Gateway GT5670 with ECS MCP61PM-GM Oozing Caps

[vince88]

The unit is a Gateway GT5670 with AMD Phenom triple cores 8400 in AM2 socket with 4GB RAM, 500GB SATA drive and nVidia GeForce 6150SE GPU.
Unit is not booting any more. On the MCP 61PM-GM MoBo (Pic 'MoBo'), caps are bulging or oozing in 4 clusters: along the CPU (see pics 1 & 3), the memory (pic 4) or the PCIe slot. Caps are TK brand, see pic 2.

[Stefan Payne]

Re: Gateway GT5670 with ECS MCP61PM-GM Oozing Caps

Can be caps, can be chipset.
Sadly your CPU doesn't have an AM3 Socket so you have to look for a Replacement.
I'f replace the board with a new one and not bother with recapping because of the Chipset and it's not unlikely that the chipset died, not just the caps...

But if you want to try, replace the ones for the Memory VRM first. Remember to look up the Datasheet of the original one and replace it with something equal or slightly better...
If size fits, Panasonic FM is best for smaller capacity, for larger ones FR and FS are also a good option. But look at Datasheet first...

If the Board boots than

[momaka]

Re: Gateway GT5670 with ECS MCP61PM-GM Oozing Caps

Unit is not booting any more. On the MCP 61PM-GM MoBo (Pic 'MoBo'), caps are bulging or oozing in 4 clusters: along the CPU (see pics 1 & 3), the memory (pic 4) or the PCIe slot. Caps are TK brand, see pic 2.

Well, that's your problem right there! - Bulging caps. Need to replace all of those TK caps.

For the ones around the CPU, use any of these:
Rubycon MBZ and MCZ
Nichicon HM, HN, and HZ
or polymers (Nichicon LF and Chemicon PSC are pretty solid choices... pun intended )

I have a Gateway GT5656... same motherboard as yours, though only a REV 1.0. Came with Sanyo and OST RLP caps instead of TK (except for the VRM high side, which is all TK).

Anyways, there's a really good chance your board will work fine after a recap.

I'f replace the board with a new one and not bother with recapping because of the Chipset and it's not unlikely that the chipset died, not just the caps...

I disagree.

On these boards, if the caps blew and computer discarded due to that, then the GeForce chipset is likely still okay. So there's a good reason to attempt a recap.

Once recapped, put a small fan on the chipset heatsink (after changing the thermal compound underneath it) and it will be fine for a long time. The only reason these GeForce 6150 chipsets fail is because OEM builders use a cheap small heatsink, allowing the GF 6150 to overheat (or go past 60C, that is). If you fix that issue before any problems occur, that GF 6150 chipset will likely never give you trouble 'till the rest of the useful life of the computer.

I didn't know that info above and ran my GT5656 until I started getting issues with the ethernet chip not getting detected on a cold boot. Issue turned out to be temperature related and completely the fault of the GF 6150 chipset. Once the PC is warm and I reboot, the ethernet works.

But if you want to try, replace the ones for the Memory VRM first.

No, don't gamble like that. Replace all of the bad TKs at once. This motherboard has three buck regulators: one for the CPU (obviously), one for the chipset (middle of the board, right where the model is written), and one for the RAM. Continuing to run the board with bad caps on any of these spots risks destroying your RAM and/or chipset. I see some solid caps around the CPU, so at least that won't get damaged.

Remember to look up the Datasheet of the original one and replace it with something equal or slightly better...

Easy.

Most of these boards use OST RLP for anything NOT around the CPU and chipset buck regulator... so that means you have a lot of choices.

But the Panasonic FR and FM you suggested would certainly work fine. Rubycon ZLH and ZLQ is another option (with the ZLH use 820 uF in place of the 1000 uF TKs, and with the ZLQ, use 1200 uF in place of the 1000 uF TKs). I'd personally pick one of these four choices and not even bother opening a datasheet.