Leaking capacitors

  • Thread starter Thread starter DFC
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DFC

When turning on my computer in the morning I have been having problems with
it booting and it was also rebooting on its own. I first restored it to a
date where it was running good and then swapped the memory but neither
seemed to help. Tonight why surfing the net and reading the forums I saw
the same problem posted. Someone posted about leaking capacitors and when I
checked mine almost all of the small 6.3v are either leaking or bulging. An
article about bad capacitors also suggested that everyone take a look at
there motherboards even if you are not having problems.



Can I swap out the MB without reinstalling Windows XP and have it run
without problems.



Here is the link to an interesting article with pictures:

http://www.burtonsys.com/bad_BP6/story5.html
 
Can I swap out the MB without reinstalling Windows XP and have it run
without problems.
Click to expand...

If its the same motherboard it should be OK. Actually you should be
able to even if its another one but youll possibly need different
drivers for certain things like the controller etc.

Personally Ive had huge problem the last few times I changed the MBs.
Here is the link to an interesting article with pictures:

http://www.burtonsys.com/bad_BP6/story5.html
Click to expand...


Do you have an ABIT?

I heard ABIts mentioned the most about bad caps but everyone hinted
that many other firms were using bad caps too.

Of course it makes you paranoid and you imagine that all the problems
are due to faulty caps. I havent seen any leaking or bulging caps yet
even on my bizarrely quirky MBs - all the ones Ive been buying the
last few years. You wonder if they all have caps that arent THAT bad
but not that great either.

Theres a guy in the ABIT groups who talked about it a lot back then
when it wasnt that well known and he has a service where he replaces
all your caps.
 
When turning on my computer in the morning I have been having problems with
it booting and it was also rebooting on its own. I first restored it to a
date where it was running good and then swapped the memory but neither
seemed to help. Tonight why surfing the net and reading the forums I saw
the same problem posted. Someone posted about leaking capacitors and when I
checked mine almost all of the small 6.3v are either leaking or bulging. An
article about bad capacitors also suggested that everyone take a look at
there motherboards even if you are not having problems.
Click to expand...

Yep, more often than not, that-is, if it's the common capacitor
problems and not some mad-overclocker-trying-for-8GHz@400W , it's
isolated to a few brands (or whatever those brands are relabeled to).
Most often it's brands like:

Lelon
Luxon
Tayeh
Jackcon
I,Q
JPCON
Chhsi

Seldom do you see capacitor failures from the better name-brands
like:

Rubycon
Sanyo
Nichicon
Nippon (NIC)
Fuji
Can I swap out the MB without reinstalling Windows XP and have it run
without problems.
Click to expand...

If you use a board with same chipset, odds are in your favor. If the
chipset varies there's a good chance you'll need do an XP repair
install, which at least preserves apps & data even if you need to redo
all the OS patches.


While I don't do it regularly, for profit, every now and then I have
some excess capacitors and repair boards.. if you want yours repaired
as cheaply as possible let me know... would eliminate the issue of
reinstalling windows and certainly a lot cheaper than buying a new
board, but on the other hand some people like the excuse to upgrade to
faster equipment... to each his own.


Dave
 
Any suggestions on where replacement caps can be ordered from for a
reasonable price?

Last time I tried to find some the best I could do was about $10 for caps
and $15 for shipping!

BTW, I'm in Canada...
 
Normally I'd agree, but here in Calgary even the electronics shops don't
seem to have the ratings/sizes of caps that you find on mainboards.

RadioShack here doesn't even carry capacitors at all!!! (There's about a
dozen stores here in town)
 
Any suggestions on where replacement caps can be ordered from for a
reasonable price?

Last time I tried to find some the best I could do was about $10 for caps
and $15 for shipping!

BTW, I'm in Canada...
Click to expand...

On a regular basis, as-in, right now, no I don't know where to get
best prices on particular caps, though $10 sounds about right for a
dozen, not 6... Parts like those go down in price with volume
purchase.

The place I'd advise someone to make a small, one-time purchase would
be http://www.digikey.com . In volumes of 10-99 pieces you can get
8-10mm OD 1-2K2 mF (most common sizes needed) caps for ~ $0.50-0.85
ea.
http://dkc3.digikey.com/PDF/T041/0722.pdf

You might find misc. caps as surplus on the 'net too, possibly at
lower price, but be sure of what you're buying, model/specs,
dimensions, and how old they are... some brands have easily
decipherable date-codes on the label, though I guess any reasonable
age of "new", good brand cap would beat a generic that's vented. :-)
 
Try a local TV repair shop or someplace like Radio Shack
Click to expand...

"Maybe" a TV repair shop would have appropriate caps, but they may
want an arm and a leg for them. Radio Shack does not stock
appropriate parts though I don't know about their parts-ordering
service (but again it's likely they'd want a $mall fortune).

