Are you going to repair it?

Maybe. If I do I will send it out. I was going to get around to asking if anyone here had ever used badcaps.net 😉

Something tells me fixing that board might not be worth it

Pack of 15 1500uf 6.3v caps should be around $10.
About an hour to change with the shittest iron on the planet and the worst braid you can get.

If you want it to go smoother, have a decent iron, fresh braid, decent flux and some low melt solder.

It's about the easiest board repair anyone can do.

myne wrote on 2024-06-17, 01:50:

Pack of 15 1500uf 6.3v caps should be around $10. About an hour to change with the shittest iron on the planet and the worst br […]
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Pack of 15 1500uf 6.3v caps should be around $10.
About an hour to change with the shittest iron on the planet and the worst braid you can get.

If you want it to go smoother, have a decent iron, fresh braid, decent flux and some low melt solder.

It's about the easiest board repair anyone can do.

And cheaper than buying another board, unless you happen to have a spare board handy that is.

Yeh happens to us all in the end.
I've passed on a few nice rigs due to bad caps.
I've got enough projects realistically I know I'll never get around to and with my soldering skills recapping a motherboard will go behind those.

I am already leaning towards it not being worth it 😉
I have already rebuilt the system with the A7V600 board
If I used it for anything it would probably be linux, and honestly better boards for linux. Athlon is a dead-end now.
I am not complaining - you realize that board is 20 years old now? I got it used off ebay, and got 10 years of use out of it

ncmark wrote on 2024-06-17, 11:25:

I am already leaning towards it not being worth it ;) I have already rebuilt the system with the A7V600 board If I used it for […]
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I am already leaning towards it not being worth it 😉
I have already rebuilt the system with the A7V600 board
If I used it for anything it would probably be linux, and honestly better boards for linux. Athlon is a dead-end now.
I am not complaining - you realize that board is 20 years old now? I got it used off ebay, and got 10 years of use out of it

mhm all we are suggesting is that for 10 bucks and perhaps an hour of your time you could possibly get another 20 out of it, naturally the choice is yours.

ncmark wrote on 2024-06-17, 11:25:

you realize that board is 20 years old now?

You... Realise where you are, right?
You'll probably sell it for more on eBay than you paid - as is.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-17, 12:05:

mhm all we are suggesting is that for 10 bucks and perhaps an hour of your time you could possibly get another 20 out of it, naturally the choice is yours.

He is right though, replacing caps on multilayer boards is not nearly as easy as some people make it out to be. It's a huge pita with only basic tools available and minimal experience in soldering caps. He'd probably overheat the new caps and make a huge mess while scratching up everything trying to transfer heat to solder joints that have a huge heatsink connected to them.

I still don't understand the randomness of life expectancy for caps, i have an amiga 1200 with old caps (i checked myself during repairs) 30+ old caps and they are still working, no bulging no nothing, then you check something way newer with so called high quality caps and they are plagued.

Some will find recapping much more challenging than others. Especially if you have clumsiness in your genes / are slow learner.

There's really a lot of variables, the soldering iron you have, the temperature, the tip shape and size, on which spot you're applying the heat, how long you're applying it etc.

I recently managed to replace capacitors on the old router, took me forever to get old ones out, burned good chunk of solder mask off near the first and second one I attempted, some less with the last two. What worked in the end was applying some fresh solder, heating up the area well (I apparently failed countlessly at this step) and get the solder out with desoldering pump (the manual one, nothing fancy).

Getting new ones in was a bit easier, but, I was working with lead-free solder with a bit of flux mixed in. It melts at higher temperature, supposedly less nasty than lead-based one, but the flux is still nasty...seriously, those fumes are disgusting, put the fan where you work or at least wear a mask. I'd give myself a score of about 50%, oddly, the first joint I made was the nicest looking, although much bulkier than original, but the shape resembled the ideal joint. Solder is a naughty bastard, it loves going where it's not supposed to.

I didn't get the working router in the end, it has problems beyond bad caps, but at least I can say I can sort of (de)solder at the very basic level.

