I have this socket A board with a single capacitor that is swollen. The spec on it is: 6.3V, 2700uF. I've looked at practically all other motherboards and none of them have a capacitor with the same uF rating this one has. So, I was hoping instead of having my customer buy a new board I can put in a capacitor with a higher uF rating (or lower) and still be fine without having to worry about improper voltage, or damage to the components? I have a ton of capacitors with 2200uF or 3300uF and one with 2500uF. I just want to know if doing something like that can damage the board. I'm not too keen in this field of electronics. I'm sure someone here is. Thx for the help.
Use the 3300uF as long as it's rated for 6.3V or greater. Just make sure you put it in correctly, motherboard capacitors are generally of the electrolytic-radial-polarized variety.
My cheapo socket A mobo had this same problem, several large capacitors were bulging and on was beginning to leak. I noticed this because I could only run the PC for about 15 minutes before it crashed. Fortunately it's not hard to buy replacements. There are probably several capacitors next to the bad one, you need to replace all of them at the same time (others may be developing the same problem.) You can't just throw in any old capacitors, they have to be low-ESR because they are part of the CPU's power supply. Digikey has some Panasonic FM series caps which should work fine. www.digikey.com part number P12345-ND should do the trick (it's 3300uF and the footprint may be a bit bigger than the capacitor that's already in there.) Hope this helps.
Ah. I will double check the 3300uF and see if the voltage rating is 6.3V. The PC still functions normally but as soon as I see a swollen cap, thats the cause of any problem the customer is experiencing . For the past 2 months I've been getting PCs at least 3-5 years old, mostly Socket A boards, that have swollen capacitors. Of course, these boards were made during the time motherboard manufacturers started to buy cheap capacitors from a company who was making them with a wrong formula. Also, most of these boards have crappy PSUs which make the mosfets and capacitors work extra hard.
Electrolytic capacitors have a shelf life. Don't be a cheapskate, get down to Radio Shack and spend a couple of dollars on the correct part. Then charge the customer $20 ;-) Try and use the correct value wherever possible. We are talking slightly more advanced electronics than an LED with a discharge cap here ;-) hehe. Are you SURE that's the only thing wrong with the board, and the problem, though?
I'm still testing it. This could be one of few other problems that I have yet to double check. Just checking my options on what I can do.
ROFL, too true! hehehe. Well, if the board is completely dead, you could always try popping one of the others on quickly as a test, see if it has life. The most important thing is indeed that the voltage tolerance is at least the same.... of course, as it was 6.3V it is most likely on the +5V line anyway, but yes, use a 6.3V or 10V.
A few years ago there was a big scandal when it was discovered several large chinese companies were churning out faulty capacitors. The chemical formula used in them was an experimental one stolen from a Japanese company, but it wasn't finished and was considered to be unstable, especially after long term use. So the capacitors involved would blow randomly without much warning and destroy host motherboards and low price non-branded electronics. Maybe the motherboards mentioned in this thread are casualties of this modern day espionage!
Thats what I was talking about. These capacitors were used mainly on socket A boards when they first came out. Abit was notorious for having bad capacitors. they had to openly admit that they bought from those companies.
I hated ABit and Gigabyte Socket A boards - they always seemed to go wrong! That being said, my friend had and still has a top end Gigabyte that's not done much wrong. Their fans are horrible, though! ASUS made some nice boards (as always), MSIs were usually pretty good around that time. Oh, and Chaintechs were pretty stable, but their range went downhill rapidly soon after.
