Here's somewhat of an oddity that I recapped. It came with mostly Rubycon and a few Gemicons. All of the caps -- even the good ones -- were beginning to leak from their bungs, so everything was replaced. Unfortunately collectors don't know how to fix these cards and leave them in a catastrophic state.
A much better output section (overrated the 100uF decoupling cap to 220uF, there's only one due to the fact OPL2 is mono):
The Yamaha OPL2 chip originally had a sticker placed on top it for twofold reasons: #1 at the time a lot of OPL2 chips were covered up or had their logos melted, my guess is to hide the fact they came from Japan. #2 Creative didn't want to show they used 3rd party chips for their main synthesis and as previously mentioned, didn't want to advertise a Japanese company on their product like what some American companies did.
Here you can see how (lazy?) Creative was with the microchannel card edge connector:
The majority of the teeth don't go to any traces, and they didn't even bother to add teeth on the second notch; most likely due to the fact the card is still 8-bit internally, and microchannel is 16-bit. The socketed CHIPS IC is what performs the ISA to MCA conversions. This is essentially a SB 2.0 with a quick wrap-over... despite looking quite different.
Also, this card has *nice* wide open vias, and a strong solder mask. It was a dream to work on. One of the easiest recappings I have ever done, if not the easiest. It'll be fun to mess around with when I have some free time...
A much better output section (overrated the 100uF decoupling cap to 220uF, there's only one due to the fact OPL2 is mono):
The Yamaha OPL2 chip originally had a sticker placed on top it for twofold reasons: #1 at the time a lot of OPL2 chips were covered up or had their logos melted, my guess is to hide the fact they came from Japan. #2 Creative didn't want to show they used 3rd party chips for their main synthesis and as previously mentioned, didn't want to advertise a Japanese company on their product like what some American companies did.
Here you can see how (lazy?) Creative was with the microchannel card edge connector:
The majority of the teeth don't go to any traces, and they didn't even bother to add teeth on the second notch; most likely due to the fact the card is still 8-bit internally, and microchannel is 16-bit. The socketed CHIPS IC is what performs the ISA to MCA conversions. This is essentially a SB 2.0 with a quick wrap-over... despite looking quite different.
Also, this card has *nice* wide open vias, and a strong solder mask. It was a dream to work on. One of the easiest recappings I have ever done, if not the easiest. It'll be fun to mess around with when I have some free time...
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