Recapping: What brands work best?

[Kong]

I'm looking to replace some blown capacitors on my motherboard (an MSI K8N Neo4) and I have a few question about getting started with that:

1. What capacitor brands are currently known to work the best?

2. Should I replace all of the capacitors on the motherboard or just the damaged ones and the ones that are known to be poor quality? The motherboard only has 4 obviously vented capacitors.

3. I'm fairly new to buying capacitors online and when searching online stores for them there are usually a ton of filters that can be applied to a search. What are the most important filters to know? Can I get away with knowing just the capacitance, voltage rating, and physical dimensions, or do I need to know and match every other detail as well?

4. What wire gauge of solder works best?

Thanks!


Extended information

There are 18 KZG capacitors, 13 KZE, 4 KMG, 2 Nichicons, and 1 that I can't identify by brand.

KZG - 8) 1000uF 6.3V caps, 5) 3300uF 6.3V caps, 4) 1500uF 16V caps, 1) 470uf 16V cap,

KZE - 9) 470uF 10V caps, 4) 100uF 25V caps

KMG - 2) 470uF 6.3V caps, 1) 470uF 10V cap, 1) 100uF 16V cap

Nichicon - 2) 680uF 10V caps

Mystery Capacitor - 1) 1800uF 6.3V cap

[mariushm]

Re: Recapping: What brands work best?

Which capacitors are good? See this: https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2280 (with the mention that there's also Panasonic FR series that is new since the post was made and it's better than FM in some cases)

Where should you buy them? See this: https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=613

What series works to replace another series?

You basically have to match the impedance (ESR) and ripple values AND then dimensions (the diameter, as the new capacitor should fit in the room you have on the board).
* ESR/Impedance of new capacitor must be equal or lower than old one's value.
* Ripple must be equal or higher than the old capacitor series.

KZG series is a known series with problems. KZE is fine, KMG I don't know. Nichicon generally don't have problems but there could be problematic caps by the processor where they're subjected to lots of heat.

For the area near the processor, you need series with very low ESR... Nichicon HN and HZ spring to mind.

As a practical example, let's say 3300uF 6.3v KZG. Look up the datasheet :



3,300uF 10x25 0.012 ohm 2,800 mA ripple

So this is probably very close to the processor, therefore it needs low ESR (12 mOhm is already very low)... hence I'm going to look at Nichicon HN or HZ as it's easy to find series:

HN:

3300uF , 10 x 25 9 mOhm 3190mA ripple .... ripple is higher, OK . ESR is lower, OK

HZ:

3300uF 10 x 25 6.5 mOhm 4690mA ripple ... ripple is higher, OK. ESR is lower, OK

So both these series are good ESR and ripple wise, dimensions also match... it's a winner.

Now in general you must pay attention that if the ESR is TOO low, there can be problems in some cases. 6.5 mOhm and 9mOhm is not much lower than the original 12 mOhm so it's ok in this case to go with these series.

However, if the original capacitor had - let's say - 30mOhm (0.03 ohm) and we go with a 6.5 mOhm replacement there may be problems long term with the board.

Doesn't matter which wire gauge you go with - generally I use very thin gauge solder as it makes it easy to apply only enough solder as needed. I use the 63/37 variety, with no-clean flux core.

Stick to 60/40 or 63/37 types of solder (both contain Lead), they're much easier to work with and the lead is really not that toxic or dangerous for you.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: Recapping: What brands work best?

2. Should I replace all of the capacitors on the motherboard or just the damaged ones and the ones that are known to be poor quality? The motherboard only has 4 obviously vented capacitors.

Even if you plan to change all the caps, it may be best to replace only a few at a time and test before proceeding further, to make it easier to track down bad solder joints, as I learned from my first recap. I had a mobo that still worked OK but had a few popped caps. I changed all of them at once and couldn't find any bad joints under a strong light and magnifying glass, but the mobo was dead. It took me me over a half hour to find a solder bridge between one of the new cap leads and the surrounding ground plane.

[ratdude747]

Re: Recapping: What brands work best?

Even if you plan to change all the caps, it may be best to replace only a few at a time and test before proceeding further, to make it easier to track down bad solder joints, as I learned from my first recap. I had a mobo that still worked OK but had a few popped caps. I changed all of them at once and couldn't find any bad joints under a strong light and magnifying glass, but the mobo was dead. It took me me over a half hour to find a solder bridge between one of the new cap leads and the surrounding ground plane.

I'd suggest evaluating every joint BEFORE you cut the excess leads. That way such an error wouldn't be missed in the first place.

---

Cap choices:

I'd like to add that when picking capacitors, you need to:

-Match (or come very close to): Capacitence, ripple, ESR
-Match or exceed: Voltage*

*On a PC mobo or GPU, anything above 16V can be replaced with 16V if the other specs match up. In addition, anything 10V can be subbed for a 6.3V in the same fashion.

[rilski]

Re: Recapping: What brands work best?

Some good info already posted. But my 2 cents on this:

A 105C+ rating and the capcitence, ripple and a low ESR value is what you want.

Rubycon and Nichicon brands are well known for "GOOD" caps, atleast that's my take on it.