a7n8x capacitor mod

[shortcircuit]

Last night I added some capacitors to my A7N8X. The board already had nichicon caps on it but there was a lot of voltage fluctuation at high voltages. I had a bunch of capacitors that I had pulled out of dead motherboards (trying to make a stun-gun, don't ask) so I added a few to the back of the board.

I added two 4700uf Nichicon caps (off a KX7-333R) near the CPU, and three 3300uf Nichicon caps (off an A7V8X) near the AGP slot.

http://frodobunny.net/computer_pics/a7n8x_capmod.jpg

It definitely helped. With vcore set at 2.05v, it is fluctuating between 2.00v and 2.10v, previously it was 1.95v-2.15v. Tonight I'll add a few more caps to it...

[shortcircuit]

I added them in addition to the caps on top of the board. The extra capacitance helps when running an xp2700 @ 2800mhz using 2.1v... the chip requires a LOT of power!

[PiLsY]

When you add caps like this do you add them with the new cap's positive leg on the old caps positive solder pad, or positive to negative?

Cheers,

PiLsY.

[shortcircuit]

I matched positive on the new caps with positive on the old caps. Not sure what would happen if you did it the other way around... probably something would pop.

This thread (http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7415) has some good info about adding caps...