Recapping mobos: good practices?

[Half-Saint]

I have successfully recapped several motherboards and a PSU so far. Here's what I do: I locate bulging caps and replace all caps of that type. If, for example, this means replacing all 3300uF caps, that's what I do. I don't touch anything else! So far this worked for me.

The question is: should all caps be replaced or is what I do fine?

Cheers

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Recapping mobos: good practices?

It's a low cost practice that I have also done with some psus.

Keep in mind thought that there are some brands of caps that can't be trusted at all, as fuhjyyu. Those need to be replaced at sight.

[stj]

Re: Recapping mobos: good practices?

in psu's you should change all the small ones.
they are the ones that can make stuff go bang or similar bad shit.

[kaniki]

Re: Recapping mobos: good practices?

I would say it is a good and bad practice. All the ones of that size are a good thing to do, but if you have say 1000 uf and 1500 uf caps all of the same brand and both crappy brands, but only the 100 uf ones showing bad, then I would replace the 1000 and the 1500 uf ones because caps are somewhat cheap but i would rather replace them all knowing that the work to take everything apart and put it back together is not worth trying to save 1 or 2 dollars.

One side note though. If there are a good known brand in it (rubycon, etc..) and maybe one small spot gets a ton of heat and started frying a cap, then if you can get the same size/type, there is no need to always replace all of that brand/size because the rest are probably fine.

An example of this is I got a Dell PC in one day. Only the one cap at the very front of the board was bad. It had rubycon MBZ caps in it. Only 1 of them was starting to show signs of going bad. it was right next to the hard drive if i remember right. No other of that size around it. I just replaced that 1 cap with the same size and type because there was no need to replace the other ones that were that size at the opposite end of the board.

[Pyr0Beast]

Re: Recapping mobos: good practices?

All on the same power line.

eg. For CPU replace all CPU caps on primary or secondary side.

I've even replaced 8 caps next to the cpu on one board with two good panny's and it worked just fine.

[c_hegge]

Re: Recapping mobos: good practices?

I always replace anything that is a bad brand 330uF and higher on motherboards.