accaris wrote:After about thirty minutes of shopping on Amazon, eBay, and Newegg, the best PSU I could find had 24A on +5V; it was a 750W. The […]
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Ozzuneoj wrote:They make adapters for those:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/15-pin-SATA-Male-to- … C4AAOSw6vBc15N4 […]
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blurks wrote:Why would anyone opt for an old PSU when the modern ones do the exact same thing? It's not like it is adding anything to a retro build, it is just an absolutely boring piece of hardware that provides power. Do modern ones not have ATX and Molex connectors anymore?
They make adapters for those:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/15-pin-SATA-Male-to- … C4AAOSw6vBc15N4
There's really no reason to use old standard-sized power supplies anymore (even AT supplies can be replaced with ATX PSUs and adapters). Unless you know for sure that you need a specific number of amps on the +5v rail and need an older unit to get that, but those situations are going to be very rare. It also isn't that hard to find a more modern unit that has 30A on the +5v rail, which is plenty for almost any system.
After about thirty minutes of shopping on Amazon, eBay, and Newegg, the best PSU I could find had 24A on +5V; it was a 750W. There was a Startech 300w with 30A, but it appeared to be a 15-year-old model. Probably has been sitting in a warehouse for that long.
Also, wouldn't completely loading down the +5V rail on a modern power supply cause load balancing issues? From what I understand, they just aren't designed for that kind of load.
I'm still also curious: is it safe to buy a 15+ year old "new old stock" motherboard, or are the caps going to be almost certainly dead on arrival?
I would get a used Seasonic 550HT from eBay. They used to be incredibly cheap. Now they're in the $30 range. Still a great power supply though. Modern, but has tons of connections and 30A on the +5v rail. I bought 10 of them a couple years ago for like $15 a piece and they're all in great condition. I have also bought around 20 used Seasonic 350ET (or similar) units over the last 5 years and they are always fine.
As for the caps, I'm quite far from being a capacitor alarmist. For every suggestion I've been given to replace every single cap on every device that's more than 15 years old, I have at least 10 devices which are that old or much older and have the original caps and are exhibiting no problems. Generally, I recommending weighing the costs and risks versus the benefits. Every cap replaced costs money, time spent researching and purchasing parts and time spent replacing them. Every cap replaced also brings risks of damaging the board if it doesn't cooperate (some boards are built in a way that makes soldering much harder than other boards due to absorbing heat and using high melting point solder). Your level of experience and (to an extent) the tools you have available will be the biggest factors in determining the risk. The benefits are basically going to be related to improved stability in the long run and possibly higher resale value (assuming your work is good enough to be worth selling).
How I handle it when inspecting a board that is worth keeping\fixing\using:
If a board has caps that are definitely, visibly bad, replace those and all like them. If the board has other caps from a completely different brand, look them up first before spending hours on it. If they only cheaped out on 6 out of 30 caps on a board, save yourself the hassle unless you just LOVE recapping boards.
If it has caps that are notorious for failing, I'd recommend replacing them even if they look okay, though if the board isn't exhibiting any problems, this greatly depends on the cost and risk assessment mentioned above.
If the board has good brand name caps from a good series (even the good brands had a couple bad series during the plague era I think), and it is exhibiting no problems, I wouldn't even consider replacing them, personally.
If we're talking about something that is very old or very rare and it works fine, but you really want to make it last as long as possible, then the the cost\risk versus benefits assessment comes into play again. Old boards can be easier to work on in some ways but they are more fragile as well.
I replaced a few caps in my 5153 CGA monitor from the mid '80s to fix a specific problem. I'm sure it'd be a good idea to replace all of them, but the cost would be quite high and it would take a LOT of free time. There are also tons of risks involved. So, it is currently using mostly original caps and works without any issues. It'll likely stay that way until I have another problem.
Now for some blitting from the back buffer.