When crunching 24/7...

Author	Message
Mahoujin Tsukai Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 21 Jul 07 Posts: 147 Credit: 2,204,402 RAC: 0	Message 647702 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 7:08:54 UTC This happened to someone's motherboard after a fortnight of continuous crunching. Ouch! from http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=519290 How reliable is the average motherboard capacitor today? ID: 647702 ·

Palomar Jack Send message Joined: 9 Nov 04 Posts: 44 Credit: 503,405 RAC: 0	Message 647739 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 9:15:06 UTC - in response to Message 647702. This happened to someone's motherboard after a fortnight of continuous crunching. Ouch! http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=519290 How reliable is the average motherboard capacitor today? That's a little advantage of getting a used non-DOA mobo, it's already been tested. But still no excuse. What fsck are they putting in these capacitors for guts? Regular old stuffings for non-high frequency units to save a few cents? I thought this capacitor debacle was cleared up years ago. Silly me, I guess not. ID: 647739 ·

Graeme Stretton Send message Joined: 2 Nov 01 Posts: 392 Credit: 349,012 RAC: 0	Message 647743 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 9:30:43 UTC - in response to Message 647702. This happened to someone's motherboard after a fortnight of continuous crunching. Ouch! from http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=519290 How reliable is the average motherboard capacitor today? Electrolytic caps are useless and prone to failure when subjected to high frequencies. There are much better options out there but, unfortunately, they cost more. :( Qunpu' lo'taHmo' jIH yItamQo' ID: 647743 ·

ML1 Volunteer moderator Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 25 Nov 01 Posts: 20372 Credit: 7,508,002 RAC: 20	Message 647749 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 10:08:14 UTC - in response to Message 647702. Last modified: 24 Sep 2007, 10:13:53 UTC How reliable is the average motherboard capacitor today? That sort of thing can happen to any capacitor that suffers too great a ripple current for the ESR for that capacitor. Unfortunately, capacitors with poor ESR are also those that are cheapest... I've seen where the design engineers have specified the appropriate capacitors for then some capacitor sales guy to successfully foist cheaper parts onto manufacturing that were supposedly the same spec... And for the things to then explode due to their operation with a higher ESR... At least that gives a clean failure. Worse is for the high ESR to just instead give a higher ripple voltage that then adds just a little bit too much noise that then causes occasional random 'glitches'... All good fun. In short, keep off the very cheapest of the motherboards. Or just replace the capacitors with the same capacitance but better (lower) ESR. I've got various PCs running 100% for many months and no blown capacitors. So far at least. Happy crunchin', Martin ESR = Effective Series Resistance (frequency dependant) See new freedom: Mageia Linux Take a look for yourself: Linux Format The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3) ID: 647749 ·

kittyman Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51469 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004	Message 647755 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 10:25:11 UTC - in response to Message 647749. How reliable is the average motherboard capacitor today? That sort of thing can happen to any capacitor that suffers too great a ripple current for the ESR for that capacitor. Unfortunately, capacitors with poor ESR are also those that are cheapest... I've seen where the design engineers have specified the appropriate capacitors for then some capacitor sales guy to successfully foist cheaper parts onto manufacturing that were supposedly the same spec... And for the things to then explode due to their operation with a higher ESR... At least that gives a clean failure. Worse is for the high ESR to just instead give a higher ripple voltage that then adds just a little bit too much noise that then causes occasional random 'glitches'... All good fun. In short, keep off the very cheapest of the motherboards. Or just replace the capacitors with the same capacitance but better (lower) ESR. I've got various PCs running 100% for many months and no blown capacitors. So far at least. Happy crunchin', Martin ESR = Effective Series Resistance (frequency dependant) I also think some of the premium mobos have gone to non-electrolytic types which do not normally suffer this kind of failure. "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster ID: 647755 ·

