leaking capacitors a problem?

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kani

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Dec 14, 2004
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I was just cleaning my PC for dust, when I discovered that 5 of the 11 large capacitors around the CPU socket have some sort of cheese-looking crap encrusted on the tops of them.

The motherboard is an old 2001 Epox model (AMD Athlon XP1600+ CPU).

I only noticed this problem while cleaning it. The system is very stable normally. Under Windows XP, it runs pretty much 24/7 - I restart it once every 3-4 weeks to keep it from bogging down too much.

Remembering that I haven't seen any performance/stability issues on this PC, can anyone tell me how serious of an issue this really is?
 
Yes, ultimately that can and will cause a failure.

This article talks about it some and has some pics too. A quick google will turn up more.

Maybe it's time for an upgrade anyways, now you have a good excuse ;) As you say you're running fine, you could stay that way for a long time or it could go one day. Better to address it before you have a serious failure.
 
I did actually read that article, but didn't get much from it - my capacitors aren't leaking onto the motherboard... they're just, well, leaking.

Hopefully if they do cause trouble, it won't go further than the CPU/ram (both of which are old).
 
An Abit VH-6 board of mine had a ton of stability issues with leaking capacitors. May last 20 min under load, or a few days idle... but eventually it would crash or reboot. Despite its age, its @ Abit being repaired for FREE as of now :)
 
I just tossed a skt 370 epox board in the trash...leaking capacitors killed it...hopefully, if yours goes, it won't take anything with it ;)
 
It probably will ultimately lead to instability/inability to POST. I'm really surprised that your system is still stable. I have repaired at least 15 shuttle sv24/sv25 systems, 2 epox mobos, and 8 abit mobos with bad caps. It's a relatively easy fix and makes the systems run like new. When they go, they generally don't take any other hardware with them.
 
See if you can rma it for free being as it's a major manufacturing defect.
 
defakto said:
See if you can rma it for free being as it's a major manufacturing defect.
Click to expand...

I doubt they will accept it in RMA, as he said it was a model from 2001...4 years is a little late for RMA ;)
 
I'd say it's time for an upgrade, need not be an expensive upgrade either. Or, perhaps just get a new motherboard if you can get one really cheap.
 
Just replace the caps with suitable replacements and be done with it. Costs a few dollars and less than an hour assuming you've got decent soldering skills.
 
You need to get that board fixed, or just replace it... It is going to fail someday soon due to the caps.
 
Like I said above, my board was ATLEAST 4 years old if not more. And on top of that, theres normally a 25$ fee for the repair but it was bypassed since it's a manufacturing defect
 
my bp6 had the same problem.
Would be stable for maybe 10 minutes.
I just boxed it up thinking it was toast.
Well i fixed someones computer a month ago and they had bad caps, and had the same problem of instability.
So i pulled out the bp6, and rma'd it to abit.
They didn't have any replacement ones there, so they are sending me my choice of mobo's as a replacement.

Not a bad deal, I am glad they are at least owning up to thier problems.
 
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