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[wilgo45]

I would try to replace all three.  It's really not that hard with a good soldering iron with the right tip.  Lots of people use the needle tip.  I find it to be the least helpful one.

You'll want to use good flux and re-tin the pads some before placing the ceramic caps.  Looks like you still have workable area.

I do repairs for Xbox Scene members  .... if you happen to need direct help; let me know

However, you say Cheers  .... so you might be from the UK ?

[jesus_on_raptor]

Thanks for the reply. I've received two other replies on other forums and everyone says they're necessary for sure.

I've looked at a few soldering videos and the method you suggest is definitely the way to go: de-solder the pads, flux the pads, solder one pad, reheat solder and position capacitor.

I'm in Canada, by the way. You're in the States I take it? I'm still debating whether to send the mobo to an experienced tech.

[wilgo45]

On the process - I would do it in this order

Apply flux
Re-tin the sites

Then wick the sites
Clean the flux residue

Reapply flux
Install the ceramic cap

Let me know about your repair offers in Canada.  Maybe I can do a better rate.  But shipping is going to be the greatest expense.  Maybe I would the install for free  ... maybe

Yep .... I'm in Iowa of the US

[jesus_on_raptor]

So a member on another forum had a bunch of RRoD mobos lying around and he was kind enough to snail mail me a few each of the missing capacitors. I've decided I'll do the fix myself, as these larger SMD caps should be OK to replace after some practice.

Question: can I just reflow the solder on the pads to attach the caps? As far as I can tell, most of, if not all, the original solder is still intact on all the pads. Whatever might have been lost when the caps came off appears to be minimal. I'm wondering because I have the soldering pen and the replacement caps should arrive next week. I ordered 0.4mm rosin core solder and a wick off eBay but they're coming from China and that entails a 2-3 week waiting time.

Cheers.

[wilgo45]

Yes you can just reflow solder on to those points with the cap in place.
That is essentially what soldering is.  There are just levels of soldering technique from novice to advance.

Re-tinning your site will give you more area to use.  Consider it like patching drywall

I highly recommend using a good flux.  Helps the flow and bond process.  Flux will help preserve your contact sites too.

Hope you got a decent soldering iron.  Makes all the difference in the world.  I recommend digitally controlled soldering stations.  Weller, Hakko, Yihua, JCB, Pace, Auyoe

[jesus_on_raptor]

So I received the replacement smd caps. Unfortunately, it looks like they were pulled from older boards, perhaps Xenons. The board I'm trying to repair is a Falcon. Of course, the Xenon had 90nm GPUs and the Falcon 80nm. The replacement caps I received have a dark gray middle, while the caps on my Falcon have a slight tan middle, as you can see in the picture in my first post. The capacitors are the same size, however.

Thoughts?

[wilgo45]

Color on ceramic capacitors does indicate a farad range for that color.

Can be pico farad, nano farad or micro farad.

There are online guides out there.  Wikipedia might even be helpful.

Digikey will have the caps you need.  Mega warehouse for electronics component.  Great prices

You need to match the package size.  Roughly the voltage ... and roughly the farad level.  Getting the exact is also perfect

[wilgo45]

Here's a bit of a guide:

    Light grey body colour indicates a capacitance which is generally less than 100pF.
    Medium Grey colour indicates a capacitance anywhere from 10pF to 10nF.
    Light brown colour indicates a capacitance in a range from 1nF to 100nF.
    Medium brown colour indicates a capacitance in a range from 10nF to 1μF.
    Dark brown colour indicates a capacitance from 100nF to 10μF.

[TimelessNL]

I don't know if it is still helpful

But since I have the Original Falcon PCB schematics I can provide you the exact values so u can just solder wires to the PCB solder pads and add an decent sized Cap to it. Or just buy some same SMD capacitors.





These caps are mainly used for Decoupling, So missing one of them shouldn't be a reason of the 0020 error. But you can replace them anyways.