[splaz]

^ Why delete it ?

soloz2, I have the extreme music and took a peek, hard to see well upside down and in a small gap but I saw the dodgy black/gold mounting and the big bank of black and whites so I'd presume identical parts.

trodas when you said audio and computer caps don't mix I take it you mean cheapo computer caps. As you pretty much just recapped with a good choice for recapping motherboards. My RMA'd motherboard had a pretty good job done on it with FLs put in.

As for others saying Jamicons are okay, not usually in computer hardware, they've know to vent/explode well within the sort of expected lifetime of lytics and without extreme conditions present.

[OT] Just went to digikey to look waht you've suggested and how much it would cost, they've just made a change to the layout. Takes up more page space but saves on clicking several links in a row.[/OT]

 

[trodas]

splaz - Quote:

when you said audio and computer caps don't mix I take it you mean cheapo computer caps

No. No I did not mean that. Bad caps/cheapo stuff is a thing not worth even mention (like Jamicons) - they MUST go off from my HW to hell.
What I meant is, that capacitors ideal for recapping mainboards voltage circuits like Samxon GC/GA will sure sound TERRIBLE for passing audio. Hence is is necessary to have other brands for voltage filtering (where as low ERS/ESL and hence as high ripple as possible is need) and other brands for audio circuits for passing the audio signal.

I would say Samxon GC for voltage filtering and Elna RFS for the audio part.

Do we have better unterestanging now?

And I defninitively insist on Jamicons being bad caps. Lasting two months in my X-Fi Fatal1ty is more that clear example of their "quality".

As for digikey and caps - looks to me that main problem is, that every these smaller caps on the X-Fi need to be d4 ...

 

[trodas]

Sorry guys that the images is not showing up anymore, slibe.com guys having "technical problems", but they keep having them for like a month, so I don't know What... Nevermind.

There is failing Jamicon on X-Fi, picture by Ragginbone - his X-Fi card did not just cause audio glitches and stuff, his card crashing his system!

Do anyone wonder?!

 

[Pm@c]

My XM rocks. Only problem is PCI bus intereference, but im gonna use some ERS paper to fix that. Before I do that, Im gonna replace the caps anyways (might as well, if Im going to end up wrapping it in ERS paper). So yeah ,hopefully the sound comes out 10x better.

 

[StanleyBuchanan]

Is there anyone out there that is performing these upgrades commercially?

I know I would be glad to ship off my card to someone to upgrade my X-Fi if it meant having a stable/reliable "high end gaming" audio card....

 

[cotdt]

A recap is definately a good idea. I'll use this post for my X-Fi modding guide.

 

[cotdt]

BTW, the best and most expensive DACs also use Jamicons. I don't know why, but audiophile-equipment companies all seem to be picking the Jamicons. Everything I buy has them these days. They lose their capacitance very quickly, and develop high ESL over time.

 

[TheMafioso]

Hi Guys,

I have creative X-Fi Xtrememusic card(the old version, without H/S) lying with me for quite some time, I don't use it anymore as it has sound crackling issues, that too in normal operations, like in music player, etc...

After reading the thread, I'm pretty much conviced that the volatage filtering capicitor (Jamicon 220uF 16V one) has gone bad....

So I was thinking of replacing it, but getting a good capicitor here may be problem, I don't know of any high end audio shops nearby and also don't know of any online store which ship in my country...
But I do have an bad AGP card with lots of Solid Aluminium Caps, so wanted to know, if I can replace that capicitor with this one...
Or my bro. said he can arrange Philips Capicitors(i think they are commonly used in normal circuits), so which would be better choice solid Al Cap. from vid card or this philips cap?

Also what about the rating, do I need to replace with exact rating, or it can be of different rating(higher)...

Please let me know, a quick help would be appreciated

Regards,

 

[balou]

Quote:

I don't know why, but audiophile-equipment companies all seem to be picking the Jamicons. Everything I buy has them these days.

seems like jamicons are the most "cost-effective" ( == cheapest ) caps on the market

TheMafioso: yes, you can use higher rated caps. you could even use lower microfarad caps, but that wouldn't be wise.

higher microfarad caps means better filtering... for example, I switched a 100uF filtering cap in a phono preamp with a 2200uF one I had laying around - noise floor was audibly lower. but more than 1000uF is probably overkill, even 470uF should be a good value

some may argue that using caps with higher voltage rating is useless - but it has one advantage: caps in the same series usually have lower ESR with higher voltage rating.

so my advise would be - search for the highest capacitance cap you can find which has at least 16v rating

 

[Joshatdot]

