Old motherboard with dead nichicon's :(

[Pentium4]

So I got an old Compaq system for free, manufactured sometime in late 2002. I opened it and discovered that it has obviously never been cleaned before, it was absolutely filthy. I couldn't even see what color most of the caps were. After cleaning it, I discovered that 3 of the (I think 8) caps right next to the CPU socket were bulging. All of them are nichicon. I tested it and the computer booted into the BIOS. It's got a Socket 478 Pentium 4 2GHz/512K/400 CPU, 2 DDR RAM sticks, a single IDE HDD and 2 optical drives. Think I got unlucky or do you think the heat build up from the dust killed them? Or was that the period when nichicon had a funk and released questionable caps?

I'm also surprised that the 12V on the PSU didn't die, it's only rated at 5A!!! But when I was cleaning it I could see that all the caps in it were Rubycon and it seems to be well built for such an old PSU.

So sitting around, I have a Socket 478 Asus board that I'm pretty sure has a dead AGP slot, and all of the caps next to the CPU on it are Rubycon's. If they are compatible (I can list info when I get home) would it be worth it? Or is it not worth it because of capacitor aging? The Asus is from 2004 and has about 40,000 hours of use on it...Is this a bad idea to replace just some instead of replacing all of them? I was just going to throw a graphics card in there and use it as a side computer for watching videos/internet

Thanks for reading! And I can also upload some pictures when I get home

[mariushm]

Re: Old motherboard with dead nichicon's

The old systems used the 5V rail to feed the processor and possibly also the memory modules.
AGP runs on 3.3v and 1.5v but these are probably also generated from the 5v rail.

So the 12v @ 5A is mainly used by hard drive motors, fans and maybe serial ports and other minor stuff, therefore at that time it was plenty.

Nichicon had the HM series bad from 2002 to 2004 I believe, but I'm not sure right now... maybe also HN was bad around that time, search the forums. It's possible they died due to heat and dust.

As for capacitors compatibility, list the series and values here and you'll get some feedback.

Sure, post pictures. I like to see old hardware.

[Pentium4]

Re: Old motherboard with dead nichicon's

The old systems used the 5V rail to feed the processor and possibly also the memory modules.
AGP runs on 3.3v and 1.5v but these are probably also generated from the 5v rail.

So the 12v @ 5A is mainly used by hard drive motors, fans and maybe serial ports and other minor stuff, therefore at that time it was plenty.

Nichicon had the HM series bad from 2002 to 2004 I believe, but I'm not sure right now... maybe also HN was bad around that time, search the forums. It's possible they died due to heat and dust.

As for capacitors compatibility, list the series and values here and you'll get some feedback.

Sure, post pictures. I like to see old hardware.

I know old systems like S370 used the 5V but I'm pretty positive S478 uses the 12V, as well as the GPU (AGP). And I thought all HDD's/CD Drives use 5V, and 3.3V is used by fans and RAM?

And yeah when I get home I will for sure list the info of the caps from both boards and upload some pics

[mariushm]

Re: Old motherboard with dead nichicon's

There are boards using 5v primarily, especially when it comes to custom oem boards.

See for example:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=P4VX4
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=PE%20PRO
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=P4i45G

You can find boards from ECS or MSI that are without the 12pin connector also easily.

[Pentium4]

Re: Old motherboard with dead nichicon's

Alright so as of now my camera is dead and can't find the charger but I'll upload pics when I can. There were 6 caps in a line and I desoldered 5 of the 6 (one was close to some motherboard paths and left it, I'd be nervous to get solder on it) out of the 5, only about 2 look dead but I figured might as well replace most of them. They are nichichon 2200uf 6.3V 105C HM(M) H0214

The rest look okay, most of the important ones are nichichon, and the less important caps are Teapo (only like 7) but there are also 2 decent sized caps (1000uf) that I've never heard of before, Yageo? How are those? They look like Teapos so they're probably from the same company...

[UserXP]

Re: Old motherboard with dead nichicon's

It is really interesting how there are so many different names for all kind and brand of capacitors which mainly ends with "o" or "con"...

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Old motherboard with dead nichicon's

Intel uses the 4-pin 12 V spec, way before AMD did.

Even in 2002, I would expect 99 percent of boards to have a 4-pin 12 V plug.

Asus' latest board to use 5V was the A7N8X family.

IIRC, it's an Intel violation to use 5V for Pentium 4 and later.

[Pentium4]

Re: Old motherboard with dead nichicon's

Yeah, I figured so. It has a 4 pin 12V connector. And yeah there are so many different brands with similar names!

Anyone know if this was a bad series from nichicon? and what can I replace them with?

[dmill89]

Re: Old motherboard with dead nichicon's

Yeah, I figured so. It has a 4 pin 12V connector. And yeah there are so many different brands with similar names!

Anyone know if this was a bad series from nichicon? and what can I replace them with?

I'd probably go with direct replacements. Nichicon has long since fixed the problem with the HM/HN series and current production caps in those series are very reliable. Since the Nichicon HM caps on your board were produced during a bad run I would recommend replacing all HM/HN caps on that board including the ones that haven't bulged, or you will likely have to repair it again in the future. The Teapos could also be an issue but if they are in non-critical areas and are good you should be ok as long as the board is not used in an application where it is run 24/7 or high reliability is required (i.e. server application), If reliability is a major concern I'd probably replace those as well. I'm not too familiar with Yageo caps, maybe someone else here has some experience with them.