FSP AU-500 Aurum series

[bluebear]

Background
My FSP AU-500 served me well during 5 years with no problems.
Then all of a sudden my ASUS main board warned for inconsistent power and then shut down the system. After a few shutdowns I changed to an older corsair CX400 and all was well.
Tried the AU-500 in a another system to see if it was the anti-surge in the ASUS motherboard causing the problem. Worked well on a gigabyte 880g for a few hours with some load on it and then again it restarted. Tried again and this time it shutdown not wanting to start at all.
As my warranty was nullified during RMA, due to damaged package during shipping, I now have it back wanting to try and fix this.

Description
5vsb ok (5.025v no load)
Intermittently refuses to start. Fans twitching but nothing more.
When it do start it stays on, at least long enough to check voltages.

Testing
With a 5w load i have the following

First
-12: -12.262v
+12: 12.069v
5v: 5.065v
3.3: 3.334v
VSB 5.020v
PG: 3.746v

Second
-12: -12.424
+12: 12.460 and climbing to 12.494
+5: 4.904
3.3: 3.334v
VSB: 5.02v
PG: 3.505v

Caps (All measures in circuit)
4 3300uf 10v Capxcon
2 3300uf 16v Capxcon
1 2200uf 16v OST
1 ? Brown

1 47uf 35v Capxcon near FSP IC 6600
(57uF 0 esr)
1 4.7uf 50v Capxcon near FSP IC 6601
(5.2uf 3.3esr)

1 100uF 50v ?(Nippon) Brown near mosfet
1 270uF 400v Nippon-Chemicon

There is no sign of bulging caps and in circuit measures of the larger Caps does not reveal anything had 7600uF and 0 esr, but again its in circuit.

It could be a problem with the control circuits fail-safe triggering on a false reading or damaged. I´m looking at the two caps near the FSP ICs.

I am surprised to find this many Capxcon in here.

Any suggestions?

[Per Hansson]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

To get reliable measurements you have to desolder the caps.
CapXon KF being 5 years old; it would be surprising if both ESR & capacitance is still within spec!

[zx8401]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

I would remove the capacitors that are close to the smaller yellow transformer, test those for low esr.
The 5v standby supply is used to feed the control chips of the whole thing, so make sure the standby voltage is stable.
Thats my starting point :-)

[bluebear]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

To get reliable measurements you have to desolder the caps.
CapXon KF being 5 years old; it would be surprising if both ESR & capacitance is still within spec!

Yes that is my plan, I will report back with the correct measures.

[bluebear]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

Ok here are the caps out of circuit with pcb numbers for future referens:
Measured value(CAP,ESR)

C45 Capxcon KF 1000uF 16v (979, 0.01) 8mm
C43 OST 2200uF 16v (2000, 0.00) 10mm
C42 Capxcon KF 3300uF 16v (3250, 0.00) 10mm
C44 Capxcon KF 3300uF 16v (3240, 0.00) 10mm
C49 TEAPO 4700uF 10v (4820, 0.00) 10mm
C50 Capxcon KF 2200uF 10v (2400, 0.02) 8mm
C47 Capxcon KF 3300uF 10v (3600, 0.00) 10mm
C37 Capxcon KF 3300uF 10v (3940, 0.00) 10mm
C46 Capxcon KF 3300uF 10v (3880, 0.00) 10mm
+1 Capxcon KF 3300uF 10v (3788. 0.00) 10mm
Note no number but adjacent to C46

The 0.00 ESR is odd, but that might be my meter lacking granularity
What do I put there instead?
Any thoughts?

[stj]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

c50 onwards.
any time you have a noticably higher uF reading than the cap it's a red flag!
does your tester show leakage current?

[bluebear]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

@stj
Maybe I should have mentioned the meter, it is the ESR-micro v4.0 no leak current. I saw your tip for a ESR meter and I ordered one.

[stj]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

i would panasonic the whole psu personally.

[bluebear]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

i would panasonic the whole psu personally.

Yes that´s the plan. FC/FM series or do you have any other suggestion?

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

isnt the aurum series supposed to be a full japcap psu? bait and switch again?

[stj]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

i would use FR where possible, where they are too big i use FK

[Stefan Payne]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

isnt the aurum series supposed to be a full japcap psu? bait and switch again?

Aurum CM is, the 'normal' is not.

[momaka]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

Yes that´s the plan. FC/FM series or do you have any other suggestion?

Any of the series listed here should work:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...22&postcount=9

c50 onwards.
any time you have a noticably higher uF reading than the cap it's a red flag!
does your tester show leakage current?

+1
High leakage current will inflate the capacitance and decrease the ESR. Makes the cap look good on the ESR meter when it actually isn't.

[bluebear]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

@momaka & stj
Cheers, that clear things up.

[Behemot]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

isnt the aurum series supposed to be a full japcap psu? bait and switch again?

Only the modular, Aurum CM or something like that was the name.

I've recently noticed that if the batteries are weak, the meter shows higher capacitance! They may have good enough no-load voltage but high internal resistance. Mine showed 5.8-5.9 V but when measuring it was dropping to 5.4. And when put in v4.0si, the meter did not even turn on After swapping batteries it measures as expected again. So check that, the caps may actually be fine…

You also have to calibrate each time when you change where you measure from - when from probes, calibrate the probes. When from socket, calibrate for socket. The leads have internal resistance of about 0.3-0.4 ohm so that may greatly affect the measurement.

[bluebear]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

@behemot

Thanks for the tips, I will check that.

Edit:
Changed batteries, they were on the low side and followed your direction on measuring not with leads. C45 1000uf changed ESR to 0.02 from 0.01 the others are like the first measurement.

[shakaboonga]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

+1 for the Panasonic caps. I too have a PSU made by FSP (Hexa model) and it has these BS CrapXon / OST / Teapo capacitors - soon to be replaced with Panny / Nichicon.

In my PSU, no capacitors were bulged, but most test bad on capacity and / or ESR! Especially the small ones (1uf, 2.2uf, 10uf) , they are all out of spec. If you are replacing caps in your PSU, make sure to replace'em all .

Good luck with the recapping.

[Behemot]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

Let me know if you'll want Chemi-Cons, I got them wayyyy cheaper than Panasonic and I got custom 3300/16 D10 KZN which no other quality manufacturer is making.

[bluebear]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

This project semi stalled as I moved on to others. To "recap", all capacitors on the secondary side was replaced with nippon-chemicon/Rubycon including the small IC caps for the two FSP chips.

Had a short test run and it worked really well with stable voltages and powered on every time. I shelved it as a good replacement for later use.
Success? No.

I tried it today for a secondary machine and i behaves like before. Twitching fan, when it powers on its usually not for long.
Measured voltages:
5vsb: 5.0V
5v: 5.0v
3.3v: 3.3v
12v: 12.6v


So this project is back on, any tips where to look next?

[stj]

Re: FSP AU-500 Aurum series

see if you missed any.
FSP is well known for hiding one or two caps in black heatshrink tubing.