Friday, August 19, 2011

A4000: Recapping CVisionPPC

As I showed in a previous thread some time ago, I changed one cap on my new acquired CVisionPPC that I got as faulty.



Thankfully... the cap was the problem that kept CVisionPPC from working on the previous owner.
Of course this replacement capacitor was only a temporary solution.

After setting up ClassicWB 3.9 and installing CGX4, AfAOS etc... I realized that I didn't pretty much liked the scrolling on screen. My 1280x1024 17" Dell screen worked just fine under my BPPC+BVision combo on my A1200 so it wasn't any issue with the Monitor.

Since my CVisionPPC has SMD electrolytic capacitors I thought of changing them with new tandalums since heat can dry them off pretty quickly. Also I realized that my previous CVisionPPC that I sold, as long as most pictures I saw over BBoAH and other forums had CVisions with tandalums as well.
I asked Cosmos if he had some (since here in Greece I couldn't find in my local electronics store any SMD component) and he sent me the required 7 caps that arrived today :)


So this is what the board looked like before the surgery (lol):



...and this is how it looks like after the recap:



It was a frightening experience for someone not as skilled in desoldering and soldering so small components but I managed to do it really smoothly.

Well there was only one way to find out if the surgery was successful... Fire it up and see what's coming :)

Result was SUCCESSFUL! Not only it looks a lot better but all the annoying scrolling and sizzling lines disappeared and the picture on my monitor is once more Crystal Clear!




Feels really good! And looks a lot better don't you think? :D

2 comments:

rkauer said...

Now it's time for several heatsinks over the card's chips!

mfilos said...

Heatsinks + Fan on Permedia already put my friend.
I'd never risk powering it on without proper cooling :)