Toshiba T5200C/200: Tips wanted for capacitor diagnosis/replacement

[username1]

Hi! I recently had the good fortune to find and buy a Toshiba T5200C. It was very cheap and listed as broken, so I was surprised to find that everything on it works! This includes the color LCD, hard drive, and floppy drive.

However, I've noticed that as the machine runs, it produces a very strong smell of fish, which I associate with bad capacitors. I disassembled the computer, but couldn't find any visual signs of capacitor leakage. Does anyone have any tips for narrowing down the "problem" areas of this machine or other general methods of diagnosis?

I'm comfortable soldering, but didn't want to replace every single capacitor in the computer without asking for advice first. Thanks for your time and help!

 

[soviet9922]

Look in my case, replaced all the PSU caps all (except the big high voltage ones that were expensive and looked ok) the caps looked ok until I removed them, and underside of them you can see the electrolyte.

Also, the brightness of my screen was not very good so I replaced all the caps on the plasma screen board this increased the brightness quite a bit
The digital parts of the thing, don't look bad so I left them like it.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

That computer is from the era of "fake tantalums", or electrolytics in a plastic shell that makes them look like tantalums. ALL of the capacitors need to be changed.

When these capacitors leak, you usually won't see it without removing them. The electrolyte will wick under the capacitor, and in the space between the aluminum can and the plastic shell and be hidden.

Even the radials will wick the electrolyte under the base, so you won't see anything until you remove them.

You'll need to go through the entire laptop, including the screen, because those fake tantalums were used inside many LCD panels at the time. I would recommend replacing them with regular tantalum capacitors for longevity. Just remember that tantalums are backwards compared to other cap types, the positive end is denoted with a stripe, instead of the usual negative end. If you get them backwards, they will explode when you power the machine on.