Find a local hackerspace or radio amateur club.

A desoldering gun isn't necessary. A soldering iron is just enough, but it should be powerful one with temperature regulation and with a massive soldering iron tip. Also it's better to choose a low voltage soldering iron.
Don't set temperature too high , adjust it gradually from low. Then you will know what temperature should be set.
Don't touch a PCB with an iron tip. Touch only pins. I often saw how inexperienced people damaged wire near cap's pads when they did recapping. It's better to apply flux for desoldering and of course for soldering.
Mounting hole can be cleaned from solder using a toothpick applied at a front side of PCB when the iron tip is applied at a back side at the same time.
ASUS mainboards have unusual printing of caps on PCB, so don't confuse "+" and "-" when new cap is installed.
Capacitor is bigger in size if it is for higher voltage. So it just isn't fit.

Perfect, I'm ordering the equipment and caps now. One question though, this cap on the left hand side, I see if as 470uf 16v just wanted me make sure this is correct before placing my order, if anyone can confirm? Thanks!

Also, the black 10uf 25v caps, they also worth replacing, essentially the entire board? I'm finding it difficult to get 10uf at 25v, Panasonic, but can get 10uf 50v, could that be an issue, size i can probably make some longer than others on the boadr of bunched up, but take it a higher voltage is fine?

DrLucienSanchez wrote on 2022-11-29, 16:20:

...
Also, the black 10uf 25v caps, they also worth replacing, essentially the entire board? I'm finding it difficult to get 10uf at 25v, Panasonic, but can get 10uf 50v, could that be an issue, size i can probably make some longer than others on the boadr of bunched up, but take it a higher voltage is fine?

I've never changed those black caps on mainboards. Caps for higher voltage would work fine. But distance between pins has to be the same. Though too big height can prevent installation of exp. card (it is in general and depending on place)

P.S. That green cap that is near the usb port is 470uF * 16v.

small caps often die in power supplies where its hot, on motherboards they see much less stress

As mentioned, replacing a cap with a higher voltage but equivalent charge is OK. Need to watch out for the pitch, but you can mostly work around this by bending the legs to fit.

Leaded solder is safe to use, just don't eat it, you can get lead free but its a little harder to work with and has higher melting point and some other drawbacks

Adjustable soldering iron is a must. Get a variety of extra tips and a jar of MG flux. Qtips and iso for cleaning up flux.

For desoldering - solder wick / braid and forceps. Flux the joint before applying the iron, and reapply as necessary. For stubborn joints, you can try adding a little bit of fresh solder which can help. Don't crank the heat up to max. ~350 - 400 C should be fine for most things. Increase as necessary but try not to go too much beyond 400.

Every now and then, dip the tip in flux, wipe off on damp sponge, re-tin it. You always want it to be 'clean' - the black crust that can form is no bueno.

Practice on a donor board.

Always make sure you note the polarity and cap values. Take pics and/or take notes.

Not sure if a desoldering gun is necessary. I dont have one but I can see it being useful esp if you recap a lot. Ive had some stubborn boards where it was very difficult to remove some leads with iron+braid, even with all the tricks.

drosse1meyer wrote on 2022-11-30, 03:52:

Don't crank the heat up to max. ~350 F should be fine for most things. Increase as necessary but try not to go beyond 400.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you meant 350C and not 350F?

If not, I'm no pro, but I don't think I've ever been able to work on a board with my iron set to those temps. 60/40 solder won't even begin to melt until 361F, and there's almost no way you'd keep it fluid on a motherboard with your iron set that low.

I've always had better results with high heat in short bursts. It is essential that you not overheat the component, but that can happen from holding an insufficiently hot iron on a joint for too long. It can also be very difficult to work on multi layer boards, or boards that have metal components (coils, connectors, heatsinks, etc.) on the same circuit you're trying to work on because so much heat is pulled from the iron\joint so quickly. In those cases I have to preheat the area of the board with a hot air station unless I want it to be a total nightmare.

