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MSI PM8M3-V recap

Discussion in 'Modding' started by trodas, Sep 3, 2013.

  1. trodas

    trodas Member

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    MSI show on it's website this image, of a MSI PM8M3-V mainboard:

    [​IMG]

    As you can see, the Vcore output is populate with 7 Oscon polymer caps. In reality, however, you get this:

    [​IMG]

    A strip down version, from 7 caps to 3 (!)... and that is for the power hungry P4 CPU's! Yes, there are also the two top caps, but they are not polymers and even the another top two up are Vcore connected (3300uF 6.3V)...
    But the main rip off is the caps type used. They are OST 680uF 4V caps, so not a good caps by any way :( In short, they show you seven polymers, but deliver there OST crap caps. Is not that irony?

    To make this post more usefull, the caps list for MSI PM8M3-V goes as follows:
    5x 680uF 4V d8 OST RLA (+4 leftovers)
    2x 3300uF 6.3V d10 OST RLX
    3x 1000uF 16V d8 Panasonic FL (+1 leftover)
    12x 1000uF 6.3V d8 OST (+4 leftovers)
    2x 470uF 10V d8 G-Luxon
    1x 10uF 16V d4 SMD

    Mine MSI PM8M3-V is PCB v. 1.0. Only there Ost caps on side, FOUR missing! That is stealing by MSI marketing!

    [​IMG]

    AGP powering is rather underpowered, not to mention NIKOS mosfets bad rep:

    [​IMG]

    Ram's run on Ost caps too, completely:

    [​IMG]

    Vcore is supported with big 3300uF Ost caps (and two small Ost caps nearer the socket LGA 775 on top):

    [​IMG]

    Near NIC (Realtek RTL8100C) is G-Luxons (!) ... a terrible known bad caps. Unacceptable!

    [​IMG]

    The Vcore input have space for 4 caps, just there are used and they are Panasonic FL caps, witch cannot be bought on Digikey and I did not suppose they are even original Panasonic caps... What is worser is, that they are d8 only, while 16V caps are hard to source even with d10, not to mention d8...

    [​IMG]
     
  2. OP
    OP
    trodas

    trodas Member

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    So this obviously cannot stays like that, because the mobo is starting to shown first unstability issues and crash on load, so, there had to be recap. I also wanted badly to give the mobo back the nice polymers, the MSI marketing striped it off... In short, I wanted to trumph out the advert :) Because even better that Sanyo Oscon polymers exist - and that are Nichicon LE polymers. So I made my list of ideas, how the recap shuld look like:

    9x Nichicon LE 820uF 2.5V d8 493-3058-ND
    2x Nichicon HZ 3300uF 6.3V d10 UHZ0J332MPM-ND
    4x Nichicon HZ 1000uF 16V d8 UHZ1C102MPM6-ND
    16x Nichicon HM 1000uF 6.3V d8 UHM0J102MPD-ND
    2x Nichicon LE 470uF 6.3V d8 493-3066-ND
    1x Taiyo Yuden 47uF 6.3V 587-3406-1-ND

    However certain things go wrong. The first was, that I managed thru friend to order only the original number of the 1000uF 6.3V caps, 12 of them. I had to improvise and replace the remaining 4 unused before with the Samxon GC caps, witch is similar is quality, tested good caps.
    At lest I see what caps are new there, lol.
    However worser was, that the only one d8 caps for 16V was really hi-end elytes Nichicon HZ, but they are out of the stock for months. So, what to do? I had no chance but to press on and thy some improvisation there...
    And at last I completely forget the little SMD cap behind the AGP slot, witch I indented to replace with ceramic caps, when there is available even 47uF ceramic SMD caps with the little 12210 size!

    So the main idea was to get the Vcore voltage filtering on hi-quality level, witch I managed easily by using the best polymers ever produced (nothing beat their ripple current rattings):

    [​IMG]

    But now what to do with the input caps, that are not stock? In the end I managed to squeeze easily in their places (luckily, there is nothing upclose near them) replacement caps, witch I took from my stash - a Panasonic FM 1000uF 16V d10:

    [​IMG]

    Of course I added even the unused one, right after the input coil:

    [​IMG]

    Ram's get a quality Nichicon caps too now, so they cannot complain on discrimination changes:

    [​IMG]

    What I also did miss is the sad look of six empty places, where a good quality ceramic caps should be, so the Vcore will be stable even in extreme situations:

    [​IMG]

    As I mentioned, on the previously unused places I slap the Samxon GC caps:

    [​IMG]

    And the NIC controller must be jumping out of joy, because it got the quality Nichicon LE polymers voltage filtering instead of the G-Luxon crap caps - now this is a jump in quality!

