Shuttle SFX (FV24) Motherboard with bad caps!!

[Topcat]

Everyone seems to have gone on a craze buying these SFX (small form-factor) systems... Until last week, I've never seen one up close... All I saw of this one was the defective motherboard with bad capacitors!! I am not sure what Shuttle model it is, as it's not printed on the board. It has a 1.4GHz Tualatin-S 512k L2 CPU in it though, so it's not their lowest-end model...

There is a photo taken BEFORE it was recapped! Note the 3 large caps by the CPU heatsink with the bulged tops... This board/system is less than 18 months old... It's kinda sad the shoddy components Shuttle used. These capacitors are marked with the 'Gloria' brand, which I've nevr even heard of until I encountered this board.

The 3 big caps were a strange value, 3900uF 6.3v caps, they were wide open!! My Sencore LC102 wouldn't read from them at all. I couldn't locate any 3900uF capacitors in a timely fashion, so I replaced them with Nichicon 3300uF 10v caps. 3300uF is within the 20% tolerance of 3900uF, so I tried them. I also replaced 6 - 1000uF 16v caps, and 2 - 2200uH 6.3v caps for a total of 11. The board is now working perfectly! The 3300uF substitution worked fine. The next step would have been 4700uF had the 3300uF caps failed, but they didn't, so all is spiffy!!

This just goes to show that this will happen to much newer hardware, not just older stuff...

[clsk]

thats a fv24 from shuttles sv25 series (i think), i concidered it dead (wouldnt get past memory check) untill a few days ago when i decided to look it over and noticed the leaky 1000uf 6.3v caps, about every one had residue on the top, i replaced the 2 worst, left 4 caps becuase they didnt seem bad besides a few little specs of residue, and i didnt want to push my luck. board runs fine now.

[kc8adu]

i have done a few of these and my advice(and probably topcats)is to change all low esr caps on these boards.
any bulging/leaking means they are dead.
just because it is working now doesnt mean it will tomorrow or next week.

[Topcat]

Yes, I am aware that the board is an FV24 now. I didn't know that at the time, and the owner didn't know either. The board wasn't marked with a model # as far as I could see. Since I posted this topic, I've received a bunch more of these to recap, and found out the model number. I've updated the subject header, thanks for pointing that out, I forgot about it!

Most definitely replace all the lytics on this board, they are all known to fail.

[clsk]

thanks for the advice kc8adu! i worked up the courage to pull out my 2$ iron and replace them all,and it works beautifully, thanks again for the advice guys

[willawake]

Hope this shuttle SFF based 16 node cluster does not end up the same way. It is at national technical university of athens.





each is a p4 3ghz, 512mb, 80gb.

[gg1978]

Well, i've got an interesting Shuttle story to tell. A friend of mine was having problems with his SS51G, specifically the video was flaking out. Both the onboard, and the Geforce 4 Ti 4600 he had in it. Taking the Ti4600 out didn't fix it. So i popped into the BIOS setup, and the +3.3V was only reading +2.5 or +2.6V. Hrm, i said, and i backprobed the ATX connector, and i did get +3.3V from the back, so i thought the Hardware monitor chip was off, or perhaps that was the Vdimm voltage.

So i pull the ATX connector off, and all 3 of the +3.3V lines are scorched and carbonized, which was reflected by the ~0.7V drop between the +3.3V i measured and the +2.6V seen by the hardware monitor chip. Since it was toast,he gave it to me, and i've fixed it by doing some rework on the ATX connector. The original power supply failed with a bang, so i had to get a replacement PSU too.

The caps on it are good though, so i know it wasn't them..

[Chris1992]

Will, that 16xShuttle cluster looks cool.

[Chris1992]

It'd be a gigantic job to recap.

[shuttle-misery]

Re: Shuttle SFX (FV24) Motherboard with bad caps!!

I have an SV24 with bad capacitors which I intend to change, but I'm hoping for a little advice first. I'm in the UK, so sadly can't order a replacement kit from badcaps.net

I have found suitable replacements for the 6x 8mm 1000uF and 3x 12.5mm 3900uF caps, but can't find 10mm ones in 2700uF. I have tried Farnell, DigiKey, RS and even - in desperation - Maplin.

I figure I have three options:
a) just leave them on there and hope they don't go bad (assuming they haven't already)
b) use 12.5mm 2700uF or 3300uF caps and leave them standing off the board (as they won't fit flush next to each other)
c) use 10mm 2200uF caps instead (is this safe on this board?)

I'd really appreciate any input/advice that anyone has. TIA.

[arneson]

Re: Shuttle SFX (FV24) Motherboard with bad caps!!

Nice picture, that giant cluster looks like a Rubiks Cube, and you know what happens to those. ( Thrown against wall after an hour?)
I especially like those four center units, think there's much heat there?

[AK0R]

Re: Shuttle SFX (FV24) Motherboard with bad caps!!

I have an SV24 with bad capacitors which I intend to change, but I'm hoping for a little advice first. I'm in the UK, so sadly can't order a replacement kit from badcaps.net

I have found suitable replacements for the 6x 8mm 1000uF and 3x 12.5mm 3900uF caps, but can't find 10mm ones in 2700uF. I have tried Farnell, DigiKey, RS and even - in desperation - Maplin.

I figure I have three options:
a) just leave them on there and hope they don't go bad (assuming they haven't already)
b) use 12.5mm 2700uF or 3300uF caps and leave them standing off the board (as they won't fit flush next to each other)
c) use 10mm 2200uF caps instead (is this safe on this board?)

I'd really appreciate any input/advice that anyone has. TIA.

As mentioned above, and elsewhere in this forum, several people have replaced the 3900uF capacitors with 3300uF units, and the 2700uF capacitors with 2200µf ones, with no ill effects.