Recapping a GA-M57SLI-S4 - advice needed

[amartolos]

This board is functional (at least boots up into BIOS, I did not install yet an operating system). It is however sprinkled with KZG's, and because of my bad experience with them I would replace them preemptively.

We have:
4x 3300uF 6.3V UCC KZG (10mm)
24x 1000uF 6.3V UCC KZG (8mm)
6x 470uF 16V TK ATWY (8mm)

I plan to order some parts for other projects from Digikey, so I'd put everything in one order. The closest I could find there would be Nichicon HM for 3300 and 1000 uF and Panasonic FM for 470uF.

My question is, will a higher ESR (0.028 compared to 0.021 Ohm for 1000uF, 0.038 compared to 0.036 Ohm for 470uF) be detrimental on this board? Ripple current is higher in all cases.

I could order Nichicons HZ and HN from badcaps.net, but I want to avoid splitting the order.

There are also some small Evercon capacitors, 9 with 100uF/10V, one with 100uF/16V and one with 22uF/25V. Should I replace them while I am still at it, and with what kind of capacitors? There is no type written on them.

Here are some pictures: near the CPU, in addition to the 3300uF KZGs there are some Rubycon caps. The 1000uF are scattered everywhere, they can be easily distinguished from the TK's looking at the vent.

[Pentium4]

Re: Recapping a GA-M57SLI-S4 - advice needed

I would replace the Evercons as well, they are horrible. I would use HN or Panasonic FL

[c_hegge]

Re: Recapping a GA-M57SLI-S4 - advice needed

Those Nichicon HMs should be just fine. I often use them to replace KZG. For the 470uF caps, the FMs should do fine there too. I doubt if those are in high-stress areas, but TK don't need to be stressed to fail prematurely.

Oh, and I'd also stick a fan on the chipset. Since it's nVidia, it will have the underfill defect, so give it all the cooling you can throw at it.

[amartolos]

Re: Recapping a GA-M57SLI-S4 - advice needed

Thanks for the quick replies. I think I'll go then with the HMs for 1000uF/6.3V. I actually used them for recapping some Asrock boards, but in those cases they were replacing Ltec LZPs which are inferior to the KZGs.

For the Evercons I did not find HNs or FLs, but for the other boards I used Nichicon VZ 100uF/16V, I think they should work here too.

And... nVidia, underfill defect? I had to look it up because I had heard only very marginally about this. My head is spinning now: how many hidden problems are with PC hardware, in general, that one should know beforehand? Maybe a database would be not bad... remember the Pentium bug? I will surely not neglect cooling in this case. Probably that shiny "Gigabyte" plate on the heatsink will need to find another place, it just blocks the air around the fins. Actually, it might be a good idea to properly stress-test the board before recapping...

[c_hegge]

Re: Recapping a GA-M57SLI-S4 - advice needed

Yeah, pull that plate off. That chipset heat sink looks big enough for two fans without the plate (although that's probably not necessary. one should do the job).