Bad SMD Electrolytic Capacitors on Old Consoles

[tongshadow]

After doing some preventive maintenance to my Xbox and replacing a bunch of bad capacitors (The ones close to the CPU and some SMD), it made question why most people dont talk about this. We all talk about bad capacitors on CRTs, old hardware and Arcade machines, but discussions about these parts going bad on older consoles, like the PS1, dont seem as frequent. And in my experience the small SMD electrolytic caps are just as likely to go bad, if not more, as the common ones. Some of these capacitors on my PS1 will go as high as 70ESR, and despite working properly it's still far out of spec.

So why dont these components on older consoles seem to get more attention?

[ulfrinn]

Maybe you're just looking in the wrong places? I'm fairly active throughout the retro gaming community and capacitor replacement in old consoles is a fairly big topic that is discussed a lot. In fact, over the past year I have replaced capacitors in one SNES, one GBA, one Japanese Famicom, three model 2 Sega Genesis consoles and a Game Gear. It's also well known that pre version 1.6 OG Xbox consoles have a particularly short-lived clock capacitor that is probably bad, or about to start leaking in every pre 1.6 OG Xbox out there. That particular capacitor isn't necessary for the console to function or be used, so most people just remove it, and leave it out, since all it does is grant you a few hours of being unplugged before the system clock gets reset (as opposed to just using a clock battery like other consoles of the era used).

Console5 sells kits for a lot of different variants for a lot of different consoles for replacing the capacitors. They also have other parts to replace in some of those old consoles that may need it, like fuses, and power regulators too.

[gray117]

It's so prevalent on crts because of the increased power/strain. The next common thing is power supplies (just replace these, even internal ones, is something that is also becoming v common). And then yeah ... capacitor issues is becoming a pretty common issue for the snes/pc-engine/megadrive era; which has seen it take a bit of jump in popular awareness... and in particular I feel it's been THE thing for duos and mega cds for about the last decade ...?

... the crunch always comes with all of these issues is when replacements are more difficult to find than correcting the issue, and whilst consoles tended to get shoved in a drawer or cupboards, bulky crts were more often just dumped/damaged since they couldn't be easily stored...

And, aside from availability, past owners had little nostalgia/fondness for crts, unlike their toys

... But yeah I feel console re-capping is becoming increasingly popular - perhaps more so with an aging-you-tube-tinker-happy-right-to-repair fan base who are frankly prepared to have a prod at a harmless console... whereas a slightly dangerous crt that you might never repair and is a pain in the arse to store/move is becoming less of priority even in these circles of crt fans

[ulfrinn]

Recapping and console/mod and repair have simply become a matter of fact, a truth, that original hardware retro console gamers have come to accept. There are a lot of great options in terms of emulation and FPGA now that people who don't have the technical know-how or desire to work on old analog equipment don't have to deal with it. For people who have looked at those options, and determined they still want the real deal hardware, they've come to accept that carries with it the fact that they're going to have to replace components (like capacitors) or make mods and repairs in order to fuel their habit. I would not buy an old Sega Genesis, SNES, PS1, etc, and expect it not to have some kind of problem, or be in a dire need for some kind of parts replacement.

[tongshadow]

Ok, here to report more findings. So, I changed 2 bad SMD caps (0.47uf/50v and 10uf/16v) on my PS1, near the CD drive's connectors, and now it's reading burned games on shitty CDs just fine. It wouldnt even boot at all before! And this is EXACTLY what I mean by people not talking about proper maintenance on these old devices. Most just assume the drive/laser went bad and proceed to buy an expensive part that costs more than the console itself, when the problem could be just a 30 cent component.

I think nobody ever talks about the SMD caps when driver issues appear because most people assume their consoles' boards are some kind of unbreakable monolith. Maybe because they assume heat isnt an issue? But, in fact, they are just as prone to defects at the component level, like any other electronic board. What if those presumably dead consoles are in fact just plagued by ruined capacitors, and that's all it takes to spring them back to life?

