Sounds like your board’s definitely suffering cap problems, you’ve got all the symptoms. Eventually the board will not post. I’m not sure of the cap specs for the complete board but I’m sure someone on here will help.
If your not happy fixing it yourself and your in the USA then check this site out. Good luck http://home.att.net/~garyheadlee/services.htm
Derek, how about a link to a complete parts list for the cap problem?
Hi, it was me that is using 4700uF capacitors, I did both my BP6 and VP6.... I am a radio engineer by trade and no stranger to the soldering iron!
In reply to the last post... yes surge conditions on power up will be affected by higher value capacitors.
Resonances at the switching frequencies involved on the motherboard should not be a problem with the inductors used despite the change in capacitors.
By the way my BP6 is running 4700uF capacitor at ec10 too.
I am not suggesting you follow my example but hopefully I will cover a few salient points:
1) Computer supply rails are subject to high peak currents for low duration.
2) Lower voltage capacitors have better (lower) effective series resistance.
3) Larger capacitors generally have lower esr.
My suggestions are, use capacitors of adequate rating for the voltages they are operated at, try to avoid capacitors rated at 25v or more... they won't fail but they have higher esr than lower voltage capacitors.
Also I would suggest erring a bit on the higher capacitance side too, again in pursuit of low ESR.
To be honest if I was doing another BP6 I would use slightly smaller capacitors, probably 2200uF, purely because mine is a bit cramped on the board.
Mine is now a very stable and happy machine again, as is the VP6.
I am sorry that I have duplicated much of this information elsewhere.
