[ KB ] Q6 VTT $2 Fix

[KliK]

- A maintenance and stabilization of ABIT BP6 -

Some unstable factors resulting from the mother board when overclocking the 'Celeron 366' in dual operation are resolved and came to carry out stable operation at 100MHz FSB.

http://www.finetune.jp/~lyuka/interests/pc/bp6.html

How do you like this? Please forgive me for bad english.

hy,
i've got a board that has some VTT problems, and winXP is hanging beacuse of it...for now, it's stable, with replacing EC10 with 1500(mikro)F/10V capacitor...
now i'm thinking about q6 problem...in your article, you say that LM317T or LM350T wont do the trick!
the problem is that i cannot find LT1585CT...so is there some other VRM that i can put in there? what do u think about LM338T?!

p.s. this is a zip file what can be found in store...what do u sugest?

[purrkur]

i've got a board that has some VTT problems, and winXP is hanging beacuse of it...for now, it's stable, with replacing EC10 with 1500(mikro)F/10V capacitor...
now i'm thinking about q6 problem...in your article, you say that LM317T or LM350T wont do the trick!
the problem is that i cannot find LT1585CT...so is there some other VRM that i can put in there? what do u think about LM338T?!

Hello Klik,

There is a saying that Unix admins use all the time: If it isn't broken then don't try to fix it.

So the question is, if replacing ED10 has fixed your stability issues, why do you want to replace Q6?

I guess there are many opposing views on this. LM317/LM338 and LM350 are related and pin compatible so you can use any one of those. Mind you, these are not exactly high quality voltage regulators, although they give you quite a lot considering their cost. If you buy one that uses a TO220 package then they will be able to deliver 3 amps of continuous power, if I am not mistaken. The AMS1085 is rated the same. I haven't really compared the 317/338/350 to the 1085 (in terms of info found on datasheets) but my personal opinion is that you gain precious little by making this swap. I think the biggest weakness of all of these voltage regulators is that, just like finetune mentions, they are not really good at reacting to load changes. Does the 1585 do better in that regard? Finetune thinks so. I have no idea because I haven't really looked at it. Changing the EC10 is good because when load changes happen and the regulator reacts slowly then the larger EC10 will be there with charge to pick up the slack.

I have recapped two BP6 boards and changed EC10 to something more appropriate (actually a 1000µF cap). In both cases my Vtt voltage has become pretty stable. I don't see the advantages of changing to 317/338/350 to be honest.

So in my opinion, if you are not going to do something extremely radical then I would simply recommend recapping the board and living with it that way if the board remains stable.

[phaedrus]

i've got a board that has some VTT problems, and winXP is hanging beacuse of it...for now, it's stable, with replacing EC10 with 1500(mikro)F/10V capacitor...
now i'm thinking about q6 problem...in your article, you say that LM317T or LM350T wont do the trick!
the problem is that i cannot find LT1585CT...so is there some other VRM that i can put in there? what do u think about LM338T?!

Hello Klik,

Hi Klik!

Try Digikey. I found the LT1585CT here. Looks like they're US$7 a pop right now. All three of the LM338, LM350 and LM317 should be less than US$2 (IIRC).

There is a saying that Unix admins use all the time: If it isn't broken then don't try to fix it.

So the question is, if replacing ED10 has fixed your stability issues, why do you want to replace Q6?

I guess there are many opposing views on this. LM317/LM338 and LM350 are related and pin compatible so you can use any one of those. Mind you, these are not exactly high quality voltage regulators, although they give you quite a lot considering their cost. If you buy one that uses a TO220 package then they will be able to deliver 3 amps of continuous power, if I am not mistaken.

The LM338 will take 5A, the LM350 will take 3A and the LM317 will take 1.5A in the TO-220 package (if you get it in another package, it may only be rated to 1A or 0.5A, be forewarned).

