In memory of the DFI...

Off topic chat and stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere.
Post Reply
That Toast Guy

In memory of the DFI...

Post by That Toast Guy »

Hey all!

I thought I'd take this opportunity to temporarily break my self imposed exile to share some sad news...

As some of you remember, I first purchased my DFI K6BV3+/66 2 MB board about three years ago (if I remember correctly). Back then, I had also managed to snag one of the few K6III 500's (non plus chip) made by AMD to go with the board. Z28Camaro and I tantalized many of you with our attempts at 550 MHz and above (Z-28 made it, 533 was about the best I could hold rock stable at). I then proceeded to set some new high scores for a SS7 board using a GeForce 2 MX card, raising the bar and inspiring others to get more serious about their tweaking. I even upgraded my GF2MX to a Gainward GF2MX 400 with very fast memory (in those days), and tantalized people some more.

Some of the people I had extensive tweaking discussion lists hang around here (Bronx 69 and GeorgeP, among others). We were constantly looking for ways to eek that extra ounce of performance out of these boards, a task made much simpler by various utilities developed by fellow tweakers (such as CPUCool, WPCredit and WPCPRSET, and eventually Uart's utilities and RobM's CTU).

During this period, I purchased a DFI K6BV3+/66 1 MB board, solely for the purpose of doing memory tests (to show the advantages of 1 MB and 2 MB boards). I briefly had 768 MB in my 2 MB board, but scaled back to 512 MB of memory after these tests were concluded.

Then the K6III+ chips hit the market, and I was amongt many of us here that snagged a K6III+ 450 as soon as possible. I proceeded to push my trusty DFI 2 MB board to it's limits, managing to get as high as 630 MHz. The board remained stable for a short while at 618 MHz. Others went higher, again inspired by those who sought to raise the bar for these now aging SS7 boards. I even (once again) raised the 3DMark 2000/2001 bar to new heights for those of us SS7 users using GF2MX cards. These GF2MX/SS7 scores were eventually surpassed, again by people who had benefited from our collective tweaking knowledge.

My K6III+ 450 couldn't hang at 618 MHz for more than a couple of months, however. Stability dropped to 600 MHz, and then even farther. Around this time the K6III+ 550's became available, and I of course snagged one of these as soon as possible. Once again I could manage 618 Mhz (6x103) stable for a time, and set my final high scores for 3DMark 2000 and 2001 using a GF2MX card. GeorgeP showed us that a GF2 (or was it GF3) GTS card was indeed not overkill (performs much better at the higher resolutions, and his score was several hundred points higher than mine), and more people were inspired to hang on to their SS7 boards a little longer.

Eventually the K6III+ 550 would not hang at 618 MHz, and I had pretty much had to give up on tweaking at that point (real life issues). The chip and board continued to soldier on, always willing to go to at least 567 Mhz and run my sound mixing program with little complaint.

Recently I purchased Neverwinter Nights, and my 2 MB DFI continued to perform adequately. This game comes with a recommended processor speed of 800 MHz PIII, but my trusty DFI and K6III+ chip still managed mostly smooth gameplay. I started noticing odd problems though. When I would quit Neverwinter Nights, the operating system would be locked up (not sure how it still managed to run the game in this state). Gameplay would get sluggish after a few hours, despite running MaxMem in the background. Both problems were easily rectified with a restart.

Then, last night I went to start up my DFI system. No response. Occasionally the power light would flicker briefly, and the fans would get a millisecond of juice before losing power again (so they would just barely start spinning). I took off the case cover and started troubleshooting. I determined that the power supply was still in good shape, and tried unplugging some cards and power cords to see if I could drop the voltage requirements enough to get another boot. No dice. Eventually, I resigned myself to a fried CPU or other problem and went to sleep.

Today, I dug out my 1 MB DFI board and put it into the system, and put the K6III+ 550 and two sticks of memory off of the 2 MB board onto the 1 MB board. The system booted up immediately, and once it went through the reinstallation of drivers (new MB detected) it runs fine.

Examining the 2 MB board, one of a hardware enthusiasts worst nightmares had come to pass. Not Electro Migration. Not a fried CPU socket...

Leaky Capacitors. Two of the capacitors (the pair next to the dip switches for those acquainted with this board) were bulged and the caps were discolored. It didn't look like they had leaked onto the board, fortunately, but the board's fate is sealed nonetheless...

