Nekochan Net

Hi,

I have carefully searched for previous posts about this topic, but have not found the exact some situation.

in short:
I have a 'new' teal Indigo2 which, after investigation, seems to have the well-known "failing capacitors in the power supply" problem.

Question: Has anyone here actually succesfully repaired a teal (non-Impact) I2 power supply by replacing some/all capacitors?
Regardless of this, do you guys think it is worth it to try this (by replacing some/all capacitors)?

The background:
- I received a teal Indigo2 this week.
- I have seen it power up a couple of times, reach the maintenance screen,
- the disc is foobar and have not been able to put in a new harddisk yet.
- The system powered on the first time, but not the second time.
- After unplugging the cord and replugging, it did power on.
- It switched off once by it self at one point.
- I opened the power supply, dusted it off, looked around
- Put it back, now when I plug it in, the fan wobbles a bit, but no joy.
- have tried 30 times. System does not power on again.

To me, all this points to a well known problem with the capacitors in the power supply.
as described here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16721595
http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/i2psu.html

However, the fix at futuretech.blinkenlights.nl is, I think, from a purple Impact i2, as the board is not the same as mine.
So I would not know if it is just the four caps that are described on that page that need replacing.

So: questions:
- Is there something else I could try first?
- Do you think it is worth it trying to replace some/all of the caps? if so, which?
- has someone actually repaired one of these power supplies? What is the success ratio you think?

I am in new zealand and the second hand SGI market is very small here, so finding something online is rare and shipping from overseas is costly.
I would love to repair the machine myself.

Any help would be very... helpfull.

Cheers,

Matt

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Old friends, lost along the way:

I've performed the procedure on the IMPACT PSU a couple of times, the success ratio was ~ 50/50

Never had a pre-IMPACT PSU fail on me, and I 'm pretty sure I have a spare in case one would fail.

_________________
Now this is a deep dark secret, so everybody keep it quiet
It turns out that when reset, the WD33C93 defaults to a SCSI ID of 0, and it was simpler to leave it that way... -- Dave Olson, in comp.sys.sgi
Currently in commercial service: (2x)
In the museum: almost every MIPS/IRIX system.
Wanted: GM1 board for Professional Series GT graphics (030-0076-003, 030-0076-004)

ok, that sounds promissing.

Which caps would your recommend changing first? All of them?

The how to here is very specific about 4 particular caps.
www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/i2psu.html

What would be the reason for that? I read it's hard to reliably 'test' capacitors with a multimeter.

cheers

matt

_________________

Old friends, lost along the way: