Replacing Bad Motherboard Capacitors

Two ways I use: Cut off the legs, & leave just enough to solder on a new part, or use a hot soldering iron, not too hot, & use desoldering tool, or solder wick, or both, & just drop in the new parts. If too many capacitors are bad, it may not be worth it, as the CPU may be bad. Sky.

Hello, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com! You wrote on 7 Nov 2005 13:53:54 -0800:

g> While it is old would prefer not damaging or destroying it so am g> wondering if any has cut off the bad caps leaving the leads in the g> board and then wire wrapping the new cap to these leads.

g> Appreciate any tips or suggestions, especially by someone with actual g> experience.

g> Thanks

I've replaced lots of caps on these boards and I can tell you that whilst it's quite easy, you do need a bit of soldering experience to do it properly. I would have thought that wirewrap is going to leave a long lead that would pick up noise etc. I have in the past pulled a cap off but I always unsoldered the legs afterwards. I have found that a reliable way is to drill out the plated through holes by hand with a jewellers drill held in a pin vice, AFTER removing the legs. You have to be carefull not to damage the board but this always works for me. My solder sucker just doesn't have the suck to clear out these tiny holes. I couldn't comment about the wire wrapping idea as I have never tried it, but it doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Bear in mind that the wire leg that you're left with will have a chemical residue on it that might prevent a solid contact. same problem with trying to solder to the legs. you might as well drill the holes out and start again with a nice clean hole. With best regards, 3T39. E-mail: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

I replaced 12 capacitors on an Abit AMD board (used in an HP Pavilion) These capacitors had a narrower lead spacing than normal - but DigiKey had the correct Panasonic capacitors (not cheap).

This Abit board is a 4 layer. Good soldering techniques and experience is mandatory for this work. I pulled out my Pace MBT-250 for the desoldering work -- but even then a couple capacitors proved to be difficult to remove. PATIENCE is a required skill for this work -- if you get frustrated easily -- throw items across the room, etc. -- have someone else work on it.

In total, it took me about one (1) hour for desoldering capacitors, cleaning the board of the hardened electrolytic paste from the capacitors -- that had already burst and solder in replacements.

Useful web site

gb

See if the manufacturer will replace them at reasonable cost.

I had replacement done for about 20 bucks plus shipping.

did the same on a p2 mobo, 2caps near the regs on the mobo check the ones near anything that gets hot.

Those ground planes suck up a LOT of heat. I use a Weller 140W soldering gun to do motherboard caps, a butane soldering iron will usually work too if you crank it up.