Hardware Insights Forum

Heya
Well I notice how shovenose and others talk about replacing caps and so so I decided to give it a try. I've always been scared to try such things being afraid I might mess up something and blow something up. So here's what happened.

I bought a dell Optiplex for cheap from a yard sale. Decided to fix it up for my 5 yr old son. So I replaced the cpu with a E6300 dual core and popped 3gb of ram in it with a Radeon X300 gpu for so long. But the thing kept on freezing. So I removed the ram tried different sticks another psu. I first thought it was the ram cause it kept on stucking when running mem test or when running mini xp on Hirens boot cd.

But then a mate told me Dell boards are known for they're bad caps and I should check it out. So I inspected the board and what do you know 4 bad caps. So I thought ok get another mobo. But hell the mobos cost more than what the whole pc wouldve cost.

So I wrote down the caps sizes which was 2200muF and went down to the electronics store. Cost me less than 3 dollars for the four of them. Borrowed a soldering iron and a solder sucker from a mate and nervously took the board out and started to go to work. Hell half an hour later I was done and the pc is working perfectly. I wish I took pictures of how I did it but being my first time trying it that was the last thing going through my mind.

I never knew it was so easy. Not much a guy can mess up seeing that the ends is at the bottom and nothing else close to it that you can accidentally hurt with the soldering iron. Never again will I replace a thing by buying something new because of a bad cap.
So yeah I lost my cap virginity

One problem: you have to make sure you use 105c rated low ESR caps! Most electronics shops don't carry those. But congrats On the repair!

They were the exact same caps as the ones I removed. A mate went with me to the store as he fixes LCDs for a living. So he made sure I got the right stuff

Cool. OOC, what brand and series did you use (and what were the failed ones)?

Brands? You get them in brands? They were black with 2200muF standing on it. That's all I know lol. Didn't see a brand name on it or it were to small to notice but I know the pc is working like a charm now. No more freezes. Running like a charm. If they go again then ill just fix them again lol
But maybe then i will look for some brand names lol
Btw what brands are good? Corsair? Seasonic?

I menat brands of capacitors. There are only 6 good ones:

Chemi-Con (except for KZG and KZJ series)


Nichicon (Except HM and HN series with pre-2005 date codes)


Samxon (except GF and GL series)


Rubycon


Panasonic


Sanyo


If it's not one of the above, then you'll have to do this again when your replacment caps fail.

c_hegge wrote:I menat brands of capacitors. There are only 6 good ones:

Chemi-Con (except for KZG and KZJ series)


Nichicon (Except HM and HN series with pre-2005 date codes)


Samxon (except GF and GL series)


Rubycon


Panasonic


Sanyo


If it's not one of the above, then you'll have to do this again when your replacment caps fail.

Thx for that. Think you should make a post explaining the good from the bad. The caps I got were no where near that colours lol they were they same colours as the ones I replaced. But next time I know Thx

The colours aren't so much what tell the brand, since they can vary between series (even in the same brand). It's the markings on them.

c_hegge wrote:The colours aren't so much what tell the brand, since they can vary between series (even in the same brand). It's the markings on them.

I vote against Sanyo- I've recapped a video card that had a bad one.

If it was bad, it would have been because it was overheated or otherwise stressed. Sanyo are just as reliable as panny and rubycon and always have been.