Thanks for the information on the hot S750 glue effect. Let's go fix the Creative Gigaworks 7.1

Two Shops declined to repair the S750. Well one declined because they couldn't test the boards so they said. The other shop just didn't answer the phone, and the answering machine was full. The initial inspection of the boards only showed one place with obvious deteriorated brown glue. But I reassembled the S750 thinking that a shop would be able to do a more professional job than me, but also be able to get the parts easy. It's not so easy for me to get these parts, some of them are obsolete. Then what I have found so far are snap in caps, which I'm just guessing snap into the hole, and that gets filled on the other side? I have sort of found a supplier. After the shops declined I stopped looking for circuit board repair, and started looking for circuit board supply. Digikey A.E.C. page

From there I found two caps that would replace the obsolete Panasonic ones from the beginning of the post, but I think I'm going to have to find the other one to compare. Because this was the first time I used the website. I'm also struggling with the high ripple description which I'm reading about @ https://www.sunpower-uk.com Then I'm basically working from notes taken from the beginning of this post. Though at this point I'm just working to form up a potential repair. The only thing I can do right now is clean glue or prepare for the repair, so I've just left that until I can actually get the parts. Mainly because a 5.1 system that is new from Creative Labs is $80. And yeah, I know the S750 is way nicer, and there isn't any other 7.1 on PC even though the MOBO support it now.

Oh yeah, what I found. Nichicon Cap @ Digikey Like I said, I'll have to keep looking, learning, and searching to get this parts list together. I'll also need equipment to solder including flux, so any help there would be greatly appreciated along with anything else you might think of. I mean, gee wiz, holly cow, the 2nd repair by the OP was repairing a repair job that someone like me made. Well maybe not like me, I'm a automotive technician. You know, we can be pretty good at fixing stuff. I'll try to get some pictures to post up if I can. I'M GOING TO GET REALLY DRUNK, AND FIX THIS S750! Just kidding. Ha Hah ha ha...

27 Capacitors that I can see. What a steaming pile of garbage! This was just a bad idea. 700 watts that is passive cooling, and also has a subwoofer bumping right next to it. Who the f*** is responsible for this G** d***ed catastrophe. What's the bad news? The S750 has cancer all over it. What's the good news? The S750 has cancer all over it. You won't live long enough to have to fix it again. jk Better wash your hands though mate. OMG! THAT S*** IS SO F***ED! I MEAN IT'S TOTALLY F***ED, F***ED, F***, F***ING F***ED, MOTHER F***ER! Garbage. I always wondered why all of a sudden the control box stopped working. Who the f*** buys $500 worth of fast food hardware? This S750 lasted for what, 6 years? Maybe 7 or 8?

I don't know if I'll fix it or not. It depends on how much the parts cost. Because that's $125 that could be spent on a actual home stereo system which has at least a modicum of quality to it. I bet what happened is that Cambridge Soundworks really wanted to make a 7.1 system for computers, but the parent company would only fork over so much money for that particular product. That or the designers/engineers took the money they had, and put it where it counted the most. The quality of the sound which was pretty good if you remember. Well I mean, because everything else is garbage. Nice sound board, nice speakers, nice speaker boxes. The metal is gross though, design is just dumb. 700 watts inside a box with no fan, and we noticed that it got hot as f***. I think I burned my leg on it one time.

It is what it is man. Sometimes you just got to call a spade, a spade. Although this is a turd. So I guess sometimes you just got to call a turd, a turd. Hah hah ha ha... You know what, I'll price these parts, and decide if I want to fix this in order to sell it to someone else that can actually enjoy it. I'm too old for this garbage. Might as well buy a actual home stereo system. I reckon you can get those in 7.1 but we also get the duel channel subwoofers. But then back when the S750 was new, people would see it, and then they would go out to buy the cheapest PC stereo that had the most watts. I suspect this is why Creative Labs offers a similar design now of low cost solutions to PC sound, but I would imagine even as cheap as those new systems are, it's good quality sound, but then if you wanted quality sound you wouldn't be buying the PC junk they sell.















Okay then, I'm going to go hang myself in the bathroom while not wearing pants so that when I die I actually death poo into the toilet. jk Man that is f***ing glib. I can't help it, that was a disaster. 27 capacitors that I can count. OMG, and all the crap they did to put the sound equipment in the subwoofer. You might as well buy some really hard and small plastic scrapers, and hobby knife blades to razor this crap off the boards, and I mean, it's freaking everywhere. The wires are cooked! Then the only way to fix this is to remove all the boards and headsink so you can put those inside another box which has 2-3 fans on it or in it. Then nail up the hole in the subwoofer box. You could use cheapers caps then. But let's see how much those actually cost. My gut tells me you shouldn't mess with this garbage unless it was just a project to work on to kill time.

You could just buy 3 of the current Gigaworks sets, two big, 4 small, and then plug those into the 3 ports on the MOBO for 7.1 right? I mean, that's pretty much the same thing. A 5.1 from Creative was on sale for $80, and I think that might last for a couple more days. Heck if you did it right you could just get a sound card that runs 7.1 out, and hook that up to whatever high quality audio system you wanted. I'm sorry to say, these boards have a substantial amount of corrosion. I mean, we lose the 5.1 upmix to 7.1, but that was kind of bogus along with the 7.1 itself. We needed a good sound card to even use it correctly. We can get that with onboard sound now if we get a really good MOBO, and I'm pretty sure that if you did any work with either that it wouldn't be to plug that into a Creative Gigaworks 7.1 S750. It would plug into actual high quality audio equipment.

Sorry for the bad news, we just need to think about it for a while.
Make up your own mind. Good luck. Wear your Covid mask.
Thank you, and have a nice day.

Okay, I was wrong, and then I was wrong again. Right now I'm just laughing, because I was thinking that a turd exploded inside my S750. All that brown, OMG. It's gota be removed. All that glue. Oh No! Looks like I need

1 47uF 25V Nichicon HE (Which doesn't exist anymore)
2 330uF 100V Rubycon ZLH or ZLJ
4 470uF 200V Panasonic TS-ED
1 330uF 450V Nichicon CS

I had trouble finding these or anything really. Then I got tired, so I quit until later on. Too much reading and searching. The plan is to just get the S750 working again, and then I can work on replacing the rest of these caps. Though again, I would argue just buy 3 sets of speakers, and plug it into a MOBO or Soundcard that has 7.1
Actually I would use anything else besides this giant hunk of crap, LOL. Ha hah ha ha...


Oh you need these?

1 47uF 25V Nichicon HE (Which doesn't exist anymore)
2 330uF 100V Rubycon ZLH or ZLJ
4 470uF 200V Panasonic TS-ED
1 330uF 450V Nichicon CS


Good luck finding that s***.