Fixing Your Motherboard for $15

[bgerber]

Leaked or burst capacitors will kill your system for sure. We show you how to exchange defect capacitors on a motherboard to revive your computer.

 

[slicessoul]

15$ for capacitors. All tools : 300$ ?
New mainboard : 150 $, i'll go with the new mainboard.

 

[Slobogob]

You obviously don´t have friends that have any tools, do you?

 

[belvdr]

You obviously don´t have friends...

What are those? :lol:

 

[w0n]

interesting, i have a Dell Optiplex 270 mobo i might try this on

 

[smartel7070]

15$ for capacitors. All tools : 300$ ?
New mainboard : 150 $, i'll go with the new mainboard.

I totally agree with you. Plus when you consider the time it takes to do it all (never done that before so I guess it would take a couple of hours) again I'll go with the new mobo. IMO this is a waste of time also for the guy who wrote the artcile.

 

[Csavi3AusKid]

I did this with a motherboard with buggered capacitors... 6 of them :!: the cpu wasn't getting enough power so was running at no where near original speed... I used an ordinary solder sucker..and an ordinary soldering iron... took a lil more effort but only took half an hour did all this at my work experience place... total cost $0 (free equipment use and free capacitors WOOT) and it worked.... score for me!

excuse my poor spelling (if there is any) as I'm incredibly lazy and 1st time poster...

 

[antikristuseke]

Arround here it costs closer to 9 usd for having some caps swiched on a mobo, have had all my old soc a mobos done by one guy.

 

[nukemaster]

Well as it says. this is a good option for old boards(and hard to find boards). I bet its not too easy to find dual Athlon MP boards any more(could be wrong?)

 

[Silent_Bob]

I have to agree with the guy who talks about the cost of tools. I have a ton of stuff in my shop but a processor controlled vacuum assisted de-soldering tool is not one of them. None of my electrician friends have one ( I made some calls looking to get my hands on one this morning to re-vamp an old K7S5A), nor does the plumber on my hockey team (he solders with torches only). I suppose if I had a friend who specialized in electronics repair (we have to oursource that to a town 1h away) I may be able to get away with it.

Overall it did look like a good idea, tool access notwithstanding, because at the end of the day the worst case scenario is that a useless motherboard is still useless and you're out all of $15.

 

[nukemaster]

if you are carful you can do it without that.

Ahhhh good old K7S5A i am posting this on mine as we speak...

EDIT....

i do have to agree that the fixing your mb for 15$ is a little missleading.

 

[scan]

Very good article. I've been doing this for a couple years. I figured I do not need a solder sucker. Only a 30W solding iron is good enough. Although it is quite a pain to do this. I also pulled old working capacitors from ancient mobo (old mobos from major brands like HP and Dell uses high quality capacitors, even used ones can still last quite a while). Thus there was no cost for the replacement.
The problem was that a few years ago, mobo manufactures were using Taiwanese capacitors (GSC, OST etc.) on their mobo, replacing the Japanese product (Rubycon, Nichicon, Chemicon) to reduce the cost. These cheap capacitors worked for 2~3 years then they blew themself, causing system to be unstable. I have a Abit KT7A-raid and Epox 8KHA+ with most of their capacitors blown. Abit even recalled some of its KT7 for this problem. Also the ECS mobos were said to have ~3 years of life expectancy due to the same problem (I've seen two cases). Now the manufactures learned the lesson and switched back to Japanese products on their high-end products. The MSI mobo I bought recently has all Japanese caps.

 

[passing-thru]

I recently also successfully changed the caps (9pcs) on my mobo which died and it works great again.

Save me loads of $. :lol:

To me, definitely worth the efforts/time !

BTW, I used ordinary solder iron + sucker.

 

[TSIMonster]

Good article. BTW, they didn't say that you needed a processor controlled soldering station, thats just what they had. I think they were trying to say that the standard $10 Radio Shack soldering tools would make the job rather difficult. Possible, but more difficult.

I thought it was a great article. Anyone with some decent soldering tools should be capable of doing this.

Good Job dudes! 8)

 

[rammedstein]

some lucky people have all the breaks, one of which includes me, my work has one, very handy, we used to make our own amps(for audio), but somehow we turned into a computer repair place...

 

[zenmaster]

It's not just cost, its a matter of actually accomplishing something.

Some folks get satisfaction out of fixing something, building something, etc....

Of course you can go buy a new mobo or system.
But that was not the point of the article.

 

[warezme]

I have several hundred, if you get to bored...

 

[warezme]

Leaked or burst capacitors will kill your system for sure. We show you how to exchange defect capacitors on a motherboard to revive your computer.

BTW, maybe I missed it but... did the motherboard work after????

