Asus P4T-E

[bovik]

Hi everyone.
I came across this forum when looking for an answer to if my caps are replaceable. My computer went totally dead (after a freeze) just before christmas so I ordered some new parts (mb, cpu, mem) which got here this week. Anyway, when I removed the heatsink from the old cpu I noticed three of my caps had some brown "topping". They are marked nichicon 1500μF 6.3V.

I will have a look around the forum to see if it would be manageable for me to change them. If there is a tutorial somewhere I'd appreciate a link. I've never done anything like that but on the other hand I can't really trash anything valuable since the board is not being used anymore. Would be fun if I could make it work however.

/bovik, Sweden

[Rainbow]

Re: Asus P4T-E

OMG, Nichicon HD too?!

[linuxguru]

Re: Asus P4T-E

Yup, it looks like the black plastic-sleeved HD (prior to the lacquer-coated bare-aluminium series) - I wonder if this was manufactured under contract by Taicon. BTW, I haven't yet seen a failure of the lacquer-coated HD, which is probably only manufactured in Japan - there isn't any similar Taicon series.

[pentium]

Re: Asus P4T-E

That's it?!
How the hell did they think thay could get away with using only three caps and leaving the rest unpopulated?

Than again, I don't see the whole board.

[linuxguru]

Re: Asus P4T-E

Good catch - the number of caps at the VRM O/P is hugely insufficient for the expected ripple current, even counting the single Rubycon MBZ/MCZ that's visible. It seems to be a gross overloading of the specs of the Nichicon HD - even good caps won't survive long in such mis-applications.

It will probably fare better if the two missing caps are populated - possible choices are Panasonic FC/FK/FM, Rubycon MBZ/MCZ or NCC KZG in a pinch.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Asus P4T-E

1500uF is pretty low too, may be this board was desingt for a mix of ektrolytics and Oscons.
It seems that Asus techs are not used to scimp their boards down to fit the budget and having the required endurance.

[Phenos]

Re: Asus P4T-E

Why is there a plastic cover over the CPU?
This only blocks direct heat transfer to the heatsink.

[davmax]

Re: Asus P4T-E

I suspect the plastic is a temporary protection against dust particles. Maybe the original compound is intended to be reused.

[Phenos]

Re: Asus P4T-E

Yes you are right, this cover is added afterwards.
However i recommend to add a fresh dot of thermalpaste.
Because reusing compound can make closed air gaps.

[bovik]

Re: Asus P4T-E

Hehe, it's interesting to read your speculations

Yes, the plastic cover was a temporary solution not to get grease on myself and/or other things before cleaning the cpu.

The other caps are rubycon MBZ 6.3V 3300μF, rubycon YXG 6.3V 3300μF (next to main power connector), nichicon 1200μF 16V (at AGP port), sanyo 1000μF 6.3V (small green ones), unknown sanyo (lilac), RMH (?) 100μF 16V (tiny and black). Now you know

I took some new pictures too, showing the layout of the whole board.

[Trench Recordings]

Re: Asus P4T-E

same thing happened with mine as shown in the photo. Should i recap the three or should i add the other two unpopulated spots as well ? There nichicon 1500μF 6.3V.

This is my first recapping project I gonna order them from this site

[Trench Recordings]

Re: Asus P4T-E

my first recapp was successful. Replaced the three nichicon 1500uF 6.3V with Rubycon 1500uF 10V. It was not working at first, so I started troubleshooting, pulling out cards, memory, reseating the cpu a few times. No luck, just post error beeps. So pulled out the board, trimmed up the leads on the caps thinking I left them too long and they might be shorting out on the case. Resoldered the points to make sure the connection was good. Put it all back together. Same thing. Starting reading up on the forum to see what I did wrong. 5 mins later I powered it up once more, thinking its junk at this point, and to my surprise it works.

Im happy, Thanks guys

[Trench Recordings]

Re: Asus P4T-E

nevermind, spoke to soon. Still having hang ups and reboots. Maybe I have to recap the whole thing.

[Trench Recordings]

Re: Asus P4T-E

so it crashed twice... but seems stable now. Either way, good learning experince

[kc8adu]

Re: Asus P4T-E

so it crashed twice... but seems stable now. Either way, good learning experince

last asus that the customer recapped himself and came to me unstable was caps installed backwards.asus reversed the board markings.the white half circle is +.
after a while they reform and work somewhat but blow up later.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Asus P4T-E

Why is there a plastic cover over the CPU?
This only blocks direct heat transfer to the heatsink.

Reminds me of a n00b F-up, when a person don't take the plastic off of a brand new heatsink, before putting the heatsink on! O_O

[Trench Recordings]

Re: Asus P4T-E

The board finally died. She had a long life

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Asus P4T-E

I dunno why it would die..