Changing E-capacitors on your Motherboard

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Changing E-capacitors on your Motherboard

Introduction
Many people discard a motherboard as a "burned" without knowing that a simple change of capacitors could revive them. This guide aims to teach to change the capacitors of motherboards, a procedure that has various applications. This guide Will serve you if your motherboard has the original capacitors damaged, or if you want to make capacitors for better and improve the stability of voltages and power to achieve a better overclocked.

What is a capacitor and what its design factors ?

Electrical and electronics, a capacitor, sometimes called the Anglicism capacitor, a device consisting of two drivers or armor, usually in the form of plates or sheets, separated by a dielectric material, which subject to a potential difference (ddp) acquire a specific electrical charge.

The capacitors are graded according to their ability to store this electrical charge. That skill is called capacitance and is measured in Farads. The Farads are a huge cargo unit, so in general the capacitors that one finds in these areas have capacitancias the order of thousandths of Farads, or μF. In any case, not all capacitors are equal, because the fact that a capacitor is 1000 μF capacitance does not mean that it can replace any other μF capacitor 1000. How's that? Well, it happens that in addition to its capacitance, the capacitors are graded according to their voltage operation. (voltages are more typical 6.3, 10, 16, 25, 50, 63, 100, 220 and from there to infinity and beyond)

Additionally, the capacitors have a temperature range for the lower and upper ranges of tolerance, and measures such as ESR and ESL to reflect the distortion of capacitance depending on the frequency of the alternating current. All these taken together determine whether a capacitor can be used in a given circuit. The engineers responsible for the design of a product generally considered all these factors when choosing the condenser that will go into a product, both to ensure functional fitness as to minimize costs.

What are the rules for replacing capacitors?

In general we need to find an as similar as possible to the originals. It can be (though not always) to replace a condenser of a capacitance given by a higher-capacitance (remove one of 1000μF and put one of 1200μF for example). It can be (although, again, not always) make a capacitor with a wider range of tolerance (for example, one that could hold 100 ° C to replace one that holds 85 ° C). And you can replace one with a high tolerance for tight tolerances or a high ESR with a low ESR. All these changes are not problems.

So more is better, no? Well, not always. For instance, some voltage regulators could present oscillations if their filter capacitors deviate from the original capacitance, and the ability to respond to current transients worsen. On the other hand, it is not a good idea to replace a capacitor for a given voltage with another for a higher voltage. Making a parallel, if the show beams of a bridge section 20 × 20 and you use beams of 40 × 40 oversized that you only increases the safety factor and your bridge will be indestructible. Much more expensive and cumbersome, but safer. Now imagine you do the same with drawings of a circuit. The plane indicates capacitors to 10v and you think: "I am going to improve the design," and he put capacitors to 220v. Your circuit will work best? No, and indeed probably does not even work. The capacitors have a minimum operating voltage and if they put on a circuit where they operate unless the voltage design, you can not work or operating at barely, to deteriorate rapidly.

Ok, in these few paragraphs you tablets years of teaching in courses such as electromagnetic circuits, electromagnetism, electronics and repair of televisions applied by mail. All of the factors that have been mentioned interact to determine the size and shape of the capacitors.

And how to know if I have a capacitor in poor condition?

The easiest way to see if the capacitors are causing instability or failures in the PC is to look at them physically, we can find 2 cases, the first is when they are inflated and the second is when these leaves are liquid.

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Materials

Soldering iron: It is recommended to use a soldering iron of 25W or 30W

Capacitors: It is recommended to use the same if ill or who are best used with few skills if he is to improve performance.

Welding

Pliers: to cut the legs of the capacitors

Motherboard in this case a DFI Lanparty ultra nf4


Let's Get to Work

In this picture we can see the original capacitors that brings a DFI Lanparty Nf4 is assumed that these are of relatively good quality standard for motherboards.

In this case, which seeks to improve performance is recommended to change all the capacitors that the motherboard has to be of a diameter greater than 6mm others have a very low impact on performance.



The procedure for redeploy the capacitors is to heat with the soldering iron legs that are by behind the motherboard and go with the other hand moving the condenser, so these should be released.

In this picture we can see what it looks like the PCB once removed the condenser, as you can see the flip Welding holes where you should move the legs of the new capacitors.



On the next can be seen without the motherboard capacitors for the front.



As the legs of the capacitors were not we had to take drastic measures and use a Dremel with a 1mm drill that is highly risky and not recommended in normal cases.But we are not normal, that is clear.



So is the motherboard once used the Dremel, we can see that now there is no problem to move the legs of the capacitors.

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Now that we have no capacitors and the way we started to clean this place the new capacitors.



Unlike the resistors, capacitors have a good and bad side and be sure to put them in the right direction. Note that a patita is longer than the other: this shows the positive side. If you never saw Sesame Street and it costs you to distinguish "long" of "short" or you are from those who say that size does not matter (since you already commiserate), you can also guide you read on the jacket of the condenser. In our case, for example, there was a golden strip where he repeated the "-" sign indicating negative.

Once you put the capacitors, will have their legs standing on the back of the PCB. We need to double them a little in order to turn the motherboard without the capacitors from falling.



We must now proceed to weld the new capacitors, here one can clearly see the process.



once the new capacitors are soldiers who cut off the legs that are long enough, this used a pliers to cut.



Finally we have a picture of the motherboard with the new capacitors.



And ready, the motherboard already has new capacitors and is ready to return to work after a corduroy, or to try new records is that what overclocked if you wanted was to remove the capacitors to replace them with generic components of higher quality.