The AMS1085 is rated the same. I haven't really compared the 317/338/350 to the 1085 (in terms of info found on datasheets) but my personal opinion is that you gain precious little by making this swap. I think the biggest weakness of all of these voltage regulators is that, just like finetune mentions, they are not really good at reacting to load changes. Does the 1585 do better in that regard? Finetune thinks so. I have no idea because I haven't really looked at it. Changing the EC10 is good because when load changes happen and the regulator reacts slowly then the larger EC10 will be there with charge to pick up the slack.

I have recapped two BP6 boards and changed EC10 to something more appropriate (actually a 1000µF cap). In both cases my Vtt voltage has become pretty stable. I don't see the advantages of changing to 317/338/350 to be honest.

So in my opinion, if you are not going to do something extremely radical then I would simply recommend recapping the board and living with it that way if the board remains stable.

I've been running with a '317 (the previous owner put it in). I've been thinking about swapping it out for a '350, just to get the higher power output, but honestly, I didn't see the performance being that great. The Vtt voltage on my board would still dip upwards of 10-15% at the worst. It would do pretty good at hanging around 1.5V, and it didn't hang because of the Vtt droops.

I would have to agree with purrkur on this one. If you're going to do something radical to the board, recap the thing. Get rid of your bad caps first. Mine died hours after I ordered a new set from Digikey.

Oh, and this leads me to another point: caps don't need to look bad to be bad. There are lots of failure modes for electrolytic caps. Mine started leaking electrically, and not visibly, and it got to the point where a 400W PSU couldn't keep up with the board's power demands. I inspected the board regularly, and I never saw any signs of bulging or leaking capacitors. So, if they look at all bad, get 'em out of there pronto. If they don't look bad, well, they might still be your problem.

Jeff

[purrkur]

Oh, and this leads me to another point: caps don't need to look bad to be bad. There are lots of failure modes for electrolytic caps. Mine started leaking electrically, and not visibly, and it got to the point where a 400W PSU couldn't keep up with the board's power demands. I inspected the board regularly, and I never saw any signs of bulging or leaking capacitors. So, if they look at all bad, get 'em out of there pronto. If they don't look bad, well, they might still be your problem.

Thanks for helping out here Jeff. I don't have any datasheets for these components so I was just going on memory (I didn't have the time to search the net either).

I would like to add one thing about electrolyte capacitors. Their capacitance diminishes with age which means that their lifespan isn't really as good as other components. I think it is safe to say that a capacitor of high quality will have a lifespan of maybe 15 years (this is what was being said a few years ago - I am not sure if that has increased or not) but poor quality stuff might be a lot worse. Judging from what I have read here, I would say that the caps on the BP6 are of very poor quality and that they loose their capacitance faster. So even if they don't leak or bulge, I would think that they are not as good as when the board was new. This is one of the reasons why I have changed all of the caps on both of my BP6's that are either 1000µF or 1500µF in size.

[KliK]

i've got a board that has some VTT problems, and winXP is hanging beacuse of it...for now, it's stable, with replacing EC10 with 1500(mikro)F/10V capacitor...
now i'm thinking about q6 problem...in your article, you say that LM317T or LM350T wont do the trick!
the problem is that i cannot find LT1585CT...so is there some other VRM that i can put in there? what do u think about LM338T?!

Hello Klik,

There is a saying that Unix admins use all the time: If it isn't broken then don't try to fix it.

So the question is, if replacing ED10 has fixed your stability issues, why do you want to replace Q6?

I guess there are many opposing views on this. LM317/LM338 and LM350 are related and pin compatible so you can use any one of those. Mind you, these are not exactly high quality voltage regulators, although they give you quite a lot considering their cost. If you buy one that uses a TO220 package then they will be able to deliver 3 amps of continuous power, if I am not mistaken. The AMS1085 is rated the same. I haven't really compared the 317/338/350 to the 1085 (in terms of info found on datasheets) but my personal opinion is that you gain precious little by making this swap. I think the biggest weakness of all of these voltage regulators is that, just like finetune mentions, they are not really good at reacting to load changes. Does the 1585 do better in that regard? Finetune thinks so. I have no idea because I haven't really looked at it. Changing the EC10 is good because when load changes happen and the regulator reacts slowly then the larger EC10 will be there with charge to pick up the slack.

