Repairing of X5000

@All
Some months ago my x5000/020 start to power ups just for second time. I replace of course PSU, gfx, whatever else no luck, after 2-3 weeks it starts only one 4st-5st time, then i put just a mother board + new psu + just memory + gfx on the table, and after few weeks of work, it start to power up only from 10, or 20st time.

In the process i hookup the MCU debug cable, and got that when can't boot:



I do search through manuals, TRM, and watching on motherboard via microscope to find where probably PEX switch are, and which one, and i think (but for now not sure), this is one which have that small black heatsink, with 5 capacitors around. I didn't remove heatsink just yet, so that all wild guess based on TRM which of course not very correctly show where things are.

Currently all i tried it to re-solder those 5 capacitors, but that was false of course, as when i meter them , their capacitance was almost 99%. And i was told by one friend knowing those things better, those capacitors on the plate are of very good quality.

So, next thing i think about is to resolder chip itself (just a little bit giving a hot to see if it will help). Because board mostly non functional anymore anyway, so why not burn it out : )

But maybe some of you have some clue already and maybe some of you already had this kind of issue before ?

Thanks!

@kas1e

This is probably not going to be any help whatsoever, and you are smarter than me so.... But I thought I would mention that my recent problems booting my X5000/040 turned out to be a faulty SATA cable or SATA connection to my optical drive. Symptom was X5000 would boot to splash screen but it would not animate and froze. I never got around to reading the serial output. Eventually found it would boot again after removing and replacing SATA cable. I also replaced the CR2032 battery which showed low voltage, but this did not solve my problem.

Good luck!

@mbrantley
My issue happens early, much. I can even plug off everything, sata, gfx card, even memory, so just PSU , motherboard and debug cable. And when it starts correctly i have:



So for passing this stage, nothing need it to be connected, even memory not need it. But if i can't, then i can previous quoted output.

@kas1e

If you’ve already replaced the CMOS battery and checked all HD cables I say use a heat gun and reflow all chips/connectors. This ‘new’ solder isn’t like the good stuff from 30+ years ago

@328gts
CMOS batter was first changed of course, and as i say it's all happens even without HDD, GFX, memory, whatever. Pure motherboard PSU , etc. And yeah, i thinking about a heat gun and reflow all chips/connectors too.

There was a X5000 that was powering down because one of the voltages was low. Xena voltage I think... So the MCU kept powering down.

It's a bit simple, but if you jumper the power supply to ON, the MCU will be unable to shut you down.

Then at least you can see if it works anyway.

With just a wire jumper, you'll need to power down at the power supply, OR you can add a toggle switch if you want to be a bit more graceful.

I'm sure you can find "power up an ATX power supply" on YouTube or something. For a simple test you can just use a paperclip.

Please let us know if this helps. If this IS the MCU overreacting, at least making it public knowledge will be helpful.

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