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Recap guide

Recap the Amstrad CPC

Community consensus is that the CPC mainboard capacitors rarely need replacing and the machine has no internal PSU. The things that do bite are the monitor's power-supply capacitors, dry solder joints on the power and video sockets, drive belts, and damage from plugging the wrong external supply into the 5V socket.

Open the interactive checklist Tick off each capacitor as you replace it. It saves in your browser.

Check first. A recap is not always the answer here, so look at the guides before you order parts.

Where to start

We did not find a clear list of what fails first on this machine, so we are not guessing. Read the guides below, check the board for leaks, and replace what you can see.

Tips, tales and maybes

Found in write-ups and forum threads. These are other people's reports, not tested by us. Check part references and values against your own board.

  • Tip: Do not recap a working CPC by reflex (Medium confidence). Several repairers in one thread report reworking many CPCs without ever needing to change board capacitors, calling them over-specified and cool-running. Inspect for leakage, but do not assume they are the problem. Source
  • Tip: Monitor capacitors (Medium confidence). The same thread says the capacitors that did need changing were in the monitor's power-supply circuitry, especially the big one tied to the flyback. Plus-range boards were also said to need dry solder joints reflowed. Source
  • Watch out: Wrong PSU in the 5V socket (Medium confidence). A CPC wiki repair note says the most common fault seen is someone having plugged a 12V supply into the 5V socket. It also tells you to check for dry joints on the power and video sockets, corroded chip pins, and leaking capacitors, and to use replacements of equal or higher voltage rating. Source
  • Tip: Needs a proper 5V supply (Medium confidence). The wiki note asks for a regulated 5V supply of at least 2A continuous and warns some supplies are optimistic about their ratings. The 12V feed is only needed for the 3 inch drive on the 6128. Source
  • Story: 6128 with a hot RAM chip (Low confidence). One repaired 6128 had a RAM chip that ran hot, a broken track near a 74LS32, and a grounded pin on the AY-3-8912 that upset the keyboard matrix. A cost-down 464 board in the same thread was written off after suspected overvoltage damage killed the gate array. Source
  • Maybe: Preventive recap services exist (Low confidence). A UK recapping shop lists the CPC464 and CPC6128 in its FAQ on slowly leaking surface-mount electrolytics and sells a CPC6128 recap as maintenance only, for boards that already work. That is a vendor view, not evidence of a common failure. Source

Before you start

  • Boards changed during production. Check your board number against the guides before you order parts.
  • A mains power supply can hold a dangerous charge. If you are not trained to work on one, have a professional do it.

Guides we used

This page and the interactive bench are built from these. They have the photos and the full detail, so please read them and support their authors.

The capacitor list

We have not checked a capacitor list for this machine yet, so none is shown. Follow the guide above for your board, then add the capacitors in the interactive checklist and it builds a shopping list for you.

Skip the sourcing

While you are in there

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Steps, tools and safety

The steps, the tools in top, middle and budget picks, and the safety list are the same for every machine, so they live on one page: How to recap, step by step.

Values are shown as published in the guides above, and boards changed during production. Check the board in front of you. A recap involves hot tools and, on some machines, dangerous voltages. You do it at your own risk.

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