I have recapped two BP6 boards and changed EC10 to something more appropriate (actually a 1000µF cap). In both cases my Vtt voltage has become pretty stable. I don't see the advantages of changing to 317/338/350 to be honest.

So in my opinion, if you are not going to do something extremely radical then I would simply recommend recapping the board and living with it that way if the board remains stable.

the thing is that my computer is pretty stable at 433@433, but when i put it to 433@488 it gets me lock ons during high load...i have replaced EC10, an it got me some stability now...been running UD agent whole night, and it didn't lock...
so my next quest is to make it work on 75MHz FSB...to do that i must replace my Q6 with something better...but here is the problem, it's not standard issue VRM and i cant find it in Croatia...to ship it from US, maybe...but what firm will do that?
so i'm back at the begining...trying to find a problem fixer for me!
that is why i send you that file...in there is a list of parts from local store, so you might suggest me sthg... (at all i'm just a mechanical engineer, and don't know so much about electronics!)

[KliK]

Oh, and this leads me to another point: caps don't need to look bad to be bad. There are lots of failure modes for electrolytic caps. Mine started leaking electrically, and not visibly, and it got to the point where a 400W PSU couldn't keep up with the board's power demands. I inspected the board regularly, and I never saw any signs of bulging or leaking capacitors. So, if they look at all bad, get 'em out of there pronto. If they don't look bad, well, they might still be your problem.

Thanks for helping out here Jeff. I don't have any datasheets for these components so I was just going on memory (I didn't have the time to search the net either).

I would like to add one thing about electrolyte capacitors. Their capacitance diminishes with age which means that their lifespan isn't really as good as other components. I think it is safe to say that a capacitor of high quality will have a lifespan of maybe 15 years (this is what was being said a few years ago - I am not sure if that has increased or not) but poor quality stuff might be a lot worse. Judging from what I have read here, I would say that the caps on the BP6 are of very poor quality and that they loose their capacitance faster. So even if they don't leak or bulge, I would think that they are not as good as when the board was new. This is one of the reasons why I have changed all of the caps on both of my BP6's that are either 1000µF or 1500µF in size.

yes i have noticed that on my old BE6 Abit board...so now it goes for a repair...all six green ones goes for a new ones...i haven't decidet to put 1000 or 1500 instead of 1000microF capacitors...

but it's a good board...and it will run with Tualatin with adapter! )

[KliK]

some sites i found on the net:

http://www.badcaps.net/
http://www.motherboardrepair.com/

they have some interesting ideas for the caps...but that will not fix the VTT or Q6 problem as we call it!

but i found what i was looking for on the net for my BE6!

[purrkur]

Klik, you cannot be 100% sure that a Q6 replacement will fix your issues. Who knows, maybe it is your Celeron that doesn't like higher FSB frequencies?? Or it could be other bad caps that are keeping you from reaching higher speeds? I still haven't bothered replacing my 1085. I don't think it is worth it. FWIW, my 366MHz CPU's are not willing to reach 100MHz FSB like most others have been able to get them to run at. They run stable at 95MHz but at 100MHz FSB my board randomly freezes. I think you are getting too hooked on a "Q6 fix will allow me to do anything" type of idea and I am only saying that it might not work out that way in the end.

If you take a look at Finetune's webpage again, you can see that he did not only replace the 1085 with a 1585 but also replaced and added a few caps.

As for recommending something else because you can't find a 1585 in your country, I wouldn't want to be the one who recommends something new that has not been tried by me or someone else before.