I plan on re-capping my AV-710 with 22uF & 470uF Nichicon PW's

 

[TheMafioso]

Quote:

Originally Posted by balou /img/forum/go_quote.gif seems like jamicons are the most "cost-effective" ( == cheapest ) caps on the market TheMafioso: yes, you can use higher rated caps. you could even use lower microfarad caps, but that wouldn't be wise. higher microfarad caps means better filtering... for example, I switched a 100uF filtering cap in a phono preamp with a 2200uF one I had laying around - noise floor was audibly lower. but more than 1000uF is probably overkill, even 470uF should be a good value some may argue that using caps with higher voltage rating is useless - but it has one advantage: caps in the same series usually have lower ESR with higher voltage rating. so my advise would be - search for the highest capacitance cap you can find which has at least 16v rating

Thanx....Well I changed the Cap with a philips 1000uF one and the soundcard now works perfectly...

thanx the thread starter....gr8 work...i suggest this thread be made sticky, its got neat piece of info...certainly saved my $80 investment

 

[trodas]

balou - Quote:

using caps with higher voltage rating is useless - but it has one advantage: caps in the same series usually have lower ESR with higher voltage rating

Oh, the old die-hard myth again!

Now please let me explain why this is dead-wrong. The lower ESR are with the higher voltage caps JUST because they use higher voltage = less resistance with the very same technology.

You lose all the lower ESR benefits if you use a 16V cap to filter a 1.2V voltage for the main X-Fi chip...!

In fact, you end up much worser that using a 6.3V or 4V cap in the first place.

Remember, the specs for the cap are measured and calculated for the nominal voltage. Using the very same cap on 1/10 of the nominal voltage = having notably worser specs.
Todays they did not disclose how much worser, and it is not exactly 1/10 of the specs, but it is probably a quite considerable loss of specs.

While the capacity will be at 1/10 of rated voltage still like 70 or 80% of the nominal capacity, the ESR will be likely 2 to 5x higher. The ESL probably did not increase but decrease with voltage, but I'm not sure about it.

To put long story short - using cap for the best is using it as close to it's nominal voltage, as possible - leaving a small headroom for spikes, of course.

Entierly different thing is, when we talk about audio! For good audio passing is necessary to have a bit "soft" specs, hence using 25 or 50V caps for passing a 0,5 - 1,5V audio signals usually yield good results.

But the main 220uF filtering cap on the X-Fi filter just a voltage for a digital part of the card - the main chip - so take a look at the specs of the voltage regulator ( TPS54352 - http://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/tps54352 ) and you realize that now a much low-ESR cap is (surprisingly) designed to be there, but something around with a 1500 - 1800mA ripple

So like a Panny FC 10V 1800 - 2200uF or a Samxon RS 10V 3300uF will probably be best. Extra low-ESR caps there like Os-con polymers cause ringing and worser results that even the original Jamicon crap:

There you have proof

So this what I also did:

...is a bad idea and it cause voltage fluctuations even higher that the original Jamicon crap...

 

[trodas]

cotdt - Quote:

BTW, the best and most expensive DACs also use Jamicons. I don't know why, but audiophile-equipment companies all seem to be picking the Jamicons. Everything I buy has them these days. They lose their capacitance very quickly, and develop high ESL over time.

What?! Are you serious about it?
The most expensive DACs cost fortune and I would never can afford it, and you are telling me, that they used the crap Jamicon caps, that are neither good caps, nor audio caps and definitively not low-ESR caps?!

They are asking for class lawsuit.
Using knowingly wrong components that are proven to die in time is cheating customers - or robing then blind.

I played with X-Fi, about 3 months old, Quake 4. In one scene, in the huge elevator near the end, there was so many sounds (many enemies) at once playing and the game freeze.
Next time it manage it, also because I first fired there many grenades and stuff first...

Then I played Prey and in the start, when I was chasing my girl still chained to the feeder and there was the alien in the control + MANY other sounds at once, the game freeze. I jumped, pulled X-Fi from machine, recapped 3 caps (220uF Jamicon -> 470uF Panny FM, 47uF Jamicons -> 220uF Panny FM) and then player and finished Prey w/o a glitch, including the particular scene played again.

So, it is not just the sound. It is the stability as well.

 

[Chu]

I really am not going to go out on a limb to defend soundblaster, since they have some ugly ugly things in their history and absolutely not reason to believe their business practices have changed -- but how many of those caps are actually in the analogue single path?

 

[Fizzycapola]

It surprises me to see Sanyo Oscons performing so badly. I wonder what series they are?