it's time to learn how to replace capacitors, don't ya think?

If you like to play with retro PC hardware, sooner or later it really does pay off to do it... unless you are filthy-rich and can afford to send every other piece of retro kit to someone else to recap for you.

Mondodimotori wrote on 2024-09-07, 17:56:

Should I worry about 4.66V under heavy load on the 5V rail or not?

Is that measured with a multimeter or with motherboard monitor?
If only measured with motherboard monitor, re-check it with a multimeter. Quite a few motherboards are terrible at reporting accurate PSU voltages (with the -5 and -12V rail often being the worst of the bunch.)
Now, if the 5V rail really is dropping that low, then I suspect you have one of those "new design" group-regulated PSUs that's really an old group-regulated design tweaked for heavy 12V power draw and not so much for heavy 5V power draw... thus I stand by my words that most new "no-name" PSUs that promise a lot of power on the 3.3V and 5V rails are really bogus ratings.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-09-07, 19:25:

This video is also bullshit, because there are no practical scenarios when the radiator could be removed while a PC is running.

No, it's not BS at all!
Yes, the heatsink on a socket 462 platform could fall right off if the plastic clips on the CPU socket break all of a sudden. While this is unlikely to happen (except during transport / shipping), it's not impossible either. Ever bumped or kicked your PC by accident? I know I have.
So it's not impossible. Improbable? - Yes.

Also, the video is more about showing what happens to a socket A CPU when it doesn't have a heatsink installed. It would have made no difference if it was removed prior to turning the motherboard On or while the benchmark is running. In both cases, the CPU will burn instantly. Socket A CPUs have no internal temperature diode, thus no internal thermal protection. Most "CPU temperature" monitors you see for socket A (and socket 370 CPUs) are via thermistor or thermal diode inside the CPU socket (and often not touching the CPU properly or at all), thus severely under-reporting the actual die temperatures... not to mention they are slow to react too. That's why most motherboards' CPU thermal protection NEVER worked and why so many socket A motherboard manuals explicitly warn against powering on the motherboard without a CPU cooler.

Now some mobo manufacturers did do a few clever tricks. One popular one was to halt the CPU VRM from starting if CPU fan tachometer signal (RPM sensing) is missing. (The result was often a Hi-Lo-Hi-Lo alarm-like warning sound on the PC speaker.)

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-09-07, 18:10:

high power draw video cards and overclocking do contribute.

Overclocking (the CPU) can indeed contribute.
But high-power video cards may actually help in some cases. It really depends on the PSU and the video card.
Case in point: if you have a 5V-based mobo (socket A, no 4-pin 12V CPU connector) and a video card that draws power for its GPU from the 12V rail (i.e. NOT a Radeon 9500/9700/9800), then a load on the video card will tend to pull more from the 12V rail and make it easier for group-regulated PSUs to balance the voltage between the 5V and 12V rail.

The motherboard design can also contribute too. Some designs power the NB from the 5V rail. Others from 3.3V Same goes for RAM. Depending on the exact design and Northbridge/Southbridge used, you can end up with an even heavier 5V or 3.3V load... or not at all. Number of RAM sticks also contributes to this a little bit.

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2024-08-21, 11:35:

IMO best way to learn soldering is just getting the gear for the job and practice. You can first use some scrap circuit boards and learn the basics there. Or then just jump straight in with some easy through hole job like I did back in the day.

+1

Soldering is one of those skills you get better at by just doing more of it.
Of course, it's still worthwhile watching a few (good) videos of how to do it so you can get some basic concepts / idea of how it's done. But past that, it's just sitting down and soldering.
Indeed get a few scrap boards and practice on them. My suggestion is to grab some cheap scrap ATX power supplies - just ask one of your local PC repair shops if they are willing to let you have one or two for free/cheap. Most PC shops don't fix these or use any parts from them (except maybe for fan and wires), so they'll often be happy to give them away.
The reason I recommend cheap crap ATX PSUs is because they typically use single-layer boards that are very easy to solder/desolder to/from. Once you learn how to solder/desolder on those, recapping an ATX PSU should be easy afterwards... and probably come in handy for that Enermax. 😉
Then, after you do a number of ATX PSUs (and some old LCD monitors too - they usually have the same single-layer boards for the PSU and often need a recap as well), you can try your hand on motherboards.
As CharlieFox said, just work your way up slowly on more and more challenging hardware.

