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» Capacitor Installation

Recapping Your Own Motherboard or Device	Installing New Caps
This is actually the most simple thing anyone can even imagine!! There is only one thing you really have to be cautious of, and that is the polarity of the new capacitors. If you look at the marking on the motherboard where the old capacitor once resided, you will notice a 'half moon' white shaded area there. The lead that is in that white area represents the NEGATIVE pole of the capacitor. On the actual capacitor, the negative side is clearly marked with a 'minus' sign running down the NEGATIVE side. If the polarity is wrong, the damage can be catastrophic to your board!! Upon the first power up after completing this, you might hear a POP like a firecracker and your board will go POOF!! This does not always hold true on all motherboards! Some boards, especially most Asus boards, are reverse marked on the silkscreens, the 'half moon' area is actually the POSITIVE pole!! Pay attention to the markings on the board AND the markings on the original caps as you remove them!! As a rule though, the white shaded area represents the NEGATIVE pole, just make sure you check yours as you remove the old caps!	Ok, You're going to try this yourself... You shouldn't have any troubles if you've had some soldering experience, however, I MUST say this!!! BADCAPS.NET takes NO responsibility for any damages you do to your board from any information you obtained from this site. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! If you completely hose your board, I don't want to hear about it!! Nor do I want it sent to me for repair! Untangling someone's 'handiwork' is more frustrating than battling the original problem!! If you have any doubts in your skills, DON'T TRY THIS!!
To install the new caps, just do the following, and you'll have an A-1 motherboard again!!! 1) Heat your soldering iron to 400 degrees Celsius. 2) Insert the new capacitor fully into the hole, NOTING THE POLARITY IS CORRECT!!! 3) Heat the lead of the capacitor and apply solder until you see it fill the hole. 4) Use your side cutters or dykes and trim the lead off. 5) Do that to all the caps you're replacing, and THAT'S IT!! YOU'RE DONE!! 6) Reconnect and ENJOY your STABLE Motherboard!!!!
Some Side Notes: There is one more thing that you might need to take into consideration. This is in regard to any capacitors between the AGP and PCI1 slot, or any of the PCI slots. Some of the aftermarket capacitors are taller than the low-profile cheap-o's used by by the manufacturer. Locating exact replacements for these is like looking for arrowheads in the desert. If the replacement cap is taller than the slot it can interfere with the heatsink on some AGP video cards, or interfere with cabling on PCI SCSI controllers and other PCI cards.. The solution to this is to simply solder the cap in laying on its side. This might not be the most pretty way, but it works perfect! Some say that the short length of exposed lead can cause shorts, and to some extent they're correct, BUT, if look at your motherboard and the thousands of other more vulnerable and highly exposed surfaces that exist, and then tell me this is more of a threat.... If the exposed lead does bother you, the best cure is to use a small length of heatshrink tubing and cover the lead before you solder it. If you don't have any heatshrink tubing, you can insulate the lead with a dab of glue from your hot glue gun. If you purchase your caps from Badcaps.net, this shouldn't ever be an issue, as I have the proper sizes for just about every motherboard and power supply application out there.