Guys, quick update: this project is suspended. I decided to do a full motherboard recap. But I'm in Argentina so shipping is expensive to buy just a few caps. I'm waiting to do a full list of every cap I need for my incoming projects so I can divide the shipping cost between all of those. I just don't have the time right now to make such a task, but my beloved rig will be restored someday this year. I swear that!

The regulator may be hot, but is it within operating specs? Some of them are specced to quite high temperatures. Perhaps you can replace it with a more efficient part if heat is a concern.

It was so hot that I had to make a custom heatsink for it. And it is reaching high temperatures even without load (without CPU inserted on the motherboard), so unless I missed something, I think a recap would be a good starting point. The original caps are cheap and they are 21 years old and I also have to recap some more things. Paying one shipping for all of them is a must.

bjt wrote:

The regulator may be hot, but is it within operating specs? Some of them are specced to quite high temperatures. Perhaps you can replace it with a more efficient part if heat is a concern.

150 degrees C junction temperature.

Hello guys! It's been a long time since I left this project on my "to do" list. I was expecting to buy some quality caps from Digikey or Mouser, but it's really really expensive and difficult to buy things outside our country. But for my surprise, I found Rubycon and Jamicon (both std series) caps in a local store. I know, the Rubycon ones are 85°C and Jamicon's reputation isn't very good. But they were cheap and I'm sure these caps will be better than my ancient 21 years old Suscon and Stone caps.

So I replaced every single lythic cap in my motherboard. And guess what? NO MORE OVERHEATING!!! YESSSS!!! 😎 😎 😎

Now I'm doing some tests back with the original voltage regulator heatsink. No more heat without load (without CPU installed) as before, no more insane overheat under load and no more problems. I still have the "burning AT cable" issue, but now I'm sure that this is due to a bad contact. I also replaced all lythics in my Addonics SV500 and my Trident 9680. Plus added 1mb extra of VRAM in it. I did more things to this system, but I'm a little busy right now to upload pictures. I will keep posting and showing some more goodies (some 3DFX "back from death" involved 😎 ).

Have a nice day guys!

Great news! Did you test any caps for being failed short?

Very nice!

Not yet. I stored them in a bag. I will test them next weekend.
Right now I'm working on a thinkpad a20m in mint condition that I bought two days ago. 0175 crc1 error (fixed by myself) and intermittent vrm and cpu overheating issues.