perriama wrote:
Hi Guy,
Blown capacitors are quite easy to spot. The top of the capacitor has a cross pattern cut into the alloy and if the capacitor is damaged in any way, the cross opens up and lets out what looks like insulation material. In my case, it was only opened a tiny fraction, but this indicated that something wasn't correct.
Luckily, I only had one blown, but as a future precaution, I replaced all four. The hardest part of the whole operation was dismantling the interior, so would advise taking a few photos to ensure that all components and cables are replaced correctly on re-assembly.
Just for your info, mine was also on a serge protector, but as this appears to be a bit of a weakness with the design of the main board, age and usage also have a factor in the failure. I've heard people speculate that because the main board was supplied with a 2Ghz processor that was essentially overclocked by B&O from a 1.5Ghz, it remains an Achilles heel of the unit.
Thanks
Andrew
Dead caps on mainbords are quite common, just do a google search, a lot of people are replacing caps on their MB's.
The cap does not need to be open on top, to be dead, if they bulge in any way, other than almost going inwards a bit on top, they are prone to cause problems. I normally change 8 caps on the BM5 MB's, I have not seen any MB's with totally opened caps yet, but they start bulging on top, and this causes reboots, and if left running, they will bulge more and more, and open up like you say.
But the de-soldering of these through-hole caps, multi-layer PCB's can be a pain, it requires a lot of heat very fast, my first MB was with a standard "hobby" soldering iron. It took forever, and I was afraid I ruined stuff because of the amount of heat. I also tried with heat-gun, this I could not get to work safely also, so I use a large flat soldering iron that is big enough to heat on both legs at the same time, and then add a lot of clean solder to lower the melting point of the original solder.
/Weebyx
