Advice Sought - 13 bad caps on Via VL-33S

[loomis]

Hello. I have a mobo that is rare. It's a socket 423 VIA VL-33s (P4X266) board that--get this--takes PC2100 (DDR266) RAM and *not* rdram!

Thus, I have a P4 1.7ghz CPU and a stick of 512 PC2100 RAM.

Unfortunately, the 13 (all thirteen) 2200 uf 10v 105 degree caps are all leaking badly. It still runs fine though, and has never crashed!

I've recapped a couple arcade game monitor boards before no problem.

Questions: Should I bother trying to save this board? How much harder is it to recap a mobo vs a regular circiut board? Also which caps and from where are best to buy? I searched forums, but it was unclear. I can get 85 degree, but thoso are no good???

Thanks,
Loomis

[willawake]

Re: Advice Sought - 13 bad caps on Via VL-33S

It still runs fine though, and has never crashed!

well its just tempting fate to keep running it in that condition, best to recap while it still posts and your job will be easier. It's your choice whether you want to recap the board, nobody can advise you on that really. its still a good machine for non gaming use.

if you are in the us/canada you can get caps from Topcat owner of these forums if you send him a pm. otherwise check the following link :
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=613

the series to get are mentioned in the link. lower esr, higher ripple is better. it is not recommended to recap the board with 85oC caps, you need low esr 105oC caps. success with 85oC caps depends on their specs, it can result in the board having badcap type performance with new 85oC caps.

[loomis]

Re: Advice Sought - 13 bad caps on Via VL-33S

Thanks for the info thus far.

Would you say that someone who has several times replaced caps on older circuit boards (old arcade monitor boards and pinball boards, old electroic toys, radios, tube amps, etc) could do a cap job on a computer mobo? I ask because I keep reading that comp motherboards are tougher to recap because of board layers. Or is this bunk?

I also see folks talking about using 60W irons on this board. I have always used and been told to use 35W irons! What gives?

Thanks

[MD Willington]

Re: Advice Sought - 13 bad caps on Via VL-33S

Are the capacitors in question GSC brand, pretty much most of the GSC on my DDR + Socket 370 board were bad... So I'm not suprised, hopefully VIA has fixed that little problem with the newer boards, though I've seen GSC on some of the new m-itx boards around here...

[loomis]

Re: Advice Sought - 13 bad caps on Via VL-33S

Yes they are all GSC on the motherboard, but only the largest ones which are 2200uf are leaking.

I do NOT want to replace all of the non-leaking, smaller-value GSC caps on the board, as there are probably 30 of them, and it isn't worth the amount of time and effort involved at that point.