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Forums › Computer Hardware Discussion › Broken capacitor replacement yields high ...

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Broken capacitor replacement yields higher clocks...?

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  • Baselerd
     
    Level 42
    Karnov
    Posts: 5105
    Feb 25, 2007 11:34 am GMT
    My friend's mobo had a leaky capacitor and the board would randomly shut off. (There was grey fluid coming out of it.) So naturally, we looked at the capacity (19 microfarads) and went to a supply room in the Electrical Engineering dept at my university and sautered one onto the board. It worsk fine, except now the bios says the RAM runs at 800MHz (1600 effective), which is obviously wrong, since it runs at 400MHz (800 effective). Any suggestions?

    I know capacitors arent polar, so its not that we hooked up the anode to the wrong end or something, and the capacitor has the same capacity. The sautering was done really well and doesnt touch any incorrect contacts.

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    My friend's mobo had a leaky capacitor and the board would randomly shut off. (There was grey fluid coming out of it.) So naturally, we looked at the capacity (19 microfarads) and went to a supply room in the Electrical Engineering dept at my university and sautered one onto the board. It worsk fine, except now the bios says the RAM runs at 800MHz (1600 effective), which is obviously wrong, since it runs at 400MHz (800 effective). Any suggestions?

    I know capacitors arent polar, so its not that we hooked up the anode to the wrong end or something, and the capacitor has the same capacity. The sautering was done really well and doesnt touch any incorrect contacts.
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  • Jiggly_Wiggly
     
    Level 19
    Gitaroo Man
    Posts: 1918
    Feb 25, 2007 12:33 pm GMT
    You could set it manually to those speeds, but, if it running fine just leave it, try cpu-z and see what it says in windows.
      
    http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA0NSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzda==





    You could set it manually to those speeds, but, if it running fine just leave it, try cpu-z and see what it says in windows.
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  • DirkVDV01
     
    Level 34
    Paramecium
    Posts: 20469
    Feb 25, 2007 1:14 pm GMT
    To be honest, you should better RMA the board instead of fixing it yourself. You could have put the capacitors in the wrong way but then they would have certainly sparked a lot already or even blown up...
    Fixing a motherboard is close to impossible, since the soldering is done mainly with machines and often with the use of lasers to make small soldering points that don't heat a lot of layered paths on the PCB. I think you heated a couple of those layers in the motherboards PCB and done some substantial damage. If the damage is not visible from the outside, I would just report this to a PC shop and ask for a replacement. Just don't tell them what you did.
    To be honest, you should better RMA the board instead of fixing it yourself. You could have put the capacitors in the wrong way but then they would have certainly sparked a lot already or even blown up... Fixing a motherboard is close to impossible, since the soldering is done mainly with machines and often with the use of lasers to make small soldering points that don't heat a lot of layered paths on the PCB. I think you heated a couple of those layers in the motherboards PCB and done some substantial damage. If the damage is not visible from the outside, I would just report this to a PC shop and ask for a replacement. Just don't tell them what you did.
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  • Baselerd
     
    Level 42
    Karnov
    Posts: 5105
    Feb 25, 2007 8:49 pm GMT
    The mobo was past warranty and not worth replacing. And we sautered the capacitor on by heating the wire contacts and applying them to sauter, so there was no excess sauter (at least significantly.) I guess we will just have to see what happens, the computer is running fine, no abnormalities other than the different memory clocks. Manually editing the speed in the bios does not show any change in cpu-z (it always reads 1600MHz... wish it was true :-D ). 

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    The mobo was past warranty and not worth replacing. And we sautered the capacitor on by heating the wire contacts and applying them to sauter, so there was no excess sauter (at least significantly.) I guess we will just have to see what happens, the computer is running fine, no abnormalities other than the different memory clocks. Manually editing the speed in the bios does not show any change in cpu-z (it always reads 1600MHz... wish it was true :-D ). 
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