Another question about polarity

[Purrplesocks]

So I've had this busted EVGA graphics card for a while now. It's a FX5500 with 128 mb ram. Yes it's old. But since it's not used for a gaming desktop I have no need to upgrade. I have the capacitors and want to change them out to see if that brings this card back to life. (Also I want to practice and gain some soldering experience from this so please don't tell me to upgrade the card, I know it's old).

That said, I have some rubycon capacitors I'm going to be using. I've read the stripe on the capacitor is on the side with the negative lead.

Now the capacitors that came on the card were some crappy Sacon FZ. 3 of the 5 exploded before the card stopped working. When this was in use I didn't know anything or would have swapped out the caps much sooner. Assuming the stripe on these Sacon FZs is the negative side, that would mean the shaded part on the graphics card corresponds to the positive side. Is this correct? Anyway I can verify before soldering these caps on? Thanks! I've attached a picture. All of the caps were installed in the same orientation. So the capacitor that I removed had the stripe on the non shaded side of the board.

Also I read this post but on this board it had a + sign. My board doesn't show any signs.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=32360

[mariushm]

Re: Another question about polarity

The filled part of the circle on the board is the negative side of the capacitor.... usually. Asrock/Asus likes to fill the positive side.

On this board, there's also a drawing of the footprint common on surface mounted capacitors. It's pretty much standard that the FLAT side of that footprint is always the negative :



So if you're not sure, look at the flat side, see that strip where the lead from capacitor is supposed to be soldered to, check with through hole is connected to that strip.. that's the negative side.

On this video card, it does seem that the filled semicircle is on the positive side of the capacitor.

Often you can also use the continuity mode of your multimeter to spot the negative. Put a probe on a screw or the connectors metal exterior and the other probe on the holes.. the one that does continuity will be negative.

[Purrplesocks]

Re: Another question about polarity

I think I understand what you said about the surface mounted capacitor flat side. The flat side white line continues and crosses one of the through holes, and that through hole should be the negative one. Is that correct?

And I used my multimeter and checked continuity and the through hole with the line running through it was the one that showed continuity with the exterior metal/screws.

So both pieces of advice you gave me matched up so now I feel pretty confident that the shaded part of the circle is the positive side on this card and that the original capacitors were installed correctly and were just crap rather than me thinking somehow they had been installed backwards.

Thank you so much for the quick and informative response. I'm actually really glad that you answered with the additional information so that I can now (hopefully) be able to verify the negative lead on the board myself from now on rather than you just giving me the answer and me have to post every time. Thanks very much!!