Showerthought: everyone says recap old power supplies, but I recapped mine and now it hums louder than before

Seth Smith · 2026-09-16T19:00:06.739984+00:00

I picked up a dead Commodore 64 at a garage sale in Akron for $15 and the internet told me the first fix was always a full recap, so I ordered 12 electrolytic caps and swapped every single one. It boots now, which is great, but there's a low hum in the audio that wasn't there when it was just dead, and I can't tell if I did something wrong or if this is just how it goes. One camp says my hum is a ground loop from my cheap soldering job and I should reflow everything with fresh flux. The other camp says old gear hums because the voltage regulator is tired, not the caps, and I just wasted a Saturday chasing the wrong part. I used a $22 iron from a hardware store in Toledo, so my joints aren't pretty. So which is it, did I mess up the recap or is the recap just not the magic fix people keep posting about?

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Showerthought: everyone says recap old power supplies, but I recapped mine and now it hums louder than before | Antique Tech Support - HW Forums