[phaedrus]

the thing is that my computer is pretty stable at 433@433, but when i put it to 433@488 it gets me lock ons during high load...i have replaced EC10, an it got me some stability now...been running UD agent whole night, and it didn't lock...
so my next quest is to make it work on 75MHz FSB...to do that i must replace my Q6 with something better...but here is the problem, it's not standard issue VRM and i cant find it in Croatia...to ship it from US, maybe...but what firm will do that?
so i'm back at the begining...trying to find a problem fixer for me!
that is why i send you that file...in there is a list of parts from local store, so you might suggest me sthg... (at all i'm just a mechanical engineer, and don't know so much about electronics!)

Digikey will ship to you (I noticed that your location was Croatia after I posted yesterday and went and looked), but you'll pay through the nose on shipping (it looked like the minimum for shipping and handling was US$18, probably not worth it).

Anyway, it might be the processors. They aren't all capable of hitting 600MHz, and the lower the labeled clock speed, the more likely they don't. Intel left a lot of headroom on the celeron1s, but the only gauranteed speed is the packaged speed.

You might try pulling your PCI cards and play with it that way, see if any of them are causing problems. PCI cards are notorious for being picky about their bus speed (which should be 33MHz), and when you aren't running the BP6 at 66, 100 or 133[1], the PCI bus is overclocked. This may be causing cards to be flaky, but it's just a possibility (and I might be wrong on this, I tend to stick to frequencies which keep the PCI bus clocked correctly).

If you really want to get a new Q6, the specs are that it needs to be a "low dropout" adjustible 3 terminal voltage regulator. The reference voltage needs to be 1.25V (pretty standard, but check spec sheets anyway). If you need to find the datasheets, I find that google or yahoo work pretty well if you do a search on the part # and the word "datasheet". (I can't read your parts list, I don't have any software that reads excel files.)

Anyway, I would play with hardware configurations, recap the board, and then try modding the voltage regulators. Before that, though, I would also get some hardware monitoring software, and actually watch Vtt while you put the board under load. Watch to see how much it actually droops. See if it might actually be the problem. Throwing an LM317 in mine didn't actually stop Vtt from drooping significantly on my board.

Jeff

[1] 133MHz is not normally attainable. I've heard reports of it working on new BP6's configured with a single processor, but that's it. It would also require some pretty hardcore cooling (Peltier) to keep the BX440 from frying itself.

In other words, yes, I've almost given up on 133MHz FSB... Almost .

[KliK]

the thing is that my computer is pretty stable at 433@433, but when i put it to 433@488 it gets me lock ons during high load...i have replaced EC10, an it got me some stability now...been running UD agent whole night, and it didn't lock...
so my next quest is to make it work on 75MHz FSB...to do that i must replace my Q6 with something better...but here is the problem, it's not standard issue VRM and i cant find it in Croatia...to ship it from US, maybe...but what firm will do that?
so i'm back at the begining...trying to find a problem fixer for me!
that is why i send you that file...in there is a list of parts from local store, so you might suggest me sthg... (at all i'm just a mechanical engineer, and don't know so much about electronics!)

Digikey will ship to you (I noticed that your location was Croatia after I posted yesterday and went and looked), but you'll pay through the nose on shipping (it looked like the minimum for shipping and handling was US$18, probably not worth it).

Anyway, it might be the processors. They aren't all capable of hitting 600MHz, and the lower the labeled clock speed, the more likely they don't. Intel left a lot of headroom on the celeron1s, but the only gauranteed speed is the packaged speed.

You might try pulling your PCI cards and play with it that way, see if any of them are causing problems. PCI cards are notorious for being picky about their bus speed (which should be 33MHz), and when you aren't running the BP6 at 66, 100 or 133[1], the PCI bus is overclocked. This may be causing cards to be flaky, but it's just a possibility (and I might be wrong on this, I tend to stick to frequencies which keep the PCI bus clocked correctly).

