DescentBB

Idle question. On one of my boxes, I've got two or three capacitors that are beside the cpu socket that leaked a little bit it would seem. The box is still running and doesn't seem to have suffered any readily apparent ill effects. Is this something I need to be concerned about? I really don't know much about this to be honest with you.

If your PC starts rebooting by itself, you'll need to change the MB. ust keep an eye on them to make sure they don't leak more.

Well, if it leaked, that means it is no longer acting like a nice well behaved capacitor. I would replace it if I were you before you have other problems. Make sure to match the ratings.

Replace the capacitors or the motherboard altogether? One I can do, the other ain't gonna happen

Just the leaky ones for now, but watch for other ones.

What do caps leak?

well the biguns at power stations etc i think use oil as an insulator, maybe the smaller ones the same?

electrolytic capacitors leak the electrolyte stuff thats in em. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Perhaps this will help...

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/48

http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm

If I were you, i'd have them replaced right away.

Garak, a capacitor is just made up of two metal plates spaced a given distance apart surrounded by insulation material.

For example: ( -| is a plate) This is also why the engineering standard symbol for a capacitor is -||-.

-| * |-

Where * could be anything from plastic to air.

Now if you're popping capacitors, then something is wrong. Either your power supply is unstable, your system got zapped by a line spike, or you've got something hot in very close proximity. You need to go into your BIOS (usually via the del key, F10 or F1 on system startup. It will tell you what key to press.) and check the voltage output from your power supply. Make sure its within 10% of its rated output. A little over is OK, but if its well under...then thats definitely something to be concerned about.

I would wager power supply. Quit working so I replaced it. I didn't notice the leakage until I was hooking the new one up. Then I thought, what the hell, so I fired it up I have more than one machine so it wasn't exactly 'mission critical' that it not catch on fire or anything.

actually what's going on is episode 2 of the infamous bad caps debacle, where someone stole the recipe for the electrolyte fluid and made a knockoff version.

I think there was something on PC Mag (Tech Tuesday?) about certain sets of MB's coming out in certain product lines with bad capacitors. Dell, for example, had to take a 3(00?) million charge in the last quarter because of these faulty components.

A-bit got a really bad reputation over that as well. If you notice on their site, they advertise all over the place that they're using japanese capacitors now.

I checked with intel, and the boards affected by those capacitors didn't include mine.

If it's under warranty, have the manufacturer replace it. After all of the bad rap(and a few class action suits) over leaking caps, they'd probably be thrilled to replace your board for you. Maybe even if it's not under warranty.

symbols:
-||-
-)|-

Ferno wrote:actually what's going on is episode 2 of the infamous bad caps debacle, where someone stole the recipe for the electrolyte fluid and made a knockoff version.

BINGO!
two of my friends and I all had the same motherboard at one time. Athlon slot A. All three have sense had leaky capacitors. The ones on one of my friend's mobo even exploded, destroying his video card.

I was always curoius to know if there was any way of getting compensation for these problems from the motherboard manufacturer.