That's about all the soldering advice I can give you.
Oh and also, skip the desoldering braid - that stuff's only good for aggravating begginers 😁 (and OK, also needed if you ever get into BGA repair... but more on that some other day.) Also skip the desoldering bulbs / solder suckers. Only method you really need to learn/master for recapping is rocking the cap back and forth while heating its leads one at a time. That and a stainless steel needle to clean the holes afterwards. All other methods are over-rated (and before saying that - YES, I've used expensive desoldering irons/guns before, and I can't say I work any faster with them than I do with the rocking method... so for hobby work, I just cannot recommend expensive desoldering irons/guns to anyone.)

I remember late summer 2002 when I upgraded from my KT7A to an Epox 8K3A+ and an XP1600 Palomino (it was one of the best overclocking price/performance chips at the time) and I managed to accidentally power it on with the heat sink removed. You could probably hear me down the street I yelled "F**@" so loudly. They had a kind of sickly sweet banana smell when they died that way.

momaka wrote:

Yes, the heatsink on a socket 462 platform could fall right off if the plastic clips on the CPU socket break all of a sudden. While this is unlikely to happen (except during transport / shipping), it's not impossible either. Ever bumped or kicked your PC by accident? I know I have.
So it's not impossible. Improbable? - Yes.

As I said, it's an impractical scenario, not an "impossible" one. But Socket A mounting also had 3 notches on both sides, so breaking scenario is highly unlikely, if even possible without other dead giveaways (like heavily damaged case).

Also, the video is more about showing what happens to a socket A CPU when it doesn't have a heatsink installed.

This video really is just cherrypicked Intel motherboards (all ASUS) vs dubious quality VIA motherboards on AMD platform (SoYo and OEM Fijitsu-Siemens board), since Athlon MP in that test has internal sensor.

momaka wrote on 2024-09-07, 22:54:

All other methods are over-rated (and before saying that - YES, I've used expensive desoldering irons/guns before, and I can't say I work any faster with them than I do with the rocking method... so for hobby work, I just cannot recommend expensive desoldering irons/guns to anyone.)

IMO desoldering gun is definitely worth it if you are doing lot's of work replacing soldered dip chips or something like ISA slot replacements etc. It really speeds up the process huge amount and you simply can't wiggle something with perhaps a dozen or more legs out in the same way. But just for replacing few caps it is not worth it and doesn't really bring any advantage, although I use desoldering gun with through hole caps and multilayered boards.

momaka wrote on 2024-09-07, 22:54:

If you like to play with retro PC hardware, sooner or later it really does pay off to do it... unless you are filthy-rich and can afford to send every other piece of retro kit to someone else to recap for you.

Yup, gonna go with the first one. I would much prefer to waste my disposable income in PC parts, not having them repaired from expensive repair shops.

momaka wrote on 2024-09-07, 22:54:

Is that measured with a multimeter or with motherboard monitor?
If only measured with motherboard monitor, re-check it with a multimeter. Quite a few motherboards are terrible at reporting accurate PSU voltages (with the -5 and -12V rail often being the worst of the bunch.)
Now, if the 5V rail really is dropping that low, then I suspect you have one of those "new design" group-regulated PSUs that's really an old group-regulated design tweaked for heavy 12V power draw and not so much for heavy 5V power draw... thus I stand by my words that most new "no-name" PSUs that promise a lot of power on the 3.3V and 5V rails are really bogus ratings.

Measured from the board. I ended up putting that PSU in the socket 370 build and there, under stress, it doens't drop below 4.9. So it's either the MOBO sensor that's not accurate (it reports 4.88 under stress with the Enermax) or it's the Athlon putting huge stress on that 5V rail. Now, I haven't experienced any instability even when looping 3dmark99 for almost an hour (with the mobo sensor, read by everest, reported 4.66 V minimum), and I can even try a stress test with Prime95, because I've read that a 5v rail dropping below 4.7 should bring instability, especially with an Athlon 1400.
But since I have the working Enermax, I think I'll solve it's whiny issues and go with that for the Athlon, and leave the new one for the Pentium III.

momaka wrote on 2024-09-07, 22:54:

Overclocking (the CPU) can indeed contribute. But high-power video cards may actually help in some cases. It really depends on t […]
Show full quote

Overclocking (the CPU) can indeed contribute.
But high-power video cards may actually help in some cases. It really depends on the PSU and the video card.
Case in point: if you have a 5V-based mobo (socket A, no 4-pin 12V CPU connector) and a video card that draws power for its GPU from the 12V rail (i.e. NOT a Radeon 9500/9700/9800), then a load on the video card will tend to pull more from the 12V rail and make it easier for group-regulated PSUs to balance the voltage between the 5V and 12V rail.

