This is a nice HX board, it will take some effort to get rid of that chocolate frosting though.

Part 2: 74HCT14N

Getting the board on the bench for inspection revealed not much at first. The most noticeable issue is the dirt that I think this image shows the best out of the ones I took.

Ignoring the smell, I checked the second most obvious issue, what looked like a leaky cap.
This is in fact not a leaky cap, it's a cap that had a blob of varnish dripped onto it. I bought the board expecting the caps to need replacing based on that cap and what turned out to be a "spot of clean" beside another that looked like liquid in the sellers photos. I do find the blob of varnish on the cap to be almost impressive. It didn't drip down the body of the cap, it just plopped on there and stayed there. You couldn't do it if you tried.

What was an issue that I wanted to get at before washing the board is this inverting schmit trigger. I looks like it had a blob of varnish dripped onto its pins. While I don't think the stuff is conductive, I wouldn't think it's good for the chip to have varnish on it's legs. I decided the easiest thing to do is to desolder the chip, clean it and put it back with a socket. With some struggle, I got the chip out without any damage that I noticed.
I put it in a jar of IPA I use to soak things while the board takes a bath. Hopefully that'll make it easier to clean.

While soldering I couldn't help but notice this cap awkwardly soldered to the back of the socket 7. Anyone know what it is?

I did also check the caps for any juice as well as making note of their values and specs. They all looked good and there was no shorts between voltage rails and ground.
That's all I can take of the smell, time for its wash.

The cap on the back of the socket is most likely a factory repair you see that kinda of stuff alot. That was one very accurately dropped blob of varnish on that cap. I dont think I'd be able to pull that off if I tried.

Part 3: Bath Time

In a last bit of preparation before bath time I took any socketed chips out of their sockets and tried to take off the soyo sticker but that just disintegrated. Oh well.

So it got a simple bath of Dish Soap and water. I scrubbed the sockets with a toothbrush and washed the main board with a paint brush.
Nothing very exciting but a nice bit of dirt came off of the board.

After a very very long rinse to make sure there was no dish soap hiding under any sockets or in the CPU socket.

Now with the dust out of the way we can see really the bits of varnish. One pin of the top isa card has varnish on them and there some varnish in the socket on the plastic. More than likely that can be cleaned off or chipped off.
The bottom ISA slot is a bit worse and I think trying to save it might be a waste of time.
On the up side, the board looks clean now and the smell of it is going away.
The nauseating smell of must has been replaced with the wonder solvent smell of IPA I sprayed the motherboard with to displace the water.

I do have some acetone that makes short work of the varnish, so hopefully the cleaning should be simple, though I am unsure of the bottom ISA slot.

Now I'm waiting for the board to dry, I'll have to get some socket 7 CPU to try booting the machine with and of course do something about the RTC battery.

I had a bit too much fun drilling out the battery contacts.

Props to your patience with the dallas.

I just order aftermarket replacments.

Ooo hx board.

Have you looked up your clock gen?

Can you get a pic of the whole socket from the rear?

If you don’t have a cpu yet, you can probably get a k6-3+ working in that. (Fastest cpu) if that’s the direction you wanna go order a k6-2+ 570 and Check out the 2+ to 3+ mod thread in my signature

But we can do some voltage checks before you order.

Though I suggest something more fun might be a tillamook or low voltage cyrix. Rise cpus are fun also.

Btw, this board should be able to make use of several features on my tweaker lineup.

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-28, 01:04:

Props to your patience with the dallas. […]
Show full quote

Props to your patience with the dallas.

I just order aftermarket replacments.

Ooo hx board.

Have you looked up your clock gen?

Can you get a pic of the whole socket from the rear?

The clock chip is a CY2260sc-3

Pin one for the socket is on the upper right hand side.

-Lime

Part 4: Good Varnish News.

I wasn't expecting this but I'm glad this worked out.
Like I said before I was leaving a chip soak in IPA to hopefully loosen the varnish on it. After washing the motherboard and spraying it with IPA to displace water, I went back to the the chip in the IPA.
I picked it up with tweezers and poked the blob of varnish with my finger nail, to my amazement the varnish had turned to jelly in the IPA.