Lead free solder also makes things a pain.

... man, I'm remembering how much I dislike working on modern motherboards. Give me something from the 80s to fix any day. 🤣

BTW, I bought a Hakko FX888D when I started doing more soldering work back in 2015 or so and it's been fantastic. I also have one of those semi-decent-but-not-perfect Chinese made ZD-985 vacuum desoldering stations. If you do one wrong thing and clog up the gun it can be totally infuriating, but when you do everything right it's incredible how fast and easy it makes through-hole component replacements. Still highly recommend a basic hot air station to preheat things though.

Lots of good advice in this thread. I've recently replaced few caps in an atx PSU (also electronics is my other hobby) so here are my 2 (euro) cents.

Although a desoldering gun is not necessary it is a great item to have. I have a Chinese desoldering "station" zd-8915. When I was recently replacing those caps on a very tightly packed psu I was glad I have it. I just applied extra leaded solder with a soldering iron first. Then I used the gun and finally I pulled the caps straight up the whole removal process taking less than a minute.

My "normal" method of desoldering without one is to heat/flow one leg and move the component to a side so it lifts on the heated side. Then the other leg is heated while pulling gently. This is very difficult to do on a tightly packed board.

Many people don't do the above, but use copper braid to remove solder instead. This works, but copper braid is not cheap in the long run (perhaps it doesn't matter for few caps). When using it make sure to free the cap leads/legs too rather than end up with no solder and the leg stuck to the side of a through-hole metallisation. Heating up a leg with no solder on to free it up can be frustrating.

These days I only use copper braid for removing excess solder on smd components when I apply too much.

If you plan to be doing this more often a desoldering station is a good tool to have (once you have a good iron).

As for temperature control I agree you need a soldering iron that controls its temperature in a tight feedback loop, but you don't really need a per degree temperature regulation. Eventually you'll probably use 3 settings. The normal (around 400C), a low (towards 350C), and a hot (~420-450). The hot and low being rarely used, but very useful when needed.

If you do end up buying a desoldering gun make sure to get one you can get consumables for in future. Tips use up pretty fast if you're desoldering a lot.

Also regarding bad caps in general it is useful to have a capacitance meter. Often if there is only one brand of caps used in a device and one or two goes bad I replace them all, but sometimes you have a mix of brands including some quality ones. Then a meter becomes very handy to check them (even in circuit in some cases). For example in that psu I had two 10v/1000uF caps that were bulging. They measured 15uF only! No surprise the psu acted weird (it switched itself off no doubt due to overvoltage/ripple).

Regarding replacing low voltage caps with higher rated ones, accepted wisdom is that it is fine, but it is worth to remember the lower the voltage of the cap the better the esr usually is (within the same type). So If you're replacing a 5V rail cap rated at 10V and all you have is 16V caps it is fine, but if you do have 10V and 16V caps it is better to install a 10V one, but the difference is very small.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2022-11-30, 06:54:

drosse1meyer wrote on 2022-11-30, 03:52:

Don't crank the heat up to max. ~350 F should be fine for most things. Increase as necessary but try not to go beyond 400.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you meant 350C and not 350F?

BTW, I bought a Hakko FX888D when I started doing more soldering work back in 2015 or so and it's been fantastic. I also have one of those semi-decent-but-not-perfect Chinese made ZD-985 vacuum desoldering stations. If you do one wrong thing and clog up the gun it can be totally infuriating, but when you do everything right it's incredible how fast and easy it makes through-hole component replacements. Still highly recommend a basic hot air station to preheat things though.

Yep, typo!

I was going to mention hot air but decided against it, that's a bit of a different skill set and needed equipment. Picked up a Quick that was on sale for a great price after the first Chinese knockoff I bought on Amazon broke on first use. The aforementioned 'difficult board' was solved in two seconds by hot air... I was just lazy to start and didn't want to tape off components etc.