Is it common for bad caps on motherboards to actually not blow anything else in the process of going bad?

Anyway, if I could go back, I would watch and LISTEN to these before experimenting on my own, I previously just watched some other videos that didn't mention some important details, that and I probably got to it a bit too enthusiastically and headlessly:

Collin's Lab: Soldering
Collin’s Lab: Desoldering
Soldering Crash Course: Basic Techniques, Tips and Advice!

Also, it's probably a good idea to get some board to practice on.

Well - I decided to keep it - for now. But have no immediate plans to do anything with it.

Right now it has now CPU fan, since I cannibalized that building the replacement system. And no spare case or power supply - so it is sitting in a box

Better than throwing it.
It'll sell for something if you cbfd

Well - doesn't cost me anything to store it. It's on a tote with a lot of other parts. Getting rid of the board doesn't get rid of the tote 😉

I think I am glad I didn't get rid of that board. I *could* send it out for recapping.
The heatsink is missing a fan. But that's nexus cpu cooler - the fan screws into the top of the heatsink with some plastic screws. I *think* it's a standard 50mm fan and I might be able to find a replacement. Was looking around on Mouser 😉

iraito wrote on 2024-06-17, 16:59:

I still don't understand the randomness of life expectancy for caps, i have an amiga 1200 with old caps (i checked myself during repairs) 30+ old caps and they are still working, no bulging no nothing, then you check something way newer with so called high quality caps and they are plagued.

The pressure buildup that causes bulging and leaking is a sign of a catastrophic failure that's more common with caps that were made for very low ESR. As manufacturers pushed the ESR levels lower, the chemistry on those type of caps was more prone to being unstable. PC motherboards in the late 90s-2000s created the demand for those caps. Only the best manufacturers were able to make them reliable, and even they had some issues with some of them.

Something as old as an Amiga would have had more conservative caps that tend to be more stable. They're more likely to just quietly and gradually go out of spec without obvious signs. Also, physically smaller caps aren't likely to bulge like bigger ones can.
The only way to be sure if they're still in spec would be to desolder and measure them, but if you get to that point then there's no reason not to replace them anyway.

I once recapped a Sega Genesis console and found that all the caps of one brand were way out of spec, and another brand were all still good.

A few months ago I saw where a couple of the 6.3 volt 1500 caps on my Asus P4P 800 were bulging, and I was surprised - I really didn't think that board was at risk. But they didn't cost much, and the job isn't difficult, just time consuming. But as I've mentioned before, I cheat. I heat up each leg of the cap, alternating back and forth until I pull it clear, then I reverse the procedure to install the new ones. No solder sucking, just time and care. I think I've recapped about a dozen motherboards and a few video cards this way.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-09-06, 00:15:

A few months ago I saw where a couple of the 6.3 volt 1500 caps on my Asus P4P 800 were bulging, and I was surprised - I really didn't think that board was at risk. But they didn't cost much, and the job isn't difficult, just time consuming. But as I've mentioned before, I cheat. I heat up each leg of the cap, alternating back and forth until I pull it clear, then I reverse the procedure to install the new ones. No solder sucking, just time and care. I think I've recapped about a dozen motherboards and a few video cards this way.

I tried that at first, and had it go horribly wrong on me. I just had no clue what I was doing, and alternating between the front and back of the board constantly, I got confused about which solder point on the back corresponded to the leg of the capacitor on the front. Growing increasingly confused about why it wasn't loosening, I turned the heat on my iron up and up and up until I burned the board so badly it was a lost cause.

I never did get a plunger solder sucker to work for me. The solder always cooled off too quickly to actually get sucked into the pump. I have no idea how fast you have to be with that thing, but my hands were not steady enough to do it but a single lucky time.

Braid never worked for me either the way I've seen people do in videos. Obviously I'm doing something wrong, but without someone to watch me and explain what, I'll probably never figure it out on my own.

I just caved and bought a hakko solder vacuum. Because obviously I have more money than sense. It's made quick work of everything I've ever done, and made repair jobs infinitely quicker, more enjoyable, and less error prone for my dumb ass.