Reply 20 of 23, by mantis_toboggon
CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-09-14, 07:47:I went to the vintage PSU route so that I don't need to think that much about the MB VRM or GPU and I can slap any board in the […]
nd22 wrote on 2023-09-13, 06:30:A Period correct Enermax are built like a tank and would require capacitors to be changed only in rare cases
I went to the vintage PSU route so that I don't need to think that much about the MB VRM or GPU and I can slap any board in the system if I want. I got Enermax EG365AX-VE(g) and slightly newer Noisetaker EG495AX-VE (W) ATX2.0 PSU, both deliver 32A to 5V and 3.3V rails. Both PSUs were full of CEC manufactured PCE-TUR general usage caps and the newer had few TUL series low ESR caps.
Yes, none of the caps were bloated or leaked and I measured quite a few them and they were still in spec. However, CEC caps are clearly 2nd tier and what I read about them, they are a bit like TEAPO, which means that there is a variance in quality how well they last: sometimes they work just fine for an eternity, sometimes they die early. If you have caps from a bad batch, you may have a problem in the long run. Of course usage profile of the PSU plays a role in what condition caps are. Unfortunately when buying a second hand, you don't know anything about the PSU history: how many hours, how high temperatures, how it was stored in recent years etc.
After 20 years I wouldn't trust these capacitors anymore, especiall not knowing about the history. And that is why I recapped secondary sides on both, even though in my case caps seemed to be still good both visually and after measuring quite many of them. There is clearly a risk when using these old PSUs in original condition. But if you do electronics work in any case, recapping these shouldn't be a huge effort and in that case I wouldn't skip recapping them, even though these PSUs are considered relatively reliable.
Not trying to thread necro, but what series of caps did you use to recap the enermax with PCE-TUR? I recapped a 465-VE and 301-VE with Rubycon ZLJ and they must be too low ESR as my oscilloscope has them oscillating on the output unfortunately. Also you are totally correct on these crappy caps being too old, as the 301 was NIB and had a leaking cap that popped as soon as it was powered on.