Btw there were A LOT of bad SMDs on my PS1 (30+ ESR) and Im planning on replacing them at some point, I just wanted to share this info in case someone has the same issue.

[NewSchoolBoxer]

I'm glad you brought up this topic. I think you're completely right that bad SMD capacitors on old consoles isn't anywhere near discussed as on CRTs or arcades. It should be. I'd say there are 4 reasons:

1) gray117's point that CRTs run at higher power and current and therefore heat. Capacitors won't last as long.
2) The professional video monitor ridiculous hype train means people have CRTs that cost more than their consoles and are quite willing to maintain them.
3) Most consoles remain relatively cheap and plentiful.
4) Many people own no retro consoles and use an emulator with analog output, else go HDMI -> whatever.

Average person has zero interest in fixing electronics and maybe that's for the best. About half the fixit advice I see outside of here is wrong or skips over important information such as where to buy a 1.5A fuse and how much it's supposed to cost. Hint: $1 from an official distributor but I see sold listings for $10 on eBay. Some hustle imo in telling people they need a $150 soldering kit when they're trying to fix a console that costs about half.

Granted, the Game Gear capacitor plague is well-known in the scene because no one's stock console is turning on anymore without a recap.

The ticking up of ESR and out of spec capacitor values, that's the slow and silent killer and some consoles hold up better than others. Stock NES might need a replacement 72 pin connector but has much better survivability than SNES. Still a good idea to recap the electrolytics before they leak or get too out of spec. Hard to convince someone of that with no electronics knowledge when their console still works - until it doesn't.

New topic I haven't seen until this year is replacing the 22uF electrolytic decoupling cap in SNES game carts. If it's aged enough then noise from the power supply can keep the game from working, else the leaking fluid can obviously cause its own problems. I'm helping the effort for replacement power supplies.

The good news is, in modern times, ceramic capacitors at 22uF and below are smaller and much cheaper than they were in the 90s. Some risk of the higher ESR on tantalums and aluminum electrolytics being needed for IC stability but I can't think of a specific example other than LDO voltage regulators that I'm not aware of a retro console using.

Maybe you're just looking in the wrong places? I'm fairly active throughout the retro gaming community and capacitor replacement in old consoles is a fairly big topic that is discussed a lot. In fact, over the past year I have replaced capacitors in one SNES, one GBA, one Japanese Famicom, three model 2 Sega Genesis consoles and a Game Gear. It's also well known that pre version 1.6 OG Xbox consoles have a particularly short-lived clock capacitor that is probably bad, or about to start leaking in every pre 1.6 OG Xbox out there. That particular capacitor isn't necessary for the console to function or be used, so most people just remove it, and leave it out, since all it does is grant you a few hours of being unplugged before the system clock gets reset (as opposed to just using a clock battery like other consoles of the era used).

Console5 sells kits for a lot of different variants for a lot of different consoles for replacing the capacitors. They also have other parts to replace in some of those old consoles that may need it, like fuses, and power regulators too.

I guess my counter is these gaming communities are super niche echo chambers that are overwhelmed by the traffic for emulators and CRTs. Console5 runs a racket of reselling capacitors and fuses they buy from Mouser and DigiKey. Super niche market when I haven't seen someone else sell a cap kit except for Game Gear.

Sorry was long.

[kamiboy]

Bad SMD caps on consoles are discussed, but often in the context of a select few console/handhels models that are known to be plagued by bad capacitors that leak, reduce functionality and damage the board.

This is the case for PC Engine Duos, Game Gears etc. But it is true that outside of these systems even I, who have changed more known bad capacitors than I care to count, don't really consider SMD caps as a potential source of problem unless I can visibly see signs of leakage.

Come to think of it I do have a PSOne console that stopped booting retails disks, and while I did very briefly consider SMD's to be a potential culprit, upon seeing no leakage, I just ordered a replacement laser. I suppose a recap won't hurt, there aren't that many SMD caps on a PSOne luckily.

[jd213]

Have seen some pretty bad caps on some of the Super Famicoms I've fixed. Saturns can also have bad caps, I found a grey JP one at Hard Off a year ago that spun up discs but only displayed a black screen until I replaced its caps.

