[Techtalk] Bursting or bulging capacitors :o

[Tracey Grrl Geek]

My file / print / backup server had died a quiet death last last week. We
took it into our local Fry's for a diagnosis, to make sure the power
supply was still good so that if it wasn't we wouldn't fry another
motherboard. The post-mortem conclusion was that a few capacitors had
bulged (one had leaked a little), the best guess they could come up with
was that it may have overheated. This didn't sit right with me, as I had
2 case fans, and an AC vent is near the back of the PC.

By chance I mentioned this to a co-worker who said she had heard of
exploding caps on motherboards before, so I did some looking. I'm sharing
what I found in case this happens to anyone else. Check out this article.
Capacitors on motherboards have been found to explode or bulge due to bad
electrolite mixes. This had nothing to do with heating problems.

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/feb03/ncap.html
http://dfarq.homeip.net/index.php?p=1187&c=1 (specifically
mentions Soyo, the manufacturer of my old mobo)

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/bch20030207018535.htm
Some people describing the same problems we had.

The story has a happy ending, I looked over the original receipt and
found that I had paid $20 for a 2 year warranty (and still had a month on
it). So the mobo was replaced free of charge.  :) I thought I would share
this information in case anyone else runs into the same kind of problem.


-- 
Tracey
Linux Counter #264789
Imagination is more important than knowledge. It is the preview of life's
coming attractions. - Albert Einstein