Hi,
I've desoldered a bad capacitor from my pc motherboard. It's 1500uF. I went to the electronics store (Jaycar) and they said they were too rare to stock on their shelves. I have 1000uF and 2200uF caps.. I'm thinking I'll substitute in one of these as I don't have the time to wait for delivery of correct cap, it's a work pc. I' pretty sure the cap is related to some GPIO pins, but I can't confirm from what I can see.

Is this a bad idea? I've never done PC repair..

 

It's not the worst idea, just make sure the voltage rating of the replacement is equal or greater then the orgional, otherwise the new cap may well (literally!) explode.

I suspect such a large value cap is for power bypassing so either value may work, I'd still use the larger one.

 

Some of my notes on the subject:

For replacements:
- ESR should be the same or lower.
- Ripple should be the same or higher.
- Voltage should be the same or higher. [Without getting ridiculous.]
- Don't wanna change uF unless you have to.
- Also make sure it will physically fit both diameter and height.

 

Use the 2200uF and observe for CORRECT polarity.

absf

 

Ok thanks guys, I'll try my 2200uF, I think it should be ok, higher voltage. The pc was working while it was leaking its magic contents so its probably not critical.

Thanks again.