AOpen i915ga-plf: Capacitors ready to buy, need confirmation

[cisasteelersfan]

Hi everyone,

I have the AOpen i915ga-plf. I have been experiencing spontaneous reboots and upon inspection of the motherboard, 3 capacitors near the CPU (under the heatsink) are bad. 1 has some discharge at the top while two are bulged on top. They are Rubycon 680uF at 4V. I have found these capacitors and would like to make sure they are compatible:

http://www.mouser.com/Search/Product...7-PLF0G681MDO1

Can anyone confirm that these will work? Thank you very much!

[c_hegge]

Re: AOpen i915ga-plf: Capacitors ready to buy, need confirmation

They might work but they are a bit tall and may not fit under your heat sink. when poly-modding, you can drop the capacitance a bit, so these (http://au.mouser.com/ProductDetail/N...o6vuOYoxMA0%3d) would be perfect (and yes, 2.5v is OK since they are on the VRM low side which is no more than 1.5v). Also, check your PSU, since rubycon caps shouldn't have failed.

[Old Thrashbarg]

Re: AOpen i915ga-plf: Capacitors ready to buy, need confirmation

Yeah, the height is likely to be an issue.

I don't know if I'd wanna drop the capacitance in this case, though, since that board looks to be a bit light on bulk capacitance to begin with... from the pictures I can find of that board, I only count seven of those 680uf caps. I'd go with the 820uf 2.5V ones instead... they're the same size as the 560uf ones, and they're cheaper anyway.

[cisasteelersfan]

Re: AOpen i915ga-plf: Capacitors ready to buy, need confirmation

Thanks for the quick response! I will go ahead and order the 820uF ones just to be safe. I totally forgot about the height! Thanks for saving me a bunch of trouble!

I think the caps went bad because of a thermal issue. The heatsink hadn't been cleaned out in years and the computer would shut off due to a thermal event. I've seen the CPU get up over 70C and then shut off. So I bought some Arctic Silver, cleaned the heatsink real good and now it doesn't go above about 50-55C. I guess that could have ruined the caps?

Another issue- when I take the caps out, I need to clean out the holes? I don't have any fancy equipment; would my best bet be to heat up a pin and clean it out with that?

Thanks again for the quick response! You guys rock!

[severach]

Re: AOpen i915ga-plf: Capacitors ready to buy, need confirmation

Enough heat will kill any cap.

I find that pins and needles don't work well. The pointed tip is hostile to hole clearing, they are the wrong size, they bend easy, and solder sticks whether stainless or not. For hole clearing I use a 0.8mm drill chucked into a pin vice aka hand vice. The drill goes in backwards so the butt end does the work. We're trying to push, not drill. The drill also works in a small needle nose vice grip but is more clumsy to use.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: AOpen i915ga-plf: Capacitors ready to buy, need confirmation

I use needles that are the correct size in an exacto knife handle and I've never had problems with them sticking.

[nish_pinto]

Re: AOpen i915ga-plf: Capacitors ready to buy, need confirmation

These are Alumn 680Uf 2.5v caps.