 

[roffutt]

I agree, this is a great article! I've saved money replacing caps on old video and sound cards in the past.. with minimal electronic experience.

The details explanation of why caps go bad is excellent IMO.

 

[coldmast]

how much for a solder wick, now-a-days? and flux?
every one and their grandfathers have a solder iron somewhere

Good Article: the usual well written THG standard.
should be labeled "how to replace blown Low-ESR capacitors, for the hobbyist"

if it's just one bad capacitor, it shouldn't be a problem to fix.

it really is a: cost for MB vs. Time + parts + if you have access to the tools already - Time if find mildly entertaining:
this is good for a new MB with no warranty or an old one

lets see this redone make-shift outdoors style, with cheap a solder-iron and still done the proper way, show us a working computer.

Someone post a store that you can order the specific good quality capacitors from.

 

[infyrno917]

Some de-soldering braid with a cheap soldering iron is all you need to clear all that solder. Thats all I ever use here at work to repair our motherboards.

 

[shushikiary]

www.digikey.com you can get ALOT of stuff from there... not the best price, but usually decent.

www.mouser.com is also a good source, especialy LARGE aluminum electrolytic caps, like the ones I used to build my gauss and rail guns when I was in college.

oh, and though the explanation of caps was pretty good... caps dont really "conduct" electricity. They are always open, they induce electric (inductors use magnetic) fields in the other plate of the cap... thus making current. However they only do this when there is a voltage CHANGE.

aka I = c*(dV/dt)... current = capacitance times the derivative of voltage with respect to time.... no change in voltage... no current (assuming the cap has reached it's DC state... a standard assumption of this is 5 time constants after it's last change (time constant = capacitance * resistance of circuit cap is in + the caps own parasitics including lead inductance!!!!! (big factor at high frequencies, impedance can be annoying....)).

Also, as side note, the dielectric used in the cap changes it's capacitance as well as it's ESR, it's voltage rating, and it's life expectancy. Higher voltage higher capacitance caps require the dielectric with a higher epsilon (electric permativity), and a higher resistance as to not allow a high leakage current between the cap plates, or else you can boil the dielectric with too much current/heat and BOOM goes the cap. However this is hard to make because not only is it hard to make high epsilon materials, but they tend to like to conduct electricity more... making them even harder to make and more expensive. Also, putting the plates closer together increases their capacitance, but again you need an even higher resistance in the dielectric or else above said will occur.... and if you get too close no matter how good your dielectric is you can arc between the plates = bad as well. At DC voltages caps look like an open, if arcing occurs it will look like a short at DC for short on and off.

Because the evaporating of the electrolyte in aluminum electrolytic caps from heat (current between the plates through the dielectric and causes heat increasing this on top of ambient temps), and other factors that are complicated and I wont get into, using a cap that is rated for a higher voltage than the application you are using it in will effectively increase MTBF (mean time before failure). The typical rule of thumb is to use a cap that is rated at 2x the voltage you will be using it at (when using aluminum electrolytic caps). So if you replace the caps in the system with the same capacitance and low ESR caps, but use a higher voltage rated cap you will decrease the likely hood of failure again... however it will cost a few more cents per cap... lol

 

[FSXFan]

Someone post a store that you can order the specific good quality capacitors from.

I'd like to know a place to get them also. I haven't had time to search yet but if anyone has a couple of links saved they would be much appreciated.

BTW, would this work on a power supply, assuming I can determine it's the capacitor? Surely it would be easier since things aren't as tight as on a mobo. Would it be better than before if they were replaced with better caps, or is this just asking for trouble?

 

[krolo]

I agree that a solder wick works better than a solder sucker IMO. Just as long as you soldering iron is hot enough and clean enough.

Mouser.com is great for all electronics. You can sign up to periodically get a free catalog.

 

[jhansonxi]

I have only replaced caps once on an Aopen AK73-1394. It was for a low-income family that couldn't afford a new board and I didn't have another Socket A board available. The Taiwanese caps around the CPU failed but the rest of the caps on the board were Japanese and didn't have any problems. I have many years of soldering experience so it wasn't difficult for me even without a desoldering station. But it is not an easy job for most people. The primary problem is getting the caps out without pulling out the plating inside the hole. Doing so can short out the internal copper planes and render the board useless or potentially damage the CPU. I preheated the component side of the board to 150°C by putting it over a special preheater (a heat gun could also be used) and desoldered the pins using a large-tip 50W iron and braid. Tip: If the solder doesn't want to flow then add new solder to it.

I was able to cross-reference the caps to another brand but the pin spacing was different. But the AK73-1394 had a dual-footprints for the caps which could accommodate the wider spacing style.

The online stores Digi-Key and Mouser Electronics are both good vendors but I ended up using Newark.