Mixing and matching cap values

[Fatal0E]

Did an Epox board today, it is running prime 95 now.

It had 2 sections of caps around the cpu, each section had 3 2200uf caps.

I figure that equaled out to 6600 per section.

So i removed the caps and replaced with 2 3300uf caps in each section.

Is there any disadvantage to this?

[Topcat]

I normally recommend against changing the cap values unless either you know exactly how the circuit is designed, or you have no other choice and the substitutes are close (within the 20% tolerance of the original). If you subbed 3300uF caps in place of 2200uF caps and the board is working, it will probably be ok. If the board starts doing strange things or has strange instabilities, change the caps back to their original values and see if it goes away.

However, under NO circumstances should you ever decrease the capacitor voltage rating!! This can have serious adverse and destructive consequences!! I've seen some Gigabyte boards use 25v caps when there is only 4v at their positions, in which case I used 6.3v and 10v caps. Although, before I substituted that, I thoroughly checked each position for the voltage, so as a rule of thumb, it's OK to increase the caps voltage rating, but never decrease.