[ale] Motherboard capacitors bursting

[Christopher Fowler]

I have a MB that I just replaced last week.  I have 6 caps with bulgy
tops.  Is it possible to replace those caps and get the board running
again or does loss of those caps cause fatal damage to the board?


On Wed, 2004-10-06 at 19:04, Vincent Fox wrote:
> The Abit BX-133 board was famous for this. They used cheap
> electrolytic capacitors and a marginal design. I had probably
> six of these boards flake out on me. They don't usually fail in
> a complete and obvious way they just start locking up or rebooting
> occasionally when the 1st capacitor fails. As the load is taken up
> by remaining capacitors in the string, they are under more stress
> and then another one fails, and it becomes a bit less stable.
> Continuing until 3 or 4 have blown at which point it becomes
> obvious you have a hardware problem since it will no longer boot.
> 
> Have a PC that seems to be flaking out? Open it up and look for
> capacitors with bulgy tops.
> 
> No single manufacturer seems to be guilty of this. I have had
> one electronics type tell me that electrolytic capacitors all have
> a finite lifetime anyhow but they are far cheaper so everyone uses
> them. So don't expect any board to last 100 years in operation just
> some will last longer than others.
> 
> > > Anyway, I seemed to remember someone on this list bemoaning poor quality
> > > components in computers, and now I can testify to it.
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