And Dell managed to get on my nerves today...

[Volt]

Originally Posted by JE3146

All depends really.... to me.. I'd replace them, but that's cus I don't have 400$ coin to drop on a new motherboard. And we're not talking 270$ boxes for dual Xeon. Server grade stuff carries a higher price tag.

With a solder sucker and some flux, I could do 50 replacements in a few hours. Most tedious part would be recording polarity.

Whoops, yep I got distracted with the caps and my past experience with the GX260s/GX270's, completely missed the level workstation. Did a run on a cheap Precision T3500 64bit with a small RAID 5, $1,700.

Depending on the age of the machine, the reliability required and when it needs to be back up, it may be new server is required. If the piggy says no $$$, maybe buy the kit and and install it. I would wager a years' worth of cigars though, unless it's done by someone who has 2M skills and a 2M workstation, it will be an expensive failure. Those caps are a tight fit and power caps have to be done right.

[JE3146]

Originally Posted by Volt

Whoops, yep I got distracted with the caps and my past experience with the GX260s/GX270's, completely missed the level workstation. Did a run on a cheap Precision T3500 64bit with a small RAID 5, $1,700.

Depending on the age of the machine, the reliability required and when it needs to be back up, it may be new server is required. If the piggy says no $$$, maybe buy the kit and and install it. I would wager a years' worth of cigars though, unless it's done by someone who has 2M skills and a 2M workstation, it will be an expensive failure. Those caps are a tight fit and power caps have to be done right.

All these capacitors have leads. They're not SMT. Just seat them flush and even to the PCB.

I've done cap swaps on motherboards and PSU's with no ill-effects whatsoever.

As long as a person cleans the through-holes cleanly with a solder sucker or wick(just be careful not to stray to other components), properly applies some flux to not burn out the components, double checks for no cold joints, and uses a soldering iron proper for the job. IE nothing over 50W with a fine tip. This should be easy as cake.

[Volt]

Originally Posted by JE3146

All these capacitors have leads. They're not SMT. Just seat them flush and even to the PCB.

I've done cap swaps on motherboards and PSU's with no ill-effects whatsoever.

As long as a person cleans the through-holes cleanly with a solder sucker or wick(just be careful not to stray to other components), properly applies some flux to not burn out the components, double checks for no cold joints, and uses a soldering iron proper for the job. IE nothing over 50W with a fine tip. This should be easy as cake.

Hehe - a 5 line sentance with a lot of IFs. I agree, not overly diificult, but I would still say not for the average person who has never done proper soldering. 50 caps = 100 joints with proper tinning, no cold joints, no slop, burning up the run, or getting the polarity backwards. Not to include gettin the right cap in the right spot..... I'm still betting a years worth of sticks against an untrained individual getting it right the first time if at all.

1 years worth of cigars = all the Creamosas you can smoke.

[JE3146]

Originally Posted by Volt

Hehe - a 5 line sentance with a lot of IFs. I agree, not overly diificult, but I would still say not for the average person who has never done proper soldering. 50 caps = 100 joints with proper tinning, no cold joints, no slop, burning up the run, or getting the polarity backwards. Not to include gettin the right cap in the right spot..... I'm still betting a years worth of sticks against an untrained individual getting it right the first time if at all.

1 years worth of cigars = all the Creamosas you can smoke.

You changed your bet

And I will agree that an untrained individual might not be able to do it. But technically I'm untrained aside from an intro class in college that pretty much just said don't burn your @&^# fingers .

I've just had a LOT of experience since then though. To me it's easy. The other day I had to solder a 64 pin TQFP microcontroller to a PCB. That's about what I'd consider moderate difficulty

[Silound]

I could do the soldering work IF I had the time. I don't. Plus, like you said, it's a tedious and delicate process. Even with experience, I'd say 50/50 odds that I screw up AT LEAST one

Unfortunately, I need the extra beef of the server I had to run all the crap I had going. The worst stress was some CAD rendering that would literally render the machine unusable for upwards of 4 hours at a time. I can't skimp very far on parts without severely crimping my ability to run all that at once.


Right now I'm browsing crapBay for parts. I have an offer with a guy to purchase a MOBO that has caps from a different manufacturer (thus not subject to the problems). It's also a newer one that supports dimms instead of rimms, so with some luck if I can get that and I have a couple gigs of unused dimms laying around. That would give me the least headache and probably the best option until a future date that I can afford a new workstation.

I have to agree with Volt on this one... This isn't a repair that anyone can do. MoBo are typically multilayer and while replacing the caps may not be to difficult doing so without stippling the board or burning up a nearby SMT.

Not saying it can't be done, but I am saying I think some people in this thread are making it sound much easier than it really is. Take it for what it's worth, but you've got 2 people who have a background in electronics telling you it's harder than some people here are making it out to be.

[JE3146]

Originally Posted by coastietech

I have to agree with Volt on this one... This isn't a repair that anyone can do. MoBo are typically multilayer and while replacing the caps may not be to difficult doing so without stippling the board or burning up a nearby SMT.

Not saying it can't be done, but I am saying I think some people in this thread are making it sound much easier than it really is. Take it for what it's worth, but you've got 2 people who have a background in electronics telling you it's harder than some people here are making it out to be.

The assumption is that someone with enough technical understanding to not only know how to set up a system like the one he's using, but also be able to identify the problem and culprit of the issue he's facing might posses the know-how to be able to fix it as well

If he knows, he knows. If he doesn't he doesn't. Either way, it's a solution to the problem, and one worth offering to him as long as he does it the way it needs to be done. If not, then it's wasted time and money.