So I was recapping a Soyo KT400 today, removing all the shiny Sacons and replacing them with FJ, HM and HN and took some capacitance and ESR measurements on the removed Sacons.
The 1500uf were all good, ESR=.05, Capacitance 1520 - 1550. The 1000uf were all high in capacitance 1300 - 1600, ESR-.06.
This board had no bulgers, I just pre-emptively replace Sacon.
The Sacon FZs on my EVGA board were all blown. That series is definitely crap.
All the bulgers (of all brands) I've seen have been in the VRM area or beside the ram slots. They have all been the "bad cap" brands.
These are the high-demand areas on the motherboard. I've never seen a high-quality cap blown on any motherboard, then again I avoid SFF Prescott P4s. I have several working boards covered with KZG/KZJ that function perfectly.
I have seen a lot of older boards with high-quality caps everywhere that just would not boot or load an operating system.
The problem is often the 1000uf 6.3v 8x11 caps. The can is just too small
They dry out. Each cap may be "off a little", but together they sink the board.
When I replaced the 1200uf Ruby ZLs in the VRM of my Asus TR-DLS server boards with new Nichi HMs, the reported temps fell 10 degrees! Both high-quality, but the server had been used hard!
When I replaced the 100uf 16v caps near the SCSI chip, SCSI started working again.
My conclusions: Always replace no-name caps in the VRM and Ram areas with the really good stuff. Generally replace any 8x11 1000uf caps with 8x15 where possible.
Replace any ridiculously small can sizes like 4x7.
If the G-Luxon, Jackcon, Lelon, LTEC or whatever is not in a critical area,
use your own judgement.
This does not extend to the real bad actors like F-you, Sacon, Evercon, GSC etc.
If it's a Prescott flamethrower use the best everywhere and hope you get and stay lucky. Then again, I can buy good P4 boards with CPU and Heatsink, socket 775 for $20 locally, so I have never bothered recapping one.
I like my Intel 915GAV with 3.2Ghz Prescott.
If it's an older server board, and it's not running right, and you NEED it, replace all the caps. Or just buy a newer one.
Replacing every cap on a board is time consuming!
My 2-cents worth!
The 1500uf were all good, ESR=.05, Capacitance 1520 - 1550. The 1000uf were all high in capacitance 1300 - 1600, ESR-.06.
This board had no bulgers, I just pre-emptively replace Sacon.
The Sacon FZs on my EVGA board were all blown. That series is definitely crap.
All the bulgers (of all brands) I've seen have been in the VRM area or beside the ram slots. They have all been the "bad cap" brands.
These are the high-demand areas on the motherboard. I've never seen a high-quality cap blown on any motherboard, then again I avoid SFF Prescott P4s. I have several working boards covered with KZG/KZJ that function perfectly.
I have seen a lot of older boards with high-quality caps everywhere that just would not boot or load an operating system.
The problem is often the 1000uf 6.3v 8x11 caps. The can is just too small
They dry out. Each cap may be "off a little", but together they sink the board.
When I replaced the 1200uf Ruby ZLs in the VRM of my Asus TR-DLS server boards with new Nichi HMs, the reported temps fell 10 degrees! Both high-quality, but the server had been used hard!
When I replaced the 100uf 16v caps near the SCSI chip, SCSI started working again.
My conclusions: Always replace no-name caps in the VRM and Ram areas with the really good stuff. Generally replace any 8x11 1000uf caps with 8x15 where possible.
Replace any ridiculously small can sizes like 4x7.
If the G-Luxon, Jackcon, Lelon, LTEC or whatever is not in a critical area,
use your own judgement.
This does not extend to the real bad actors like F-you, Sacon, Evercon, GSC etc.
If it's a Prescott flamethrower use the best everywhere and hope you get and stay lucky. Then again, I can buy good P4 boards with CPU and Heatsink, socket 775 for $20 locally, so I have never bothered recapping one.
I like my Intel 915GAV with 3.2Ghz Prescott.
If it's an older server board, and it's not running right, and you NEED it, replace all the caps. Or just buy a newer one.
Replacing every cap on a board is time consuming!
My 2-cents worth!
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