If you really want to get a new Q6, the specs are that it needs to be a "low dropout" adjustible 3 terminal voltage regulator. The reference voltage needs to be 1.25V (pretty standard, but check spec sheets anyway). If you need to find the datasheets, I find that google or yahoo work pretty well if you do a search on the part # and the word "datasheet". (I can't read your parts list, I don't have any software that reads excel files.)

Anyway, I would play with hardware configurations, recap the board, and then try modding the voltage regulators. Before that, though, I would also get some hardware monitoring software, and actually watch Vtt while you put the board under load. Watch to see how much it actually droops. See if it might actually be the problem. Throwing an LM317 in mine didn't actually stop Vtt from drooping significantly on my board.

Jeff

[1] 133MHz is not normally attainable. I've heard reports of it working on new BP6's configured with a single processor, but that's it. It would also require some pretty hardcore cooling (Peltier) to keep the BX440 from frying itself.

In other words, yes, I've almost given up on 133MHz FSB... Almost .

last time i used that exact hardware on BE6 board, overclocked to 75/2 or 112/3 FSB...so it's not that...

now my VTT (with capacitor in place) goes from 1,44 to 1,57 in cold or hot run...i don't know much but it seems that a capacitor didn't do the trick!

now i'm running 433@433 and do not have lock ups...but over a day or two something half-freezes, in a way that WinXP works, but no programs run, no start button, only task panel i can get up...
so i'm still trying to find out something to do with that board?! i think that my apartment being so close to trafo station has sthg to do with it! but VTT problem is much cheaper than getting an UPS that would work with taht power cosumption (not to mention 3HDD with 3 coolers, CD-RW & DVD, Kyro2 GPU and dual Voodoo2 3dfx - for PSXemu only, good old AWE32 soundcard, network card & USB card?????!!!!)
)
and that all with 400W (what is that thing called that tranformates ?C to DC)...3 big case FANs, 1+1 small for case & chipset, and 2 bigs for CPUs...

and even now, as we speak my borad has temperature 35 C, and the CPUs in semi-cold run have 33 or 31 C!

do you still think it's sthg else, ot is it the Q6 problem?!

[phaedrus]

last time i used that exact hardware on BE6 board, overclocked to 75/2 or 112/3 FSB...so it's not that...

Ok, good. Ruled that out.

now my VTT (with capacitor in place) goes from 1,44 to 1,57 in cold or hot run...i don't know much but it seems that a capacitor didn't do the trick!

Actually, that's not too bad. I've seen mine drop to 1.2 without crashing my box. You probably won't notice any improvement if you change out Q6. I'm more convinced now that this is not your problem.

now i'm running 433@433 and do not have lock ups...but over a day or two something half-freezes, in a way that WinXP works, but no programs run, no start button, only task panel i can get up...

Hmm, crashing over the long haul. If you were running Linux I would tell you to try recompiling your kernel just to see if the machine crashes, but you aren't (it's a stress test using known super-stable hardware, you wouldn't need to run the kernel afterward).

I would tell you to make sure it isn't XP doing something stupid and that it really is a hardware problem.

Anyone have any good stress tests for Windows?

Jeff

[InactiveX]

Anyone have any good stress tests for Windows?

I used to use the CPUBURN suite, although I don't know if it's been updated for a while.

I also found this page, which explains why distributed computing programs, eg. SETI, may not be the best to use for stressing your hardware.

[g0fvt]

Hi, I know this thread has been stuck a long time know, just to add that I still have a modified BP6 in 24/7 operation. A leisurely 75Mhz FSB seems to help the Highpoint controller with it's well known timing issues, machine is running OpenBsd and has not crashed in maybe 2 years.

www.lisney.org.uk has some information on it, though it has not been updated for years.

The machine in the pictures is no longer watercooled and also runs with 75Mhz FSB on a pair of 466s but runs Windows XP.

My VP6 is still heavily used, sadly it too is also very old now. Similar capacitor mods to the BP6 and very stable.

