Removing the capacitor from a through-hole PCB never become an easy job. But for the sake of modification, that is the only way and surely no way back.

I spent nearly one hour to remove those 6 capacitors on the power supply PCB of Asus Xonar Essence One and cleaned up all the holes (6 capacitors means 12 holes).

With bare eyes, the holes looked clean and neat. But in ‘microscopic’ level, I still can see some dirt. But I think that should be fine.

By the way, LM358 should attract some attention here 😉

Each rail (+5V, +12V, and -12V) seems has their own smoothing capacitor – two on each rail. Quite good design approach, I think. And also no cost cutting approach here as the capacitor rating are all more than safe enough (25V and 35VDC). Although on the PCB itself is written lower RMS value.

The next step is to decide which capacitor and where to put it.