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Heal another Hippo (486 Octek Hippo 15)

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First post, by snoopy23

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Hello, long time reader here, finally my first post.

I recently found my most wanted 486 mainboard for really cheap (always had it in the back of my mind since I watched necrowares video about it. All the features I want, documentation available and a cool/funny name. Perfect.) But the problem is, somebody desoldered all capacitors and did a really bad job. Some traces are broken and it looks horrible where he tried to desolder the caps. They’re kind of ripped off the board. But I think it’s fixable (only need to learn how to fix traces). My main problem is, I have no idea which capacitor I need for each position.

I tried to figure it out by pictures that I found online, but at least for me that’s impossible, cause mostly it’s not possible to read everything on the cap.

Maybe someone here with that same board can help me?

Thanks a lot
Jan

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Last edited by snoopy23 on 2024-02-07, 09:43. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 6, by zwrr

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Terrible, for what purpose would it be done?
I purchased a HIPPO 15 Rev 1.23 motherboard today, which is expected to arrive on January 2nd, I can help you identify the specifications of the missing capacitors, you need to be patient.

Pentium MMX233, Zida TX98-3D, 64MB, Riva 128, Aztech Waverider Pro 32-3D, HardMPU-wt

K6-III+550, FIC VA-503+, 256MB, Voodoo3 2000, Creative AWE32, HardMPU-wt

Tualatin-1.4G, QDI A10BM, 512MB, G400, Voodoo2 SLI, Creative AWE64

Reply 2 of 6, by rasz_pl

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Someone was trying to recap, but had no experience with multilayer PCBs. Cant use your grandfathers power controlled rod soldering iron/cheap chinese Hakko 903 clone. Pads are ripped meaning VIAs can be ripped meaning it might never work again. Of course recapping this board was pointless, caps on it almost never fail.
Capacity is not critical on boards of this vintage, everything is powered from 5V rail and there are no SMPS converters. Voltage 6.3V is fine, altho originally Octet used 16V for the big caps.
Big blue ones ones 1000uf 16V
My guesses for the rest:
smaller blue probably 220uf 6.3v
big black 470uf
medium 220uf
small 100uf
really small 10-47uf

https://github.com/raszpl/sigrok-disk FM/MFM/RLL decoder
https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module (AT&T Globalyst)
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 ram board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad

Reply 3 of 6, by snoopy23

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rasz_pl wrote on 2023-12-29, 00:08:
Big blue ones ones 1000uf 16V My guesses for the rest: smaller blue probably 220uf 6.3v big black 470uf medium 220uf small 100uf […]
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Big blue ones ones 1000uf 16V
My guesses for the rest:
smaller blue probably 220uf 6.3v
big black 470uf
medium 220uf
small 100uf
really small 10-47uf

That’s a good starting point. Thank you.

zwrr wrote on 2023-12-28, 08:18:

Terrible, for what purpose would it be done?
I purchased a HIPPO 15 Rev 1.23 motherboard today, which is expected to arrive on January 2nd, I can help you identify the specifications of the missing capacitors, you need to be patient.

I don’t know the purpose, but my guess is the same what rasz said.
And this would be very great if you could help me identify the caps and/or verify what rasz suggested. Thanks! And I’m very patient and not in a hurry with that.

Reply 4 of 6, by zwrr

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I got it today,
There are 5 specifications of capacitors used on the motherboard, which are ELNA and Rubycon, and the quality is very good, and it looks like it will work for a long time.

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Pentium MMX233, Zida TX98-3D, 64MB, Riva 128, Aztech Waverider Pro 32-3D, HardMPU-wt

K6-III+550, FIC VA-503+, 256MB, Voodoo3 2000, Creative AWE32, HardMPU-wt

Tualatin-1.4G, QDI A10BM, 512MB, G400, Voodoo2 SLI, Creative AWE64

Reply 5 of 6, by rasz_pl

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looks my guesses were almost spot on, only "small 100uf" turned out to be 22uF instead

https://github.com/raszpl/sigrok-disk FM/MFM/RLL decoder
https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module (AT&T Globalyst)
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 ram board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad

Reply 6 of 6, by snoopy23

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Thank you so much zwrr! That’s much more than I expected. You really put work into this. That photo is great, now I can check everything and replace the caps. First step is too clean the mess and check/meassure everything and see how much he/she really messed up.
I hope you got your hippo for a good price and make a great retro pc out of it.

@rasz yes, really good calls. Thank you for your support on healing a hippo.

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