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dataharvested

macrumors regular
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Aug 13, 2022
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ASD passed. No drives were installed during testing as they are all new and I didn't want to risk any corruption of OCLP or anything.
 

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dataharvested

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 13, 2022
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91
I don't have a soldering setup any longer and will need to acquire a new one. Any opinions on this soldering setup that I linked below?

Amazon Link

Also, any resources on acquiring the capacitor or should I just search around?

Thanks in advance!
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,601
I don't have a soldering setup any longer and will need to acquire a new one. Any opinions on this soldering setup that I linked below?

Amazon Link
Never saw it before, sorry.

I'd buy a bog standard Hakko 936 clone from eBay/AliExpress, since parts and supplies are very cheap and easy to find and people that have these 936 clones seems to like it a lot for hobby work.

I have several PACE MBT soldering and desoldering stations that I slowly acquired via eBay over the last 15 years (my PACE MBT-250 still have the Compaq asset tag) and never looked at the entry level stuff again, besides a cheap ZD-915 desoldering station that I bought to do very basic/rough work since just the price of the vacuum pump repair for a MBT can probably pay for two complete ZD-915s. :p

Also, any resources on acquiring the capacitor or should I just search around?

Thanks in advance!

You need to buy the exactly same one, pay attention to the purple color code, I'm fairly sure that this is one is a 100uF 16V OS-CON Panasonic Aluminum Polymer low ESR cap, you should find it on Digikey/Mouser/Farnell.
 
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dataharvested

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 13, 2022
120
91
Never saw it before, sorry.

I'd buy a bog standard Hakko 936 clone from eBay/AliExpress, since parts and supplies are very cheap and easy to find and people that have these 936 clones seems to like it a lot for hobby work.

I have several PACE MBT soldering and desoldering stations that I slowly acquired via eBay over the last 15 years (my PACE MBT-250 still have the Compaq asset tag) and never looked at the entry level stuff again, besides a cheap ZD-915 desoldering station that I bought to do very basic/rough work since just the price of the vacuum pump repair for a MBT can probably pay for two complete ZD-915s. :p



You need to buy the exactly same one, pay attention to the purple color code, I'm fairly sure that this is one is a 100uF 16V OS-CON Panasonic Aluminum Polymer low ESR cap, you should find it on Digikey/Mouser/Farnell.
Thanks again! :)
 

Soba

macrumors 6502
May 28, 2003
451
702
Rochester, NY
Yeah, going to try that when I get home. I'm also going to inspect the boards for any other caps that may be missing.

Just putting this suggestion out there: While it's fun to do a repair project like this for its own sake, if your immediate goal is to just get the system working, you could always buy a replacement board. They are not very expensive.
 
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dataharvested

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 13, 2022
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Just putting this suggestion out there: While it's fun to do a repair project like this for its own sake, if your immediate goal is to just get the system working, you could always buy a replacement board. They are not very expensive.
I noticed they go for around $100 on eBay. So it's do I want to gather up the gear to do it myself and have a project or buy another backplane and hope for the best. 🤔
 

dataharvested

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 13, 2022
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I have it down to four options and I'm not sure exactly which one it would be.
 

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tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
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The measured height of my cap aligns with the 9mm version, so that would make it the 10 mOhms flavor as well I presume.

Capacitor Link

You can always confirm the ESR from the identical right by the damaged one to be 100% sure - unfortunately I can't check it for you right now, but I can confirm it in a week or two. It's cheap enough to buy both the 10 and 24 mOhms versions, without thinking twice.
 
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dataharvested

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 13, 2022
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I ordered two of each just to be safe. They will be here Friday. Now to shop the soldering station... :)
 

dataharvested

macrumors regular
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Aug 13, 2022
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Old cap remnants are out.
 

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dataharvested

macrumors regular
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Aug 13, 2022
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Decided to go ahead and do the Pixlas mod at the same time to avoid taking things apart twice. I know it's not the logical way to go about it as doing one repair/modification at a time to verify the first is okay before moving on to the second is the wise way. Headed to work though so this is where I have to leave it for now.
 

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dataharvested

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 13, 2022
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Well, the new capacitor is installed and the Pixlas mod is completed. The computer works normally, and is still locking up when playing PUBG. Oh well, AVX seems to be the likely culprit. I will likely utilize this Mac Pro for my day-to-day use and home server functions, then build a dedicated computer for Windows gaming. :|
 

paronga

macrumors regular
Nov 9, 2011
111
6
Australia, Melbourne
That’s rough mate! Congrats on all of the hard work! AVX has been a headache for me on the max pro also. There is a specific plug-in for music production I own that I can’t run without avx :(

I don’t know what the end game here is either as it seems that intel has dropped avx as of the 13th gen chips….
 
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dataharvested

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 13, 2022
120
91
It is what it is. It's still a great computer for most things and a fun project. I feel better knowing the capacitor has been repaired and that any GPU I put into it will have plenty of power. So, unless further AVX or other issues crop in my day-to-day activities on the computer I'm happy with it. :)
 
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bllx

macrumors member
Feb 24, 2008
40
11
Just thought I would add to this.
While manhandling a PCI card a year or so back, I very nearly broke the same cap in my 2010 cMP. In fact I'm not sure it isn't broken.
I ordered a replacement cap that is very close or the same as original, however due to caution I have not actually done the operation, as everything seems to work fine. It happened 1.5 years ago. Although I have had 'problems' inasmuch as I often get poor transfer speeds between PCI installed storage devices, as posted here previously....who knows perhaps that is caused by this cap? Photo below...do others think it has lost functionality ie is broken? Very hard to see.

Also, for the record, GTAV works fine for me on Windows 7 on this cMP, no missing CPU instruction set problems, tho I have had that with another game Squad: for which they eventually issued a fix/workaround; fine now.
 

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Wolfson

macrumors newbie
Sep 5, 2021
20
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I ordered a replacement cap that is very close or the same as original, however due to caution I have not actually done the operation, as everything seems to work fine. It happened 1.5 years ago. Although I have had 'problems' inasmuch as I often get poor transfer speeds between PCI installed storage devices, as posted here previously....who knows perhaps that is caused by this cap? Photo below...do others think it has lost functionality ie is broken? Very hard to see.
I'm pretty sure that cap is at least not up to spec anymore. And given its location the problems with your PCI bus could come from this. Replacing it shouldn't be too hard. It really depends on if the transfer speed problems bother you a lot. :)
 

dataharvested

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 13, 2022
120
91
Just thought I would add to this.
While manhandling a PCI card a year or so back, I very nearly broke the same cap in my 2010 cMP. In fact I'm not sure it isn't broken.
I ordered a replacement cap that is very close or the same as original, however due to caution I have not actually done the operation, as everything seems to work fine. It happened 1.5 years ago. Although I have had 'problems' inasmuch as I often get poor transfer speeds between PCI installed storage devices, as posted here previously....who knows perhaps that is caused by this cap? Photo below...do others think it has lost functionality ie is broken? Very hard to see.

Also, for the record, GTAV works fine for me on Windows 7 on this cMP, no missing CPU instruction set problems, tho I have had that with another game Squad: for which they eventually issued a fix/workaround; fine now.
Hmm, maybe I'll try GTA V again. Thanks for the info. Yeah, I would have to fix that cap! But that being said, I had no issues running without it for a couple of weeks. For all I know the cap was missing from the board for years. (I just bought the cMP recently)
 
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