Never thought to replace the cap in a SFC cart though, but I don't think I've ever come across one that didn't work eventually. Sometimes it can take a lot of tries, so maybe replacing the cap would help.

[copy]

After doing some preventive maintenance to my Xbox and replacing a bunch of bad capacitors (The ones close to the CPU and some SMD), it made question why most people dont talk about this.

Some recent experiences have convinced me to fully recap every system I have.

I just opened my Xbox for the first time ever to remove the clock cap. Like you, I found some bad caps (obviously bulging) near the CPU, so now I'm going to replace every cap in the system to be safe.

It seems to be an increasingly common problem that GameCube optical drives stop reading discs. There have been a couple of videos lately diagnosing this as caused by failing caps. I had two GameCubes that both stopped reading discs a couple of years back after I ripped a few games on each. The recommended fix at the time was to adjust the potentiometer -- this worked only briefly, then they failed again, so I suspect the caps were the root cause. I have the GC Loader in both systems now, but I plan to completely recap the systems and their removed drives for good measure.

It's maybe notable that both the GC and Xbox came out during the "capacitor plague" era, so maybe they and other systems from around this time frame (Dreamcast, PSone, PS2?) should be automatically recapped too.

New topic I haven't seen until this year is replacing the 22uF electrolytic decoupling cap in SNES game carts. If it's aged enough then noise from the power supply can keep the game from working, else the leaking fluid can obviously cause its own problems. I'm helping the effort for replacement power supplies.

Yeah, replacing those makes sense to me. I just ordered a bunch of 22uF replacements for my NES and SNES carts. Some of these caps are pushing 40 now, after all. Probably should also replace the 47uF caps in Genesis games.

[samson7point1]

After doing some preventive maintenance to my Xbox and replacing a bunch of bad capacitors (The ones close to the CPU and some SMD), it made question why most people dont talk about this. We all talk about bad capacitors on CRTs, old hardware and Arcade machines, but discussions about these parts going bad on older consoles, like the PS1, dont seem as frequent. And in my experience the small SMD electrolytic caps are just as likely to go bad, if not more, as the common ones. Some of these capacitors on my PS1 will go as high as 70ESR, and despite working properly it's still far out of spec.

So why dont these components on older consoles seem to get more attention?

This probably depends on where you're going for discussion, but these absolutely do get discussed. Depending on lived experience, there are a lot of schools of thought on the topic though so the outcome of the discussion can just as easily be "you're silly for recapping everything" rather than "this is how you recap such-and-such".

While it's true that sooner or later every electrolytic capacitor will fail, however many of them will not fail in our lifetime. If you've ever recapped something as old as say a Vectrex, and found that all the electrolytic caps were perfectly functional despite being 40 years old, it probably shifted your perspective towards thinking recapping is often unnecessary. If you've spent most of your time working on NEC consoles you probably came ringing the alarm bells and telling everyone to recap everything immediately. With a good breadth of exposure I think you'll start to realize that maybe the problem isn't the technology of the electrolytic caps, but the implementation. There are situations like "The Capacitor Plague" (look it up on Wikipedia) and rampant counterfeiting in the component market which have led to premature capacitor failure that affects some consoles and leaves others alone.

I'll offer my opinion based on my own experiences as to why you don't hear about PS1 as much. Sometimes the negative effects of bad capacitors are masked by robust design. I've had consoles that wouldn't even boot because of a single bad capacitor, and others that were working perfectly fine despite having multiple dead or high ESR caps. The PS1 falls into the latter camp. There's also the "tweak the pots" crowd who think they've fixed a console that stops reading discs because they turned the laser adjustment and it started working again. Since the real problem is a lack of power delivery probably caused by failing capacitors, "tweaking the pots" kind of temporarily covers up the problem and later on when the console fails again either because the laser was damaged by the adjustment or because the capacitors fail completely, many people just bin the console because PS1's are still cheap and plentiful. (IMO capacitors are one of the first things you should address before you even think of touching the laser adjustments.)