    [​IMG]

    Over on the CPU socket, there come together two important caps. A Nichicon HZ - the best electrolyte caps ever when come to the ripple current (Samxon GA are par to par with it, but nothing other come even close, not even Rubycon MCZ, yet the Man Yue stoped manufacturing them :( ) and then the Nichicon LE - best polymer ever made:

    [​IMG]

    And at last - overal look on the Vcore regulation - now it look far much better that before!

    [​IMG]

    And the result? Well, the CPU and rams and HDD is working perfectly. The Vcore regulators, with the serious heatsinks, are - even that no fan is blowing at them, yet I removed the serial and parallel ports to get them better ventilated - after a day of work, night of stress test and half day of gaming heardly even warm...!
    That well shown the fact, that quality caps means lesser temperatures of the components. That was just great. And with stock box fan and no case fan...!

    Now just the AGP cap and some of these ceramics...
     
  3. Oblivion-330

    Oblivion-330 Member

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    Thats awesome work man, good job :thumbup:
     
  4. OP
    OP
    trodas

    trodas Member

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    Thank you, I trying my best :) And I'm not finished yet... ;)
     
  5. Andy3008

    Andy3008 Member

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    +1 to this...well done
     
  6. c_hegge

    c_hegge Member

    Joined:
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    Nice Job poly-modding the VRM

    The last MSI motherboard (a K9A2VM) I had to recap got a full poly mod (ie. All of the caps, except for some of the really small ones, got replaced with solid caps)

    EDIT:

    Here's what I used
    330uF 16V Fujitsu on the VRM High
    820uF 2.5V Nich LF on the VRM Low
    820uF 2.5V Fujitsu on the Chipset VRM (the two yellow ones. I know they look like traditional electrolytics, but they are poly caps)
    560uF 4V NCC PSA on the RAM VRM (note that there were only 2 1800uF caps there originally, with a blank spot for a 3rd one. I filled the blank spot up)
    470uF 6.3V OS-CON SPEC on some of the USB filtering (others I left with NCC KY electrolytics)
    1000uF 6.3V Nichicon FPCAP L8 everywhere else


    Click to view full size!



    Click to view full size!



    Click to view full size!



    Click to view full size!
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2013
  7. /invariance\

    /invariance\ Member

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    trodas, some of the effort you have gone to with your motherboards and graphics cards is truly impressive.

    I would say you could well be the computer equivalent of a vintage car restorer with an aim for concors condition rebuilds (ie absolutely imaculate and a finish quality that leaves the original factory condition in the dust).
     
  8. OP
    OP
    trodas

    trodas Member

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    Andy3008 - thank you :thumbup: I trying my best :) And I'm not yet done...


    c_hegge -
    Thanks! The NIC get polymod too :D G-Suxxons replaced for Nichicon LE :p I was worry, that the chipset did not survive that good caps and rather run away screaming :)

    Very nice! Plenty of polymers used, lol. Looks fastastic, mate! :thumbup:
    About the yellow Fujitsu caps - as long, as they have the perforation, it is hard to believe that they can be polymers. Busides, why to use them anyway - 820uF (or higher) polymer with d10 for 2.5V is not hard to source...
    Any perticular reasons? Link to the datasheet?

    What is the missing cap hear the PS/2 port? Should not be there used for filtering the +5V for the ports? I would certainly place cap there ;)

    ...ah, I see the reasons for Nichicon LF...
    Nichicon LF - ripple 5200mA - 1.09$
    Nichicon LE - ripple 6300mA - 1.69$
    Nichicon FP L8 - ripple 6100mA - 0.95$
    (ripple for d8x9 820uF 2.5V caps)

    Fujitsu polymers? Nichicon is producing a 330uF 16V d8x8 caps under the FP L8 line too... what to use them? And what capacity was there before the polymod? For input Vcore I would be inclined to use elytes.

    All the small caps are now Chemicon? I did not like Chemicon a lot, just got another Soltek mobo with two bulging and one even leaking KZG caps...
    ...but definitively it looks as good job. Unlike mine yet with the AGP problems...


    /invariance\ - thank you! And you are right, my attempt is to get the hardware to perform as well, as it can. Or at it is possible.
    I could only hope that I can do more... ;) :lol:

    I was just wanted to prove, that I can do it and I can do it better that MSI :D Also my point was, how much can these review board differ from what one can actually buy (compare first two images).
    If you look closely, you see that on the "advert" board is 10 pcs of ceramics inside of the LGA 775 socket. And on the sale version, there are just 4 pcs of the ceramics.

    Seems that these damn people remove everything that they can. Maybe that is why they disabled a LOT of options in the bios, so user cannot seem them, much less tweak them. Maybe overclocking won't work stable, because of all these removed caps...?

