Did PC-FX needs recapp?

Rugar · January 26

I just bought a NEC PC-FX and I wonder does PC-FX belong to the group of consoles that need to be recapped for prevention?

DeathAdderSF · January 27

My PC-FXGA certainly needed it.

BurritoBeans · February 10

Not right away, they're almost always fine in my experience, but feel free to check the board and recap if you want.

The PC-FX and both FXGA types (C-Bus / ISA) released after NEC had notable capacitor issues, they used the same capacitor type present in the Game Gear on most (but not all) circuit board designs from mid-'91 to mid-'94, so you are outside the "recap this or it will need board repair" space.

What they replaced it with, those little SME can capacitors, are usually okay but are in some cases known to leak. The only time I've personally had/I've heard issues with them are in the PC-9821As3 where they placed a bunch right under a hot power supply which seems to accelerate things going bad. So far, three different PC-FX and two different PC-FXGA in, I've yet to encounter a single cap-related issue.