One idea to make money.

[CougTek]

Every computer shop in the world has a stack of unused s478 Pentium 4 and a bunch of homeless socket A processors. We all have zillion of used 256MB DDR sticks too that we cannot use because no one ever buys 256MB DDR anymore. The reason why we have this is the motherboards from 5 to 9 years ago did not last, while other components did. Most of the 8 years old RAM, CPU and passively-cooled graphic cards I see are still good. But motherboards have failed, often because of blown capacitors.

Why isn't there any company making a 30-35$ motherboard for socket-A or socket 478? At that price, they would sell lots of them. It would cost me 35$ to build a system I could still sell for one hundred bucks. Many others too. All the other components are free. I have of pile of 40GB IDE hard drives, I pile of old AGP graphic cards, a pile of smallish DDR RAM sticks, a pile of CPU, too many empty used beige cases with Windows COA on them. And we are all like this. All the small computer shops I know are like this. I've never been to Red Hill but I know Tony is like this too.

Half of the computers I sell are used lease-return computers that people buy just to surf the Web and listen to music. All they need is a computer with a 2GHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, a CD or DVD reader, four USB ports, 2D graphics and Windows XP.

Why no one makes that? There's a huge market out there just waiting for it to happen. If it doesn't, then it's a pile of toxic materials heading to the garbage deposit although it is still in working order.

 

[Bozo]

Maybe this place could help. Badcaps.net

 

[LiamC]

//rant on

I don't know how people have been snowed by Gigabyte. Long after the S478/S462 motherboards were all dying from bad caps--and people knew what the problem was, Gigabyte was shipping S754 motherboards with dodgy caps. Therefore Gigabyte knowingly shipped these products. I've had quite a few EPoX/Asus/DFI 754 motherboards pass through my fingers and none of them have had capacitor issues. In contrast, every Gigabyte 754 motherboard I've seen has died from bad caps. I've also heard (but cannot confirm) that Gigabyte has had capacitor issues on it's 965 Express Intel boards. Couple that with their less than stellar "help" line and I really cannot understand people viewing them as a Tier 1 motherboard supplier of choice...

//rant off

 

[LunarMist]

It seems like you are a few years late on that one, but what do I know. :cat:

 

[CougTek]

Maybe this place could help. Badcaps.net

From the page you linked :

The average repair cost is $70.00,...

It is worth it for a end-user, but not for a reseller like me.

 

[mubs]

//rant on

I don't know how people have been snowed by Gigabyte. Long after the S478/S462 motherboards were all dying from bad caps--and people knew what the problem was, Gigabyte was shipping S754 motherboards with dodgy caps. Therefore Gigabyte knowingly shipped these products. I've had quite a few EPoX/Asus/DFI 754 motherboards pass through my fingers and none of them have had capacitor issues. In contrast, every Gigabyte 754 motherboard I've seen has died from bad caps. I've also heard (but cannot confirm) that Gigabyte has had capacitor issues on it's 965 Express Intel boards. Couple that with their less than stellar "help" line and I really cannot understand people viewing them as a Tier 1 motherboard supplier of choice...

//rant off

My single experience with Gigabyte was bad. They returned the dodgy video card with a "works fine, no work necessary". True one swallow does not a summer make, but the experience certainly didn't inspire confidence...

 

[time]

Couple that with their less than stellar "help" line and I really cannot understand people viewing them as a Tier 1 motherboard supplier of choice...

I've never tried calling a motherboard manufacturer. None of them have offices in this country anyway. The normal procedure is to contact the retailer or distributor who send them back to Taiwan in batches. Typically takes 4-8 weeks (regardless of manufacturer). I prefer that they don't fail in the first place; if they're more than 12 months old I just explain to the user that it's an upgrade opportunity.

I've also heard (but cannot confirm) that Gigabyte has had capacitor issues on it's 965 Express Intel boards.

I'll call total bullsh*t on this. All Gigabyte P965 boards used solid caps in the VRM, most are 100% solid caps.

... Gigabyte was shipping S754 motherboards with dodgy caps. Therefore Gigabyte knowingly shipped these products.

I tried googling and trawling badcaps.net, and couldn't find any evidence to support your assertion. I'm sure they did ship S754 motherboards with caps that ultimately failed, but so did Asus and others.

I've had quite a few EPoX/Asus/DFI 754 motherboards pass through my fingers and none of them have had capacitor issues.

The Asus I'm typing this on is socket 754 and has had a couple of bad caps for years. Some days it BSODs 3 or 4 times (but mostly it continues to work okay).

YMMV.