There's more to it than merely correct size, voltage and mF rating,
more importantly they must have acceptable properties typically found
in so-called "low-ESR" capacitors, low impedance, high ripple
capacity, high (105C) temp rating, etc. To a certain extent the mF
rating and voltage are irrelevant, as the values most often used
generally far exceed requirements but are what's inherant in the
physical can size used to give greatest performance per $ in the other
critical specs, and board real-estate, in an aluminum electrolytic
variety.

Odds are that any capacitor not promoted as suitable for switching
power supply use will be even worse than the originals (which failed).
 
Any suggestions on where replacement caps can be ordered from for a
reasonable price?

Last time I tried to find some the best I could do was about $10 for caps
and $15 for shipping!

BTW, I'm in Canada...
Click to expand...

Hey I once had a quantum HD that used micro jumpers. Where I live they
arent sold anywhere and I took them off to use it as a master. Then I
needed to slave it and couldnt find the jumper.

I paid $15 shipping for some .10 micro jumpers from San Fran, truly
disgusting but thats how bad it was even 5 years ago here.

The guy they call Homie or something in the Abit groups has a website.
See how much his fee is. He points out you need special tools and
skill to do those micro solders nowadays though some DIYers have tried
it.
 
DFC said:
Can I swap out the MB without reinstalling Windows XP and have it run
without problems.
Click to expand...

It's better you make a Windows XP recovery from CD instalation setup, that's
preserves you programs and settings
 
Noozer said:
Normally I'd agree, but here in Calgary even the electronics shops
don't seem to have the ratings/sizes of caps that you find on
mainboards.

RadioShack here doesn't even carry capacitors at all!!! (There's
about a dozen stores here in town)
Click to expand...

Bear in mind that they have to be low-ESR caps. Also, unless you are *very*
skilled and well-equiped you're going to find it hard to swap out caps. They
go through a multi-layer mobo, through a little thing like a hollow rivet
only very fine and fragile. I used to think I was the man when it came to
soldering but I couldn't do it with my basic tools, even using a
solder-sucker. Once you get the old caps out you then have to get the old
solder out of the hole and that is really difficult. It's hard to heat the
solder to melting-point (so you can suck it out) without cooking the area of
mobo around the hole. Either get it done by a specialist (big $$$) or get a
new board. Or take Dave (Kony) up on his kind offer.
 
Hey I once had a quantum HD that used micro jumpers. Where I live they
arent sold anywhere and I took them off to use it as a master. Then I
needed to slave it and couldnt find the jumper.

I paid $15 shipping for some .10 micro jumpers from San Fran, truly
disgusting but thats how bad it was even 5 years ago here.
Click to expand...

LOL, I did the same thing and I ended up soldering across the pins where the
jumper should be as I simply couldn't locate a micro-jumper at a retailer in
NZ. And believe me, I tried to find one.
 
You can only avoid reinstalling XP after changing the motherboard if you use
the IDENTICAL same model of motherboard. Otherwise you'll get ongoing nasty
Registry errors.
 
~misfit~ said:
.... snip ...

Bear in mind that they have to be low-ESR caps. Also, unless you
are *very* skilled and well-equiped you're going to find it hard
to swap out caps. They go through a multi-layer mobo, through a
little thing like a hollow rivet only very fine and fragile. I
used to think I was the man when it came to soldering but I
couldn't do it with my basic tools, even using a solder-sucker.
Once you get the old caps out you then have to get the old
solder out of the hole and that is really difficult. It's hard
to heat the solder to melting-point (so you can suck it out)
without cooking the area of mobo around the hole. Either get it
done by a specialist (big $$$) or get a new board. Or take Dave
(Kony) up on his kind offer.
Click to expand...

I haven't done anything of the sort for years, but when I did I
found that solder-wick was much preferable to a sucker. I would
also advise anyone just trying it out to get some scrap boards and
practice first. A temperature controlled iron is advised.
 
I live in a small town and looked everywhere I could think of yesterday for
a new motherboard but nobody stocked them. Everywhere I went they said they
would order one and have it to me by late the next afternoon so I decided to
try my luck at replacing the capacitors myself. What did I have to lose
since the board was getting bugger by the minute. Now the problem was
finding the capacitors. I looked at all the local TV repair shops and Radio
Shack with no luck then rememebered I had an old server that I had no use
for and had been planning on throwing away but hadn't gotten around to it.
The capacitors on the motherboard in it where good. It took several hours
to remove the capacitors from the old board and put them on my board but
when I got everything back together it was worth the trouble. My system
hasn't ran this well in a long time. It is stable, boots without problems
and seems to run better than it did before I started having problems.
 
~misfit~ said:
Bear in mind that they have to be low-ESR caps. Also, unless you are *very*
skilled and well-equiped you're going to find it hard to swap out caps. They
go through a multi-layer mobo, through a little thing like a hollow rivet
only very fine and fragile.
Click to expand...

Actually the barrel is electroplated. Definately fragile.

I've had success removing VLSI chips from mainboards.
(http://www.tutorialsweb.com/images/smt_images/2.5.gif) and replacing them.
Definately fragile work.

Pulling a cap from a mainboard should be easy work. Just have to make sure
you don't pull the barrel out of the hole and that you don't short anything
out when you resolder.
 
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