[plug] OT, well not really

[Brad Campbell]

William Kenworthy wrote:
> I did try and repair the kt7a-raid I had - failed as it was multilayer
> with very fine tracks in that area: these boards are not really designed
> to be repaired and my eyes/steady hands are not what they used to be!
> No harm trying, but it needs more care than I gave it!
> 
> BillK
> 
> 
> On Sat, 2005-02-12 at 12:08 +0800, Chris Griffin wrote:
> 
>>I have been thinking of this one. There is only two caps gone and they
>>are not too hard to get to.
>>

I had to do this on a Soyo 5EAS board as it was the *only* board I could find that would fit the 
box. When the caps failed they also over stressed the PSU and caused a couple of cap failures in 
there. In addition, the extra ripple on the mainboard caused failure of one of the switching FET's 
in the CPU rail regulator and cooked one of the inductors. I ordered the best replacement caps I 
could get from RS, with the highest temperature rating and lowest ESR, new FET's for the regulator 
and re-wound the inductor. Total cost about $200 USD for replacing all the caps in the PSU and MB. 
Then I fitted an extra 40mm fan over the top of the MB regulator section and it has been sweet now 
for 3 years. An expensive fix, but then a replacement case and MB (it's a Dolch luggable with gas 
plasma screen built in) was going to be about 5K AUD. Interesting exercise anyway.

Brad
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