Fixing a POS FX5200

[MaxxxRacer]

In my dads relativley ancient dell computer, he has (well had) an FX5200 that recently took a dive. he swapped it out for a super cheap (17 dollar special) Geforce4 MX440 that I use of testing, leaving his old card on his desk. I happend to walk by and notice that 3 of the filtering caps for the power ciructry (Im assuming here) were cracked and leaking..

So I got to thinking.. I have a soldering Iron and my trusty Fluke 189 (this meter ownz btw), why not fix it? After desoldering all of the affected caps, and one other one I measured them and to my surprise only one of them was below its rated spec. But wanting to be on the safe side I decided to replace all of them.

In an attempt to keep this project at 0 cost, I grabbed an old A7N8X-VM that has a faulty north bridge and went to work on the CPU's filtering caps. I robbed it of 3 1500micro farad caps, and a 1000 micro farad (the origionals were all 1000's). While the 1500's were a bit large, it looks pretty cool (translates to rediculous).

The end result? Shockingly enough, I didnt make the board worse, and even more shocking, I actually repaired the board and it is now in working condition. I havn't done any in depth stress testing on it, but its previous ailments (BSOD'ing windows in loadup and screen blanking out) are gone.

And now for the required pictures. Enjoy.

One of the Affected Caps


A Good view of the oversized caps



The Finished Product


oh, and the black marker was my doing. before I realized the caps were all the same values, I was writting each one of their specs down on the board.

[NickS]

Hey, I used to have that card in 2004!

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

Hey, I used to have that card in 2004!

same here. man it was ty as hell.

and you should have replaced the other OST cap. they are caps. might look fine, but if the others went, that one probably isnt doing well either. the ocson is real good though, great caps, and the smallest electrolytic on there, they usually dont die.

and the caps might have same capacitance, but the ESR is probably through the roof.

EDIT: and maxxx, you of all people should know this doesnt belong in xtreem3d! the FX series shall never be mentioned in these parts again, it is best for everyone if we just forget.

[Praxis1452]

my dad's computer had it and I tried to play oblivion on it....

bad bad bad idea...

[Nanometer]

I had a mobo go bad, I replaced the caps and then the whole thing blew up. I realized I had replaced some caps with the wrong values, I guess that will do it. I know for the future to not put 6v caps on 12v lines. The bigger caps make the card look old, well it is anyways. I'm just so used to seeing the mini caps and the aluminum caps on vid cards. Nice job with the fix, it looks real clean..ha

[IvanAndreevich]

I had a mobo go bad, I replaced the caps and then the whole thing blew up
You probably switched the polarity.

I had that MSI card as well. Came out of a Dell, used it for 2D on my server.

[MaxxxRacer]

same here. man it was shatty as hell.

and you should have replaced the other OST cap. they are sheit caps. might look fine, but if the others went, that one probably isnt doing well either. the ocson is real good though, great caps, and the smallest electrolytic on there, they usually dont die.

and the caps might have same capacitance, but the ESR is probably through the roof.

EDIT: and maxxx, you of all people should know this doesnt belong in xtreem3d! the FX series shall never be mentioned in these parts again, it is best for everyone if we just forget.

hey the card blows, but it was fun. actually the OST is one of the ones I put on there. I was going to put another one of hte cpu caps on there, but all I had was a 6500micro farad so i didnt bother.

the oscon is one of the origional caps.

ESR?

and ya i know its the wrong section, but i thought you guys would get a kick out of seeing this.

nano, you deffinetly put one of the caps on backwards.. they blow sky high when u do that (or blow a more fragile circuit down the line). if you want I can show you how to put the caps on the right way next tuesday.