Astro Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 16 Apr 02 Posts: 8026 Credit: 600,015 RAC: 0	Message 647834 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 12:08:39 UTC - in response to Message 647702. This happened to someone's motherboard after a fortnight of continuous crunching. Ouch! from http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=519290 WOW. Crunching 24/7 made his processor disappear. Hmmm, Never seen that happen before. ID: 647834 ·

Fivestar Crashtest Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 10 Dec 99 Posts: 226 Credit: 5,377,978 RAC: 0	Message 647854 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 12:15:49 UTC - in response to Message 647834. [ WOW. Crunching 24/7 made his processor disappear. Hmmm, Never seen that happen before. I have. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSALep8QZ84 Warning: Adult language and fake French accents. ID: 647854 ·

OzzFan Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28	Message 647916 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 13:47:34 UTC - in response to Message 647834. This happened to someone's motherboard after a fortnight of continuous crunching. Ouch! WOW. Crunching 24/7 made his processor disappear. Hmmm, Never seen that happen before. Blew that sucker right off the socket, didn't it? LOL ID: 647916 ·

jason_gee Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 24 Nov 06 Posts: 7489 Credit: 91,093,184 RAC: 0	Message 647918 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 13:50:30 UTC LOL I like that! , my Duron died much less spectacularly, then I felt released, the thing had been cursed! "Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions. ID: 647918 ·

Carlos Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Jun 99 Posts: 29883 Credit: 57,275,487 RAC: 157	Message 647922 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 13:52:41 UTC - in response to Message 647916. This happened to someone's motherboard after a fortnight of continuous crunching. Ouch! WOW. Crunching 24/7 made his processor disappear. Hmmm, Never seen that happen before. Blew that sucker right off the socket, didn't it? LOL Nothing a little super glue couldn't fix. :) ID: 647922 ·

jason_gee Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 24 Nov 06 Posts: 7489 Credit: 91,093,184 RAC: 0	Message 647930 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 14:02:12 UTC - in response to Message 647922. This happened to someone's motherboard after a fortnight of continuous crunching. Ouch! WOW. Crunching 24/7 made his processor disappear. Hmmm, Never seen that happen before. Blew that sucker right off the socket, didn't it? LOL Nothing a little super glue couldn't fix. :) It's getting the magic smoke back in that'll be the hard part :D "Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions. ID: 647930 ·

Jakob Creutzfeld Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 13 Oct 00 Posts: 611 Credit: 2,025,000 RAC: 0	Message 647975 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 16:17:25 UTC - in response to Message 647834. This happened to someone's motherboard after a fortnight of continuous crunching. Ouch! WOW. Crunching 24/7 made his processor disappear. LOL! This may happen if there is "No work from project" (takes the next best to crunch on) ;-) ID: 647975 ·

Clyde C. Phillips, III Send message Joined: 2 Aug 00 Posts: 1851 Credit: 5,955,047 RAC: 0	Message 647997 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 17:08:22 UTC I guess that's one reason why I turn off my machines if I'm away from home more than 30 minutes. (I walk by the house one time during walks 20-to-30 minutes to check for curls of smoke). My neighbors houses are only three meters from mine. ID: 647997 ·

Kim Vater Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 27 May 99 Posts: 227 Credit: 22,743,307 RAC: 0	Message 648044 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 18:56:41 UTC Last modified: 24 Sep 2007, 18:59:14 UTC Hi, You can read more about bad capasitors on motherboards at: www.badcaps.net Very good info/guides here. Over the years I have shiftet badcaps on my Abit VP6 Dual P3 motherboard and on several old graphichcards (mostly early AGP cards) which are still going strong in some of my cruncher rigs. I have an Asus P2B-D (Dual) Slot1 which have been running S@H 24/7 since May 27th 1999 without any trouble at all (more than 8 years) ;-) Kiva Greetings from Norway Crunch3er & AK-V8 Inside ID: 648044 ·

