Re-Capping Old Motherboard.

[AnnabellaRenee87]

Hey Everyone,
I am going to be re-capping a old PC Motherboard and want to know if I should go for low or high ESR Caps.
I seem to be finding conflicting information around the interwebs, anyways, thanks for any information you all can provide

[bobcat]

Linear and some switching regulators can be fussy about capacitor ESR as well as surge spec. Check the data sheets on caps near the regulators. For general power distribution caps, low ESR is the way to go.

[David Hess]

If this is a common design using a point of load switching regulator with aluminum electrolytic capacitors, then you want low impedance/ESR ones.

More recent motherboards use aluminum polymer (solid) electrolytic capacitors which are completely different and should not need replacing.

[Amarbir[Lynx-India]]

Quote from: Neoistheone2000 on August 16, 2014, 12:58:36 AM>

Hey Everyone,
I am going to be re-capping a old PC Motherboard and want to know if I should go for low or high ESR Caps.
I seem to be finding conflicting information around the interwebs, anyways, thanks for any information you all can provide

Well,
       I have no idea where you got this from .Can you please point to a place that actually says High ESR .In my 25 years experience as a computer repairtech i have never seen anything thats not Low ESR in Computer motherboards

[wraper]

Non low ESR capacitors are used only in places where no high ripple is present. For example around audio codec IC. All capacitors that have capacitance higher than 47-100 uF always will be low ESR. But you approach this problem in the wrong way. Low ESR capacitors don't come in one grade. First of all you need to find a datasheets for the capacitors you want to exchange. Then choose replacements with same or higher ripple current and same or lower ESR ratings.

[Amarbir[Lynx-India]]

Quote from: wraper on Today at 01:35:27 AM>

Non low ESR capacitors are used only in places where no high ripple is present. For example around audio codec IC. All capacitors that have capacitance higher than 47-100 uF always will be low ESR. But you approach this problem in the wrong way. Low ESR capacitors don't come in one grade. First of all you need to find a datasheets for the capacitors you want to exchange. Then choose replacements with same or higher ripple current and same or lower ESR ratings.

Well,
     But obviously , And Those never fail ,Only the once that are mostly in the other stages do .These days most repair techs in india have no clue what is esr .They just get a cap and boom boom  .But i would say a good branded low ESR cap is really good for reliable working of this .I would like the give you a example .I use 2 chinese P4 boards for some special application .Time and again they were failing so i got real nice low esr caps and recapped them all .Till date never had a issue