TR2 Thermaltake W0070RU XP550 NP - worth recapping?

[mrmazda]

Only two search hits here, one casually mentioning lower/middle calibre many many moons ago, not terribly helpful, and the other, simply exposure to it, and neither included the RU suffix. Is this a design worth recapping to keep a 10-15 year old PC operational?

I replaced the obviously bad Ltec LZP 2200uF 16V and the obviously bad pair of CapXon GS 18x40 620uF 200V with Nichicon 22x50 UPT. It lights up my digital PS tester with suitable voltages, but it emits a screechy squeal that just drowns out the two 80mm fans. It probably would only very slightly annoy installed in a PC in a room with anything louder than a refrigerator running. I haven't tried connecting to a motherboard as yet. What I didn't try to replace includes a bunch of Su'scons in various sizes, and 2-3 each Teapo & Ltec. Should I give up? The cabling exit from the case makes it a big chore to refit the cover and get screws installed, and the design generally makes getting and keeping the board in position to check or change components similarly challenging. Will the screech most likely toast a motherboard eventually, keep on working several years of relatively brief on-times, or quickly give up the ghost? TIA

[Per Hansson]

Re: TR2 Thermaltake W0070RU XP550 NP - worth recapping?

Here you go, the PSU is named Thermaltake TR2-430w
Now there exists many OEM's so you will find many different designs.
But anyway it is a start if you wan to do some searching and reading

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=20003

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=19981

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=22994

[mrmazda]

Re: TR2 Thermaltake W0070RU XP550 NP - worth recapping?

I neglected to refresh before replying to myself, so missed Per's response. I'll save this as is, since I only get 90 minutes to edit, then pursue his valuable leads before returning after a fresh page load.

I gambled it wouldn't kill an old but recapped KT400 Dragon Plus with Athlon 2100+ and two 500MB DDR sticks. It has 7 total fans including the two in in the Thermaltake, and two Seagate 80MBs on the motherboard's IDE RAID controllers. Powered on running memtest86 from Knoppix CD boot, with the cover off the Thermaltake, I can't hear over the fan noises if any squeal exists. Should I keep using it as is? Replace more caps? Trash it? Something else?

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: TR2 Thermaltake W0070RU XP550 NP - worth recapping?

if it squeals with the ps tester, its because it doesnt put sufficient minimum load on one or more of the rails. but if it doesnt squeal on a system, it obviously is a minimum load problem on the ps tester. thats why those ps testers arent exactly useful and are no better than using a multimeter.

if your aim is for retro/nostalgic reasons and u want the system to last as long as possible then u obviously replace ALL of the dodgy components like all the remaining dodgy caps with better ones currently available.

its hard to find a current modern psu with such high amperage of 28-30A on the minor rails and 140w combined power on the minor rails. u're lucky to get 20-24A on the minor rails on psus these days and 120w combined power on the minor rails these days.

[mrmazda]

Re: TR2 Thermaltake W0070RU XP550 NP - worth recapping?

Thanks for the responses!

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=20003

Fatigue negatively impacted my search fu. This, that I should have found searching for squeal or Thermaltake, is exactly the one.

Unfortunately, my zeal to find the source of the squeal before seeing ChaosLegionnaire's reply killed it. I had taken the board loose from the case to get my improvised stethoscope in position to to listen to the bottom side after not having luck isolating the sound from the top side. The cables decided to spontaneously shift everything, the bottom hit the case in a very bad spot, and smoke, flames, burned spots and no more response to power resulted. I put the two new Nichicons and UCC Ky back in inventory, and since the board was not RoHS leadless, I quickly and easily popped off all other caps fatter than 5mm. Result: 3 10mm Ltec LZP 2200uF 6.3V, 3 8mm Su'scon SC or SK, 3 8mm Teapo SC. I clipped the SATA and CPU cables and the fans loose and the rest is in the trash. Without the cables, there sure wasn't much weight left. :p

For kicks I checked those 9 caps: 7 OK, 1 Su'scon abnormal ESR, the 330uF 16v Teapo open, and obviously overheated by the short. Too bad I had no suspicion before clipping wires. Before the stethoscope disaster, it had been sweetly running the Soyo KT400 Dragon Ultra I had just changed 8 more Sacon caps on.

[momaka]

Re: TR2 Thermaltake W0070RU XP550 NP - worth recapping?

I guess it's probably a moot point to put my reply here... but here we go anyways.

Is this a design worth recapping to keep a 10-15 year old PC operational?

The answer is: MAYBE.

I personally think it's a pretty decent PSU, but it definitely needs to be recapped - that is, all caps, big or small. This PSU uses the infamous 2-transistor self-oscillating 5VSB circuit, which can completely destroy motherboards if its caps go bad. But with good caps, the PSU is very reliable overall, and has OPP protection, so it won't blow up if overloaded.

I have the same PSU, and mine is still running the original caps. But I use it only occasionally in a PC I use for testing older video cards. So once in a blue moon, I do fire it up (maybe once a month or less.) Thus, it's never been stressed much and probably why it's lasted so long on the original caps (also Teapo and Su'scon caps, like all other cheap Taiwanese caps, can be hit or miss in their quality - usually miss, but sometimes they do last a while.)

As for the squealing you heard: that was probably the 5VSB circuit. It likely either had bad caps on the output or its "critical" cap (small 10 uF, 50V on the primary side) was bad. Either or both of these can cause the 5VSB circuit to greatly overshoot in voltage or oscillate.

That being said, here is what the "original" version of this PSU looks like:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...postcount=3051
It's essentially the same PSU, minus the input EMI/RFI filtering components and nice paint job / sleeved cables. The PSU I posted above I got for free a few years back. I added back the input EMI/RFI filtering from scrap boards from CRT TVs and PSUs. Also partially recapped it like you, but I changed mainly the caps that matter the most: the "critical" 5VSB cap (10 uF, 50V), one of the 5VSB output caps (both originals were OK, but I decided to have at least one good Japanese cap in there, just in case), and added an extra cap on the 12V rail, as I usually use it to test 12V-based PCs.

*EDIT*
Also, here's the 5VSB circuit, for anyone trying to repair burned components in this PSU:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1578459617