Quickly grabbing the board and giving it another spray, I got to work remove blobs of varnish from the ISA slot and it all came off fairly simply. The only issue was two pins where the varnish encased the pins and didn't stick out enough to let me grab it without bending the pins around.
So in an unexpected piece of good news I got the isa slots cleaned out.

I did leave the blob of varnish on the cap and it did solidify when the IPA evaporated off of it.

There was also a scratch on the back of the board that was deep enough that I can see copper of two traces. They are not cut thankfully so I should just need to cover them up with something and job done.

So good news.

Quick question

Will this cpu cooler fit the socket 7?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-com-60x65mm … C47&sr=1-1&th=1

Nice job getting that board cleaned and fixed. For the exposed traces I usually use my wife's clear nail polish.

That cooler should fit your socket no problem.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2022-05-28, 02:20:

That cooler should fit your socket no problem.

I thought so at first but one of the images in the reviews told me otherwise. The reviewer said it would work with a socket 7 but they had the plastic cpu socket arm that sits flush like the later sockets but mine has a metal arm that sits a shade above the cpu and that might interfere.
EDIT: Since it doesn't look like there's a gap for the cpu arm like their startech's proper socket 7 coolers.
Ah well.

ah, actually I'm wrong.

I found a listing on ebay for the same cooler and it clearly shows a little cut out spot for the arm. Not much of a one but it just needs something.
I'll order it on amazon, seems to be the cheapest option.

Well, this is strangely exciting.

CalamityLime wrote on 2022-05-28, 02:18:

Quick question

Will this cpu cooler fit the socket 7?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-com-60x65mm … C47&sr=1-1&th=1

You know, with newer cpus you always try to find the biggest and beefiest cooler. The one you found looks like it is for a socket a which will also work on socket 7 but I prefer ones that only use one tab and low tension.

See socket 7 really doesn’t make much heat, like 30w tops?

Anyway, if you want a nice easy heatsink grab this one
https://www.ebay.com/itm/254093276215?epid=19 … sAAAOSw-ZZdI0Vo It’s so low hassle and way more than the cpus need.

If you want to do some overclocking grab this one
https://www.ebay.com/itm/173850646045?hash=it … CQAAOSw8d9U1YWa

It’s about as big as you can go and still clear most motherboards.

I grabbed these clips for the copper one

https://www.ebay.com/itm/390963781079

Bend them back a little to take some of the tension off.

Watch out for the width of some of the athalon and celeron/p3 ones.

Another good one, if you can find the three wire version of this one, it’s pretty good. You’ll want those clips for that one too.

Buy those clips, bend them for less tension. They are very handy

Stealth way to make fans quieter.

The large Athlon cooler would blow the air in the wrong direction.
It´s essential the heatsinks of the VRMs are IN the airflow since they dissipate about as much heat as the CPU.
With the Athlon cooler they would have virtually no cooling.

This is an issue as soon as you run a Pentium MMX or AMD K6 and even with a K6-III+ because although it consumes less power the voltage-drop at the regulator is higher.

CalamityLime wrote on 2022-05-28, 01:34:

The clock chip is a CY2260sc-3 […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-28, 01:04:

Props to your patience with the dallas. […]
Show full quote

Props to your patience with the dallas.

I just order aftermarket replacments.

Ooo hx board.

Have you looked up your clock gen?

Can you get a pic of the whole socket from the rear?

The clock chip is a CY2260sc-3

Pin one for the socket is on the upper right hand side.

-Lime

Some bad news…

https://www.datasheets360.com/pdf/-1221703239049012746

Your max fsb is 66 mhz.

But don’t worry, that’s enough for 400mhz k6-3+ thats enough to run sims 1 pretty well.

CalamityLime wrote on 2022-05-28, 01:34:

The clock chip is a CY2260sc-3 […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-28, 01:04:

Props to your patience with the dallas. […]
Show full quote

Props to your patience with the dallas.

I just order aftermarket replacments.

Ooo hx board.

Have you looked up your clock gen?

Can you get a pic of the whole socket from the rear?

The clock chip is a CY2260sc-3

Pin one for the socket is on the upper right hand side.

-Lime

That capacitor doesn’t seem to be doing any mod that I am aware of. Probably there to fix some kind of design defect.