Thanks for the info, tehsiggi! If I manage to fix the problematic Asus card, I'll order just one chineese orange ("golden") cooler for it. Tomorrow I'll get all the new replacement capacitors I need.

Fingers crossed for a successful repair! Looking forward to the result!

This is the current state of the card - all Hitano junk removed:

Tomorrow I'll report back if there is any change for good after soldering the new caps.

It's been a while, but I had tinkering with other retro PC parts. First time used polymer capacitors (some china made ULR - whatever this means, and these are not cheap), but they're within +/-20% limits for their capacity. Samxon electrolytic caps are pretty good - spot on with their labeled capacity.

Here it is how the card looks after the full recap:

Unfortunately the "sudden death" with black screen and system hang did not disappear, but... Maybe there's another problem, 'cause currently I have no 100% proper PSU for powering the used s. A board (Athlon XP CPU) for tests. The FSP PSU (shevalier gave a clear definition why it is not appropriate for other than Athlon 64 systems) I'm using just don't work well without enough load on its +12 VDC line, which s. A or older system can't provide. The other (period correct) option I have is a "300 W" (probably ~ 180-200 W peak power) Codegen junk, which gives even more unstable voltages (100% needs full recap, but I doubt it's worth the price). The interesting moment here is, that my other two R9550 videocards (GeCube and Gigabyte) somehow works fine with the test system powered by improper FSP PSU, but as I mentioned before - their PCB design is totally different and they have much more soldered electronic components compared to this Asus card.

I'll retest the card, when get some proper (period correct) ATX PSU for s.A Athlon XP system without extra +12 VDC CPU connectors.

Thanks to shevalier and tehsiggi for all the help!

analog_programmer wrote on 2025-07-15, 16:35:

s.A Athlon XP system without extra +12 VDC CPU connectors.

I would recommend repeating the same procedure with the motherboard.
The peculiarity of the Athlon XP is that it is a processor with modern functions (Bus Disconnect is an early implementation of power saving, later developed into Cool and Quaet) and significant power consumption.
This processor can already create a very unpleasant load with large differences. Of course, it is not Ryzen (10 W at rest, 150 W under load), but it is not Pentium 3 either, which changes the load by 20 percent.

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 04:53:

I would recommend repeating the same procedure with the motherboard.
The peculiarity of the Athlon XP is that it is a processor with modern functions (Bus Disconnect is an early implementation of power saving, later developed into Cool and Quaet) and significant power consumption.
This processor can already create a very unpleasant load with large differences. Of course, it is not Ryzen (10 W at rest, 150 W under load), but it is not Pentium 3 either, which changes the load by 20 percent.

Yep, I'll retest the entire system, when I get a proper working PSU for s.A motherboards. This FSP ATX-350PNF PSU seems not bad, but now I'm sure it really doesn't suit something older (or newer) than s.AM2 motherboard + Athlon 64 (X2) CPU. The "300 W" Codegen 200x ("200x" model rather suggests а 200 W peak power, which is also questionable) PSU junk, that I have and suits, is just a total junk. I have a slightly less junky JNC LC-B250ATX PSU, which is a period correct match for these s.A motherboards, but it is in semi-disassembled state and I still can't find a proper circuit diagram for it. I think it can be restored and even improved to become a descent test-bench PSU, but again... I can't do much on my own without a circuit diagram for it 🙁 I'm considering opening a thread for helping me restoring it.