The motherboard design can also contribute too. Some designs power the NB from the 5V rail. Others from 3.3V Same goes for RAM. Depending on the exact design and Northbridge/Southbridge used, you can end up with an even heavier 5V or 3.3V load... or not at all. Number of RAM sticks also contributes to this a little bit.

Yup, I've read about this. I've paired the Athlon with a pretty low powered PCI GPU, so the 5V gets mostly sucked up by the CPU. Also I don't have case fans that would pull a couple of watts from the 12V, just the three main peripherals and CPU fan. And I've got only a single ram stick (gotta get a second one in the near future).

momaka wrote on 2024-09-07, 22:54:

+1 […]
Show full quote

+1

Soldering is one of those skills you get better at by just doing more of it.
Of course, it's still worthwhile watching a few (good) videos of how to do it so you can get some basic concepts / idea of how it's done. But past that, it's just sitting down and soldering.
Indeed get a few scrap boards and practice on them. My suggestion is to grab some cheap scrap ATX power supplies - just ask one of your local PC repair shops if they are willing to let you have one or two for free/cheap. Most PC shops don't fix these or use any parts from them (except maybe for fan and wires), so they'll often be happy to give them away.
The reason I recommend cheap crap ATX PSUs is because they typically use single-layer boards that are very easy to solder/desolder to/from. Once you learn how to solder/desolder on those, recapping an ATX PSU should be easy afterwards... and probably come in handy for that Enermax. 😉
Then, after you do a number of ATX PSUs (and some old LCD monitors too - they usually have the same single-layer boards for the PSU and often need a recap as well), you can try your hand on motherboards.
As CharlieFox said, just work your way up slowly on more and more challenging hardware.

That's about all the soldering advice I can give you.
Oh and also, skip the desoldering braid - that stuff's only good for aggravating begginers 😁 (and OK, also needed if you ever get into BGA repair... but more on that some other day.) Also skip the desoldering bulbs / solder suckers. Only method you really need to learn/master for recapping is rocking the cap back and forth while heating its leads one at a time. That and a stainless steel needle to clean the holes afterwards. All other methods are over-rated (and before saying that - YES, I've used expensive desoldering irons/guns before, and I can't say I work any faster with them than I do with the rocking method... so for hobby work, I just cannot recommend expensive desoldering irons/guns to anyone.)

Yup, gonna go with that and learn how to do it in my free time, because I don't even know if there are people in my city performing that kind of work for hire.

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2024-09-08, 08:45:

IMO desoldering gun is definitely worth it if you are doing lot's of work replacing soldered dip chips or something like ISA slot replacements etc. It really speeds up the process huge amount and you simply can't wiggle something with perhaps a dozen or more legs out in the same way. But just for replacing few caps it is not worth it and doesn't really bring any advantage, although I use desoldering gun with through hole caps and multilayered boards.

Yeah, I don't think I'll ever build something that has and requires an ISA slot, I'm more interested in that transition period between the end of the '90s and early 2000s, up to when Vista was launched.

I just remembered something I hadn't thought of in quite a few years - Hoot's voltage mod. This was something I found out about on Overclockers.com, and I tried it myself once, but my soldering skills (and equipment!) at the time weren't up to the task. I'm not recommending that you try this, I mostly bring it up for the sake of nostalgia.

https://www.overclockers.com/forums/threads/5 … 60/#post-398705

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-09-08, 17:41:

I just remembered something I hadn't thought of in quite a few years - Hoot's voltage mod. This was something I found out about on Overclockers.com, and I tried it myself once, but my soldering skills (and equipment!) at the time weren't up to the task. I'm not recommending that you try this, I mostly bring it up for the sake of nostalgia.

https://www.overclockers.com/forums/threads/5 … 60/#post-398705

Yeah... Maybe it's better if I first learn how to replace capacitors on a PCB and a PSU... There's always time for more advance modding!