ML1 Volunteer moderator Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 25 Nov 01 Posts: 20372 Credit: 7,508,002 RAC: 20	Message 648051 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 19:23:24 UTC - in response to Message 647854. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSALep8QZ84 Warning: Adult language and fake French accents. Don't show you-know-Who? ! ;-) Good fun! Cheers, Martin See new freedom: Mageia Linux Take a look for yourself: Linux Format The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3) ID: 648051 ·

archae86 Send message Joined: 31 Aug 99 Posts: 909 Credit: 1,582,816 RAC: 0	Message 648068 - Posted: 24 Sep 2007, 19:52:48 UTC - in response to Message 648044. You can read more about bad capasitors on motherboards at: www.badcaps.net <snip> I have an Asus P2B-D (Dual) Slot1 which have been running S@H 24/7 since May 27th 1999 without any trouble at all (more than 8 years) ;-) I agree that one can learn at badcaps.net. I ran an ASUS P5B-433E for a couple of years with a 2.4 GHz Northwood. Then about August 2004, I upgraded it to a Gallatin running 3.2 GHz. Clearly the on-board power conversion supplying the CPU worked far harder than in most boards of this model, not only because of the high CPU current, but, since I ran BOINC, it ran 24x7. Sometime after August 2004, multiple capacitors near the CPU developed strong case leakage. I did not trust my desoldering skills to do the replacement, so paid the badcaps.net proprietor to have all the suspect capacitors replaced. The system worked fully on return of the motherboard, though I lost my investment about four months later when a boot drive failure induced me to a full system replacement. As the badcaps forum folks keep pretty good track of which motherboards are prone to do this, and my model was not known to have a problem, I think it is a fair inference that 24x7 BOINCing coupled with an unusually high power consuming CPU contributed to this failure. ID: 648068 ·

Scarecrow Send message Joined: 15 Jul 00 Posts: 4520 Credit: 486,601 RAC: 0	Message 648809 - Posted: 26 Sep 2007, 2:56:13 UTC Back in the early 90's we had a bad lot of Honeywell VIP terminals come through with cap problems. The first few we put on the burnin rack sounded like popcorn poppers after an hour or so of the quick brown fox. Ah, fried electronics.... smells like victory! ID: 648809 ·

Natronomonas Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 13 Apr 02 Posts: 176 Credit: 3,367,602 RAC: 0	Message 649595 - Posted: 27 Sep 2007, 6:43:50 UTC - in response to Message 647743. There are much better options out there but, unfortunately, they cost more. :( The gigabyte DS series motherboards are relatively inexpensive, and come with solid-state caps. There's an S version of each that has regular caps though, but here in Australia they're about $120/150; a 20% or so premium, which most 24/7 and overclockers will pay straight away (me included). once you've had a motherboard "go bad" that way, you never want another : ) Crunching SETI@Home as a member of the Whirlpool BOINC Teams ID: 649595 ·

kittyman Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51469 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004	Message 649602 - Posted: 27 Sep 2007, 7:17:35 UTC If anybody really wants to go through the work to upgrade a specific mobo, you could upgrade to high temp caps (which usually also have a lower ESR). I sold electronic components for many years and if I remember correctly standard electrolytics were generally rated for 85c and the high temps were rated for 105c. The standard ones were color coded a blue or bluish purple, and the high temp ones were usually colored black. I doubt that it would be cost effective to get a cheapy mobo and then proceed to upgrade the caps, but if you are replacing some, you might want to try to get the high temp version to replace any that have or might fail. "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster ID: 649602 ·

kittyman Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51469 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004	Message 649603 - Posted: 27 Sep 2007, 7:18:44 UTC - in response to Message 648809. Back in the early 90's we had a bad lot of Honeywell VIP terminals come through with cap problems. The first few we put on the burnin rack sounded like popcorn poppers after an hour or so of the quick brown fox. Ah, fried electronics.... smells like victory! I know that smell!! Fortunately, the few mobo failures I have had went out with a wimper rather than a bang. "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster ID: 649603 ·

©2024 University of California

SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.