the_wesley•1mo agoMost Upvoted

Hit 500 unique motherboard repairs and realized I still get nervous on socket 775 boards

After 500 repairs (I keep a log, yeah I'm that guy) I thought I'd be bored with the old LGA775 stuff, but those capacitor pop patterns still throw me off sometimes - has anyone else noticed that certain board models still feel unpredictable no matter how many you fix?

3 comments

3 Comments

mark4361mo ago

I have a different take on this. I've been through maybe 300 LGA775 boards and the capacitor patterns are actually pretty predictable once you map them to the specific capacitor brands and series. Those green KZG caps from Rubycon are almost always the first to go, while the blue Nichicons hold up way better. The real trouble is when someone has already done a sloppy recap with random caps from eBay, then you get weird behavior that looks like a bad trace. Have you kept track of which capacitor brands were failing on your repairs?

dakota4151mo ago

Nah man, I think you're overthinking it. Half the time it's just bad solder joints on the caps themselves regardless of brand, not some specific series failing pattern lol.

oscarc121mo ago

Ever tracked failure rates by the original board manufacturer, though?