That's going to be a harder one to find out, the compaq card is less common, might have to just buy a cap that over rated abit and hope that it works. Unless if someone else has that card and could check it's raining.

I'd guse it would be something like 3.3v .1uf to 1uf.

I have one of those cards but it is packed up as I'm just about to move house. I can pull out in a few weeks.

Pretty sure Phil has one so I would say he could help.

I have one laying here (in front of me now) but there is no way i can read that little thing (is there even something on it?) as it is that tiny!

Jade Falcon wrote:

I'd guse it would be something like 3.3v .1uf to 1uf.

You mean 6.3v? 6.3v is like bare minimum rating if this is on a 5v rail... if it's 3.3v rail you'd want a bare minimum of 4v cap (even that would not make me feel very good). Not sure if it'd be on a 5v rail requiring 6.3v caps but I can't imagine a 3.3v cap is good enough here. I could be wrong though.

I don't know what voltage a Voodoo3 runs at, not sure if it's 3.3v or what but it's certainly not going to be anything tiny like 1.5v so I am just not confident in recommending a 3.3v cap without more info. IF this is like 2.5 volts or something then it would be fine. I'm also making the assumption that, being under the core, it's a bypass cap but I don't have a board in front of me to check. But even if it's something else like a coupling/blocking cap I think it'll be at least a 3.3v signal and you'd need a cap rated above (not simply equal) to that. Again, could be wrong. Just trying to make sure OP doesn't install a low voltage cap only to blow it up.

personally I'd use a DMM to figure out what rail it's on (or figure out what voltage will be there via some other method, like datasheets of parts used on the card), use the appropriate voltage cap, and as much capacitance as I could get otherwise within the voltage rating and physical size.

meljor wrote:

I have one laying here (in front of me now) but there is no way i can read that little thing (is there even something on it?) as it is that tiny!

The smallest SMD caps are rarely labeled at all. You're probably seeing it correctly. You might be able to measure it in circuit if you've got a high-end DMM but otherwise the only way to know without a schematic or datasheet showing it would generally be to measure one.

I assume this is like an 0603 or 0803 or similar size?

It is extremely small and looking at a high res picture of a different kind of v3 that uses the same type (but on other locations) there really is nothing to see. The small black ones do have a value on them and they are the same physical sizebut on the others there is no value written.

meljor wrote:

It is extremely small and looking at a high res picture of a different kind of v3 that uses the same type (but on other locations) there really is nothing to see. The small black ones do have a value on them and they are the same physical sizebut on the others there is no value written.

"Small black ones" ? Caps can be black but are you sure those are not resistors or something else? Resistors are usually labeled, and are usually black. Now I am not looking at the photo you are and I am not saying this is definitely the case, just a possible explanation for what you are looking at. In any case feel free to link a photo if you'd like a second opinion (from me or someone else in general).

BTW these are ceramic caps (very most likely single layer as these cards are a bit too old and a bit too low-power to likely have MLCC ceramics on them).

I don't know, you're probably right. i'm not that great with electronics and just recently started soldering etc.

The picture was from another type of card so it doesn't matter i guess. I have the right card here but unfortunately there is nothing on the one cap he asked about.