VivaFoxpro
Apprentice
Its easy to remove the NEC cap, its not BGA soldered, just soldered on 4 parallel tracks.
2 methods to remove it :
1.Using a Hot air gun you can blow some hot air momentarily & simply pull up the capacitor. - Requires a Hot air gun, also how to safely operate it without damaging the board, so best bet to use this method is by taking it to SMD solder professional.
2.Easier & home made method, Remove CPU, heatsinks fan & other components from the board take a sharp & thin flat bed screw driver, insert the screw driver tip below the NEC cap & give a light psuh upwards, dont worry even if the capacitor is damaged its of no use anyways. Be careful that you dont lift of the tracks too, so apply the pressure on screwdriver properly.
Once done you will see the 4 parallel tracks, on which you can solder 4 X 330uf 2.5v SMD capacitors, make sure you use capacitors of total value >900uf but 2.5v so combination depends on you. Take care of polarities of capacitors, google for images which show which polarity go on which track.
Also soldering new SMD caps might be a tough task, but the caps that I used had side connectors so I simply used a soldering gun to solder 4 of them just the nish_pinto has done.
Basic soldering skills are required to do this operation sucessfully.
Same symptoms for my Satellite L300.
I visited two laptop repair shops to have them perform the capacitor replacement. The both wanted 2 to 3 days for the repair, about PhP3,000 in cost and risk of the board completely dying.
I understand all of these but I am not comfortable with the risk of losing a functional laptop.
I had a theory regarding the situation and have completed a successful test this evening.
It is based on my understanding that the bad capacitor provides power when the processor needs a surge of power. Low performance while on battery then go full power when plugged in. This causes the crash since the capacitor cannot handle the "gear change"
What I did (I use Win 7, your case may be different but the idea remains) is to adjust power management settings to use 100% of the processor's speed both on battery and when plugged in.
Go to Power Options, Change plan settings, Change advanced power settings, expand Processor power management, set Minimum processor state to 100%
This will have the effect of having your process always running at full speed. You will drain your battery faster and the laptop heats up more.
I our own use for the laptop, it is mostly plugged in and an external cooling pad may be used for the added heat.
Hope this helps in your own situation.