How hard is it to replace blown capacitors?

[AnitaPeterson]

Hi there,

I used to be pretty handy with a soldering gun and iron, some 15 years go, when I was into electronics, and assembling all kinds of gizmos from kits...

Now, I have a few blown capacitors on a Creative (!) motherboard, and I'm thinking about replacing them, so I can donate my old computer to my in-laws....

I'm trying to minimize costs as savagely as possible, so don't tell me to ship the mobo someplace for repair...

How difficult is it to replace blown capacitors? I figure they would cost something like a buck each at Radio Shack... I just need to find the right ones, desolder - or cut - the old pieces, and place the new ones instead.

For those who did this before - was it complicated and time-consuming? What soldering iron did you use and how fine was the tip?) Any special procedures? Is a vacuum solder pump absolutely necessary?

My father-in-law - who would receive the computer, anyway - is an electronics technician, so the alternative would be to just send him the machine, tell fim to replace the bad caps and that's it.... Except for two things:

1) I don't know if the mobo wasn't damaged when the capacitors died (could it have been?)
2) my father-in-law has never touched the insides of a computer in his life.

Suggestions or ideas?

 

[Killrose]

They are pretty easy to replace. You can get them from Mouser.com or Digi-key.com.
They are polarized I believe so you have to pay attention to polarity when you remove the old one and put the new ones in.

Mouser does not have a minimum, and you can get good quality replacements cheap. Get the readings off the old ones and cross-refrence them online. You might have to measure them for hight, width and span between pins.

 

[Savage71953]

Thry www.badcaps.com . They can supply you with what you need for a reasonable sum of money and if memory serves, they have a pretty good tutorial on replacing capacitors on motherboards.