    Besides, there is the last MSI PM8M3-V bios v1.5 and previous v1.4 - original ones and unlocked versions where you see all the options with much more settings:
    http://www.mediafire.com/?9npsvnsc8pmzhx1
    http://dfiles.eu/files/z5ar3lnbl
    http://www.uloz.to/xKAgfX51/MSI+PM8M3-V+bioses.zip

    Well, in the version 1.5 I did not unlocked all the settings for the IGP, because I dubt anyone can use it anyway, so...
    [​IMG]
    ...and if when they use it, then this is probably not necessary? (from v1.4 unlocked bios) There are pretty much tons of settings what can be unlocked just using Modbin :D At first the mobo looked in bios very very cheap, almost no settings, but when I get to the unlocking, then I realized that there are plenty of settings and even enought of sensors...
    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]

    But I did not believe that the mobo can take a 333MHz of ram ram speed - 666MHz of DDR speed! No way in hell:
    [​IMG]

    And also I did not believe that the mobo can utilize a DDR2 rams, even the bios claim it:
    [​IMG]
    :D :D :D
     
  9. c_hegge

    c_hegge Member

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    Believe me, they are polies. It's pretty common knowledge on badcaps.net that the earlier Fujitsu polies looked like electrolytics. These are the ones I used (http://www.badcaps.net/store/product_info.php?cPath=25&products_id=76). I used them because I had them on hand.

    It's for the HDMI port, which is not installed on this board. So putting it there would be a waste of a cap.

    Again, I used them because I had them on hand. The originals were 1000uF 16V. I disagree that lytics should be used there. I've used polies on the VRM input lots of times and it always works. Many others have had similar results on badcaps.net. The general rule is that if you four caps, use 330uF, or of you have three, use 470uF.

    It's only KZG, KZG, TMV, and TMZ that have problems. The ones I used are KY series, and they are extremely reliable. Again, common knowledge on badcaps.net
     
  10. OP
    OP
    trodas

    trodas Member

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    I still did not see the datasheet ;) I know that this is what people are saying about these caps, but I'm rather skeptical about these oldie caps...

    Ah, that is it. I usually see there a cap for USB or PS/2 ports voltage filtering. That is why I rather measure first... :D

    I did not say that "lytics should be used there", I just saying that I'm inclined to use there a electrolytic caps for Vcore input, because they give much higher capacity (4x 1000uF = 4000uF, 4x 330uF = 1320uF, eg. 3x less) and their slower ripple characteristic are IMHO much better suited for filtering the slower ripple that come from PSU lines.
    That is where polymers specs suxx bad time.

    You can disagree what you want, but check how the ripple current and frequency differ between polymers and elytes, if you do the math. Compare electrolyte cap Samxon GA 3300uF 6,3V and polymer cap Samxon URL 820uF 6,3V:

    120Hz - URL = 332mA, GA = 2345mA
    1kHz - URL = 1992mA, GA = 3752mA
    10kHz - URL = 4648mA, GA = 4221mA
    100kHz - URL = 6640mA, GA = 4690mA

    Hence I prefer electrolytes there. Not to say that polymers will not work. With a good PSU it can work even w/o these input caps at all, IMHO.

    Anyway, Intel designers agree with me - check this Intel mobo design D955XCS ... or even a good Intel D975XBX "Bad Axe" mobo... or what about ntel D925XCV? There phases and elytes in the input:
    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]

    I just prefer this way and I back my preference with solid evidence, as you can see. OTOH I don't give a damn about "common knowledge" or such broad and not concrete and evidence based beliefs.

    Of course, the best it will be to measure one Vcore on same PSU with polymers on the input and the same with electrolyted on the input with scope for ripple and temperature sensor for overheating...

    Indeed it could be only these batch of the Chemicon caps that are bad. Never the less it was thee batches of caps, that make me entierly distrustfull for whole Chemicon caps in general.
    I could be wrong there, but I think I play it safe, when I refuse to acknowledge Chemicon caps as a good caps. Any. Period.

    It is a extreme was to look at things? Yea. But I again point on all the evidence of these failures and I refuse to believe that Chemicon screwed up only in these lines. Maybe the KY are good, because they are never much stressed? In that case then maybe even the KZG could holt there?
    Who knows.

    And once again, common knowledge I take with huge grain of salt. I know that and it seems to corelate with the reality, but is not safer just to not use Chemicons at all? IMHO yes. So I stick with it.


    PS. I have two SMD 330uF 16V Chemicon polymers on the input of the voltage regulator on my PNY GeForce 6800GT. Since my GFX card can pass a overnight FurMark stress test w/o error, then they are probably good. I still look at the 71°C temperature of the VRM circuit as rather high and I thinking about replacement and/or better cooling. If I replace them for Nichicons and the temps of the VRM get lower, then it could be a evidence of these Chemicon polymers getting notably worser in time, don't you agree?
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2013
  11. T-Bones

    T-Bones Member

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    I wish I had the ability/skill to replace the caps on all my old boards which are or have died due to crappy caps as I'm running out of motherboards for my old CPUs. Even got a few Video Cards which have failed due to faulty caps.

    Shouldn't you include pics of the reverse side of the boards to show the quality of the soldering?
     

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