Nvidia 7600 AGP Card Caps

[Karl]

Hi all- newbie first post, first recap here. Thanks for the message board, I've read through it a bit and learned a lot, I'm sure I will learn more with experience.

I've got a couple of questions. 1st, I've got an old Nvidia AGP card with the (much revered) Sacon FZ series caps. 4 of the caps are toast (at least thats what I can tell visibly). Should I just replace all of them? My soldering skills aren't great and would like to try to get away with just replacing the blown ones. Also what would be a good cost efficient replacement? There are only 2 kinds, 10mm 1500uf 6.3v and 8mm 1000uf 6.3v. I was looking at these as replacements:

Samxon Low ESR 1500uF 6.3v 10mm
https://www.badcaps.net/store/produc...products_id=65
and
Samxon Low ESR 1000uF 6.3v 8mm
https://www.badcaps.net/store/produc...products_id=70

Any opinions? Thanks in advance!

[ratdude747]

Re: Nvidia 7600 AGP Card Caps

make the fz go away, those are by far the worst kind seen on mobos/graohic cards.

replace all, those things literally EXPLODE!

find a dead circuit board and practice soldering

what iron/station are you using?

some pics would be nice...

and those caps should be fine. samxons are a good choice when money is a factor.

[c_hegge]

Re: Nvidia 7600 AGP Card Caps

Definately replace ALL sacon FZ, unless you want to pull the card out repair it again. the other caps are guarranteed to fail. They could already be bad, caps can fail without showing it. Sacon are Evercon, which are GSC, which are VERY unreliable.

[Karl]

Re: Nvidia 7600 AGP Card Caps

Thanks for the replies- here are some images of the offending caps.

My iron is a Craftsman 45 watt, and I have 95/5 lead free solder. I got the lead free stuff because I didn't think handling lead solder and breathing it in would be good long term. I saw in a few posts though that others recommend 60/40 lead solder. Not sure it it matters.

[hardwareguy]

Re: Nvidia 7600 AGP Card Caps

If the board was soldered with lead, use 63/37, 60/40 or 62/36/2 silver solder

If its lead free, either remove all the lead free from the joint and use lead or use lead free.

If it has ROHS mentioned anywhere, its lead free.

[Karl]

Re: Nvidia 7600 AGP Card Caps

Thanks for the tips all- caps are ordered and in the mail. I'll post (hopefully positive!) results in the next week or so.

[Karl]

Re: Nvidia 7600 AGP Card Caps

Its alive! I can't believe it- even with my *atrocious* soldering (big chucks of solder on the board) it powered up and ran perfectly on my first run. Wow! Now I did only replace the caps that were visibly blown. I wasn't confident enough in my soldering skills and did not want to try the others until i knew the ones I put on there worked. I have to decide whether I want to risk my bad (apparently good enough) soldering on the others now.

By the way- it did have RoHS on it. I didn't think it would because its an older card. I used my lead free, large gauge solder that I have (that probably led to the big chunks). Anyway- just excited my first recap was a success. Thanks for the tips all. I may post a pic or 2 of the results as soon as I get a chance.

Cheers,
-Karl

[momaka]

Re: Nvidia 7600 AGP Card Caps

Nice work, good to hear it's working again!
If you get a chance, though, do replace all of the FZ caps. Sooner or later they will all go bad and you would have to do this anyways. And don't worry about your soldering skills, I'm sure that won't do more damage than having Sacon FZ caps left on the video card.
By the way, you should try regular 60/40 leaded solder. It would make your job a lot easier since it melts at lower temperature. If you're worried about the fumes, just work outside or open a window while working (but for one video card, I doubt if this matters at all).

[Karl]

Re: Nvidia 7600 AGP Card Caps

Thanks for the advice. I'll swap out the FZ's and put in the good ones.