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[bobross419]

I think I remember reading an article on anandtech about replacing bulging capacitors on your motherboard, but I can't find it anymore. Could someone please help point me in the right direction?

Thanks,
Bob

 

[eplebnista]

Best place for info on replacing caps

 

[Scarpozzi]

Wow....interesting site.

I've seen quite a few capacitors fail over the years. They're normally a result of heat buildup and cheap parts. I recommend going with MCM, Shields, or Mouser Electronics. All three have a good component supply. You just need to figure out exactly what you need to do the job. I'm not a big fan of newer equipment because the circuitry is so small. It takes a steady hand, a hot soldering iron, and a good solder remover to do the job quickly without damaging the board or other parts.

I had a video card drop 3 caps on me last year, but I was lucky enough to have the company replace it with no questions asked. (even though it was out of warranty) You might want to call the manufacturer and see if they can save you some work....

 

[Atheus]

For a regular cap just snip the wires and solder to those - I wouldn't want to try and de-solder it as it might be connected to any layer of the 6 or so that your mobo PCB has.

 

[bobross419]

Well, I went ahead and used some of the information from the badcaps site linked above. We have 2 Dell Optiplex 280's at work that are out of warranty and have bad motherboards. One of them had obviously bulging capacitors. I just pulled some off of one to replace these. I desoldered the points instead of using Atheus' method, and when I resoldered and put everything back together it fired up. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: Atheus
For a regular cap just snip the wires and solder to those - I wouldn't want to try and de-solder it as it might be connected to any layer of the 6 or so that your mobo PCB has.

Unless the board manufacturer did something really inventive, the capacitors should all either be surface-mounted (for smaller-value caps) or soldered into plated through-holes (which are metal-plated all the way around the hole, through all of the layers) that are only electrically connected where they need to be.

tl;dr - You don't need to worry about what layers your capacitors are connected to.

 

[Bulk Beef]

I had a client's Dell blow a few caps, and Dell replaced the board even though it was out of warranty by about six months. Not sure how old your machines are, but it could be worth a phone call.

I also recapped an ECS board that had about 6 blown caps. Pain in the ass. It works, but the machine is a lot slower than I remembered, so I don't even bother using it. It was a worthwhile learning exercise, though.

 

[bobross419]

Originally posted by: Bulk Beef
I had a client's Dell blow a few caps, and Dell replaced the board even though it was out of warranty by about six months. Not sure how old your machines are, but it could be worth a phone call.

I also recapped an ECS board that had about 6 blown caps. Pain in the ass. It works, but the machine is a lot slower than I remembered, so I don't even bother using it. It was a worthwhile learning exercise, though.

Honestly, these machines were ready for the trash, but since we still have a few users with the 280 models and we need machines available to swap out in case something crashes (don't ask why the company doesn't get new machines when warranty is out *sigh*). I was bored at work so decided to give it a shot... I figured this way I could get in some practice and not have to worry about breaking my own equipment