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 […]
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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.

mantis_toboggon wrote on 2024-01-20, 17:02:

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.

On my EG475P-VE I used Chemi-con KY, KYA and KYB series to replace the large caps on the secondary side (2200/3300/4700 uF) and Panasonic FR for the 1000 uF caps on the +5vSB line. For the rest you can use whatever you want as long as it's good quality and 105C rated. I tried to match the ESR and other specs as close as possible with whatever I could find on the PCE-TUR datasheets and it worked just fine, but had to go with 6.3V caps instead of 10V for the 5V/3.3V lines due to size constraints.

EDIT: one more thing, I looked at my notes from like 5 years ago when I did the recap and there were two types of capacitors originally, PCE-TUR which are general purpose (so you probably don't want to go very low ESR on these) and PCE-TUL which are low ESR and match the KY/KYB specs pretty closely.

mantis_toboggon wrote on 2024-01-20, 17:02:

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.

Could you attach a capture of these oscillations? What load was connected to the PSU and where exactly did you measure the voltage?

You made me slightly worried since I had recapped an EG465P-VE with Panasonic FR caps, not because I wasn't trying to match the original specs, but because they were in stock and cheaper than the alternatives when I was ordering them.
I did some measurements and it seems to be running fine. The ripple on 12 V is not that great for some reason, but I don't see any oscillations. The 5 V RMS is slightly low because it was the last Molex connector at the end of a long chain.
Two HDDs were connected as a load and I measured across the Molex connector on one of them.

mantis_toboggon wrote on 2024-01-20, 17:02:

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.

I guess I’m little bit late now, but I mostly used Panasonic FR series. I might of used some odd Rubycon here and there I had in my bin, but can’t remember what they were. I’m positive that all the beefier caps at least were FR.

I’m not that picky when it comes to PSUs: reputable quality brand and some basic low-esr stuff is just fine. Panasonic FR series fits that bill nicely and is affordable, so most of my PSU recaps use mainly those.