Anyone else doing motherboard capacitor replacement?

[shamrin]

We've been fixing motherboards with popped and bleeding caps for a few years now Initially, our hit rate on getting a complete repair was nearly 100%. However, the last couple of repairs have not been successful. I've got a machine here now that's just revving the fan when I put power to it like a fried motherboard will. It's tricky to know whether something's gone wrong with the repair or if the motherboard was shot in some other way and we just replaced caps on a bad board. I was wondering what kind of success rate others are getting with these jobs.

 

[JustInspired]

Don't do SMD ones but we replace desktop caps quite regularly. Some boards are already working before we replace the caps but if we find them leaking or swollen we'll give the customer the option of a new board or replacement caps.
Some of the non working boards that have obvious capacitor problems may or may not work when the caps are changed.
All in all I'd say we have about a 90% success rate.

I usually won't do re-capping if there are more than six bad ones as it then becomes uneconomical in terms of labour costs.

 

[stro]

I have had a 100% success rate on boards that still power on when hitting the switch.

When I first started doing them, I found that systems that power up as soon as you plug in the power or systems that do not power at all, were almost never successful.

 

[Rob_NNCC]

I do these. As stro says, I only do this if the mobo powers on and off like it is not posting. Of these, I have had a 95% repair rate on these. The only one that did not work was one that the customer would mash the power button until it finally posted.

 

[ArtemusComputerTechnology]

No, I do not bother with it.

 

[pcpickup]

The success rate goes to go down a lot when they have bad caps and have run the computer until the board is no longer turning on. When caps go bad the value of their capacitance changes resulting in a voltage change in the circuit eventually causing the other components in that circuit to burn out.

 

[Velvis]

How can this type of work be profitable/recommended? I would think that machines that have caps blown must be very old and probably not worth the labor to repair them. Or am I missing something?

 

[14049752]

The only time I replace caps is when the board is something specific.

For example, I repaired a POS system for a restaurant a few weeks ago. The board was rare, cost a good bit of money, and might have taken a few days to arrive (it was a Friday). I had the caps in stock, had the board repaired and working in an hour, and the customer was up and running again for dinner and the weekend.

I also *used* to do iMac G5's (talk about a TOUGH job..those logic boards SOAK up the heat) when they were relevant.....as well as LCD monitors and TVs. For a while, I had a lot of LCD monitors coming in....but now that I think about it, probably zero in over a year.

Oh, and my success rate: Pretty close to 100% all around. I had maybe one or two monitors that didn't come back to life, but usually I only bother with caps if I'm fairly confident that's the main issue.

 

[altrenda]

How can this type of work be profitable/recommended? I would think that machines that have caps blown must be very old and probably not worth the labor to repair them. Or am I missing something?

For a desktop mobo, the parts are less than a laptop screen, usually $15 $20, takes slightly longer than a simple screen replacement, and I charge more than a screen change.

Customer gets their system back with all the programs, files, and settings intact.

 

[paristotle]

How can this type of work be profitable/recommended? I would think that machines that have caps blown must be very old and probably not worth the labor to repair them. Or am I missing something?

Some that I have done have lasted for years. I did one in 2008 that is still in use today.

 

[JustInspired]

How can this type of work be profitable/recommended? I would think that machines that have caps blown must be very old and probably not worth the labor to repair them. Or am I missing something?

As mentioned in my earlier post, if there are not too many swollen or leaking caps we will offer this service. The reasons?
1. As above: if the board is special, like those we have done for embroidery machines and vehicle diagnostics machines where replacement is expensive or simply unavailable.
2. The machine has no other problems and boards are hard to come by. Like this week I did a socket A board that had four bad caps. Less than £5 worth of parts and twenty minutes labour.
3. I hate throwing easily fixable stuff away just to sell the customer a new one. There's enough junk on the planet as it is.