I really enjoyed working with this board. I may try to resurrect it if I can find someone who can replace the defective capacitors for a reasonable price. But it is a sad day for me nonetheless.

Thanks DFI for making such a tweakable SS7 board! I had many fun hours with this thing, and my only regret is that it is no longer manufactured!
Sandells
K6'er
Posts: 83
Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2001 4:04 pm

Post by Sandells »

hey toast,

sorry to hear your DFI board died. i had a near death scare with an Epox MVP3G5, but salvaged it by replacing the CMOS battery. if you do decide to get your DFI board repaired, maybe you can come back and tweak more with the new gfx cards availible today.

good luck in whatever you decide to do.

Steve
chevyt98
Senior K6'er
Posts: 111
Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2001 7:34 pm
Location: Canada

Leaking Caps.

Post by chevyt98 »

With a good soldering iron you can remove the bad ones easily alternating betweeen soldered legs until they are free. Putting in new ones are just as easy. Good Luck

Regards Chevy
georgep1
Veteran K6'er
Posts: 325
Joined: Tue Jul 03, 2001 6:09 pm

Re: death of a DFI

Post by georgep1 »

Sorry to hear about your loss Toast. For a lot of us K6 type diehards, losing a beloved Super7 mobo or processor is a sad event. I toned my the K6-III+ in my G5 down to 550 MHz, even though it was happily running for a couple years at 600 or more, just so it would last longer.

I keep expecting to get bit by the capacitor problem, but so far it hasn't happened (crossing fingers).

As for repair, this guy has a lot of experience

http://www.careyholzman.com/

but he's expensive.
User avatar
jsc1973
Veteran K6'er
Posts: 394
Joined: Sat Jun 09, 2001 11:55 am
Contact:

Post by jsc1973 »

At 550, I think these things will run forever. I've had a K6-III+ 450@550 running in a 503+ for more than two years now, and it's currently running Windows 2000 and hasn't been rebooted since March.
OhioAMDer

Re: death of a DFI

Post by OhioAMDer »

Sorry to hear of your loss. [insert Barber's Adagio here in memoriam]

You might be able to save it with an old PC board trick. Crush the bad caps with pliers to leave the already-soldered wires on them as long as possible. Then solder the replacement caps carefully to those wires instead of trying to remove them from the board. Ironically a small, very hot iron works better for this than a larger, cooler one because you can get in and out fast with it.

Just curious, how many other people have found that K6's slow down over time?
J. H. McGowan

Dead DFI - Replacing Caps

Post by J. H. McGowan »

It really isn't that hard to replace electrolytic caps on a mobo. I've done it on a couple of QDI boards that weren't nearly as valuble as yours. I also had to resolder an electrolytic that was defectively soldered on my ATI 7500 R-aiw.

The trick is there is no rush! Take your time and let things cool between steps.
I use a miniature butane powered iron, to move the cap bit by bit, one side at a time alternating until I get it out. I work under one of those magnifying lamps so that I can see exactly what I am doing. When the cap is out, I use a solder sucker to get most of the solder out of the hole. Don't try to get all of it, you'll just overheat the board. To clean the hole, I use a "pinvise" - something about the size of a ball point pen with a miniature drill chuck in each end. (you can get one in any good hobbyshop) The drill bits that go with these thing are expensive, but you can substitute a sewing needle that has been broken in the eye (pliers) to make a serviceable bit to clean out the residue of solder by twisting the pinvise by hand, (thereby avoiding accidental slippage of a power tool doing serious damage to the board.) With the holes clean its a cinch to slip in a new cap and solder it in place.

Finally - if you are really ready to give up on the board , then sell it to me; cause its better than any i' ve got.

anonieimouse@msn.com
User avatar
Wiggy
Senior K6'er
Posts: 173
Joined: Sat Apr 05, 2003 9:39 am
Location: Surrey, England

Post by Wiggy »

Just to reiterate what people have said. I also wouldn't give up on this board yet. Micro-minature soldering is a large part of my job (sad innit) :) , so I would find it pretty simple to replace the caps myself.

As for you, I would highly recommend Ohios method of crushing the caps and soldering the new ones onto the exising legs. It greatly reduces the risk of damaging any other component with heat. (Heat will travel down the PCB tracks faster than you would ever realise)

Gas soldering irons get extremely hot, so be careful if you use one and let the mobo/caps cool after each application of the iron.

Hope you get it working soon!
Post Reply