 

[Stinker]

My Dad has an AOpen VK8T800a-LF S754 board that has been chugging along with a 2600+ Sempron (since end of 2005) with no issues. Are AOpen & Asus related at all? The system is working fine for him. What are the odds you think he will have a Cap. issue in the future if he has not had one yet?

 

[Pradeep]

Companies selling known defective parts? Hmm, sounds familiar.

http://www.nvidiasettlement.com/affectedmodels.html

I believe there are other nvidia GPUs that die that didn't get included in this.

 

[Bozo]

My Dad has an AOpen VK8T800a-LF S754 board that has been chugging along with a 2600+ Sempron (since end of 2005) with no issues. Are AOpen & Asus related at all? The system is working fine for him. What are the odds you think he will have a Cap. issue in the future if he has not had one yet?

If the computer is not turned on 24/7, I would think it should last indefinately.

 

[Howell]

From the page you linked :
It is worth it for a end-user, but not for a reseller like me.

If there is not already a reseller discount you could try to set up one with them. He may be willing to arrange something if there was a guaranteed source.

 

[Howell]

Is anyone aware of any laptop motherboards having bad cap problems?

 

[CougTek]

I already replaces bad capacitors on some old motherboards, but only if the boards aren't already dead, which is often the case. And soldering capacitors on a motherboard is a risky business. The ground is so large that you have to heat up the donut a lot if you don't want to make a cold solder. There's no warranty it'll last.

A new motherboard would be safer and come with a warranty. It would take less of my precious time too. I'm not asking the moon here, just :

• socket 478 and heatsink retention bracket
  Preferably Intel 865PE chipset, but even a VIA crap would do.
  One AGP slot
  Two PCI slots
  Four USB 2.0 ports
  Three DDR slots, but even two would do.
  A single IDE channel
  PS/2 ports for the keyboard and the mouse
  Integrated sound
  A USB header to connect the front USB ports
  Half-decent VRM and capacitors that won't go pop-corn
  Basic BIOS without any fancy settings and just minimal monitoring
  CMOS battery
  20 or 24 pins ATX connector plus the 4 pins 12V connector
  Standard front panel connector
• NOT MADE BY PC CHIPS OR ONE OF ITS CRAPPY SUB-DIVISIONS
• 35$ or less price tag

That's it. Not even integrated network, since we ALL have tons of old PCI 10/100 network cards. Same for graphics ; it doesn't need to be integrated. For these machines, I don't need SATA ports either. Neither parallel or serial ports.

 

[Mercutio]

I've only seen four or five Gigabyte boards with bad caps out of hundreds I've built and sold. MSI, Abit and ECS are names I associate with that particular problem. The place I seem to have the most issue on Gigabyte boards usually winds up being USB ports dying.

I had to throw away a bunch of good stuff about a year ago, similar to what Coug is describing. Good CPUs, good RAM, good (small) hard drives. It was a tragedy. Unfortunately, I suspect that there's no economic incentive to build new parts for that old tech, especially for parts that would sell at such a low price. Why build a socket A board to that costs $15 to manufacture and sells for $35, when you could build an LGA775 board that costs $15 to manufacture and sells for $50?

 

[Bozo]

I've had a few Intel 915G motherboards die with swollen and leaking capacitors. Also 2 Intel 865G motherboards.

 

[paugie]

Yes this would be good for the environment. But most manufacturers do not take environmental issues affect their bottom line

 

[Santilli]

How about a decent SSD for PATA laptops etc.?

How about ANY decent drives for a PATA laptop?

 

[ddrueding]

There really aren't any decent PATA laptops anymore, so designing a modern device for it would be a dead-end. A PATA-SATA converter of some kind would be an interesting device on the market, particularly if it allowed you to connect 1.8" SATA drives in the form factor of a 2.5" PATA drive.

 

[Santilli]

There really aren't any decent PATA laptops anymore, so designing a modern device for it would be a dead-end. A PATA-SATA converter of some kind would be an interesting device on the market, particularly if it allowed you to connect 1.8" SATA drives in the form factor of a 2.5" PATA drive.

I wonder about that. I like your converter idea.

While I may not be the typical laptop user, the better, older laptops, Panasonic, IBM,etc. are built very well, and will last a LONG time. An SSD, and all I have to comment on from experience is one good, and one bad Kingspec SSD, for 100 bucks, that they do help a bit with general feel and speed.
XP Pro in particular seems to hit the pagefile a bit on my laptops, and benefits from the SSD.

Odd, but Fedora 12 seems pretty darn fast, even on a 4200 rpm drive.

Specs on the good Kingspec, in my new CF-51 are about 70 MB/sec, and normal SSD
access time, .02 sec. Not much stuttering, if any.

I have noticed the SATA drives are about half the price of the PATA's.