Perhaps later this year I will build up a replacement, very little in the way of inspiring Mobos around lately, any ideas? It must be something a bit geeky and not mainstream, must be 64bit and maybe dual dual core cpus.

Glad to see that BP6.com is still online, was a very lively community once, shall miss all that with the new board whatever it ends up being.

Regards David

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[Derek]

Glad to see that BP6.com is still online, was a very lively community once, shall miss all that with the new board whatever it ends up being.

Don't worry... We won't kick you out... You can stay

[kuun]

Hi, I know this thread has been stuck a long time know, just to add that I still have a modified BP6 in 24/7 operation.

Hell yeah bro.. good to hear

unfortunately.. mine has suffered the leaking capacitor problem.. and i've just not had time to do it myself.. that.. and all of my old SCSI drives have failed.. all of them except one 6.5GB.. and 6.5GB is nothing nowadays..

Perhaps later this year I will build up a replacement, very little in the way of inspiring Mobos around lately, any ideas? It must be something a bit geeky and not mainstream, must be 64bit and maybe dual dual core cpus.

Glad to see that BP6.com is still online, was a very lively community once, shall miss all that with the new board whatever it ends up being.

Regards David

[/url]

man.. i JSUT upgraded to an ASUS a8s-x mobo with an athlon 64 4000+ CPU.. i went to that from an XP2400 on the ECS k7s5a (yep still got 1 of 2 in operation w00h00 its blazin

Glad to see that BP6.com is still online, was a very lively community once, shall miss all that with the new board whatever it ends up being.

Don't worry... We won't kick you out... You can stay

what about meee??!! can i stay tooo?? pleeeeeease??

i promise to spread more luv on the forums!

[Derek]

Glad to see that BP6.com is still online, was a very lively community once, shall miss all that with the new board whatever it ends up being.

Don't worry... We won't kick you out... You can stay

what about meee??!! can i stay tooo?? pleeeeeease??

i promise to spread more luv on the forums!

Absolutely! Glad to have you back

[davd_bob]

gofvt and kuun always were your favorits.

[davd_bob]

gofvt and kuun always were your favorits.

You give them EVERYTHING they want.

[Derek]

gofvt and kuun always were your favorits.

You give them EVERYTHING they want.

We are all brethren here!

[InactiveX]

All together now, -> sing along with me <-.

[kuun]

...

[g0fvt]

Hi again, good to see you are all still around! On dial-up this week, stupid ISP cancelled my DSL for my new house and kept it going for the old one!

I bought a sad little laptop just before Xmas, seems crazy that it is faster than any of my "proper" pcs...

All my BP6s are still working, though this is being typed on my VP6...

Anyone doing any wierd stuff with ITX boards?

Strikes me they would make really good home made "embedded" devices, thoughts going the way of a super quiet low power server or similar....


Those of you that predicted my BP6 with the 250Gb drives hanging off the Highpoint may be partially correct about it screwing up.... (OpenBsd).

(note the highpoint seems to like a 75Mhz bus)

I filled both drives but on retrieving stuff of it recently 2 DIVX movies are timing out when I try to copy them off.... everything else has been OK despite the discs being pretty full at one time.....

Other geek stuff to play with....

I recently (before the ISP screwed up) updated my D-Link DSL-G604T wireless router with routertech firmware, (modified by Dark Wolf).

Works a treat, highly recommended and has lots of parameters to fiddle with to break it!

During some leave I took from work I "re-housed" the VP6... the fulltower was gradually going yellow like all white PCs do... so now in a black server case..... looks really cool but sometimes it is good to get away from the noise of the fans!

A bit late maybe but Happy New Year to all my fellow BP6ers....

[s4brains]

g0fvt,

If salvaging your DivX files is important to you, it might be possible to copy the files using an application called "Captain Nemo". It is an o/s independant file transfer application that I've grown quite fond of. It's a long shot, but it just might work.

Regards,

s4