My Asus A7M266-D runs 2 Athlon 2600+ MP processors. Three of the inch long capacitors (I think) that sit next to 1 of the processors are leaking from the top. Computer is fine 24/7 server running at 100% rendering or distributed computing for almost seven years. It still runs well but I'm guessing those leaking things will eventually cause a failure. Is this fixable or if I don't fix it, will it fail gracefully or explode/burn up and take everything else with it?
3 capacitors spewing goo on my favorite MB
- Thread starter MoonglumWoW
- Start date
SunnyD
Belgian Waffler
Turn it off, replace the motherboard.
Worst case scenario is yes, you start a fire. Next worse is you lose components on your board due to shorts. Most minor will be that your system will spontaneously reboot and/or provide bad data to apps due to voltage fluctuations. It's like saying "I have a whole in my car's head gasket... will it cause any problems?"
Yes, you can replace the caps, but it will be a pain in the butt unless you know where to get them, what to get, and are handy with a soldering iron.
Worst case scenario is yes, you start a fire. Next worse is you lose components on your board due to shorts. Most minor will be that your system will spontaneously reboot and/or provide bad data to apps due to voltage fluctuations. It's like saying "I have a whole in my car's head gasket... will it cause any problems?"
Yes, you can replace the caps, but it will be a pain in the butt unless you know where to get them, what to get, and are handy with a soldering iron.
eplebnista
Lifer
- Dec 3, 2001
- 24,123
- 36
- 91
I'm not sure you can still find those 760MPX boards. If you have trouble finding a replacement, check for a used one on the 2CPU forums as I am sure folks are trying to sell off their old ones there. Honestly, dual K7 rigs are getting long in the tooth. I still have mine running as a HTPC, but it's probably going to die in the next year or so.
http://www.badcaps.net/
================
That is a good website that 'eplebnista' recommended and the people there are really helpful. There is all the information you need there to replace the caps. I have done it on six different motherboards. If you are careful and can solder you can do it. There are how-to's and links to lots suppliers on that site for Panasonic and other good brands of caps.
John
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That is a good website that 'eplebnista' recommended and the people there are really helpful. There is all the information you need there to replace the caps. I have done it on six different motherboards. If you are careful and can solder you can do it. There are how-to's and links to lots suppliers on that site for Panasonic and other good brands of caps.
John
Turn off the mobo and stop using it ASAP. Your system will soon start to be extremely unstable, and if you don't stop the leakage now, it may start to wreck things you can't fix.
So far after six motherboard repairs I haven't seen any widespread damage from cap failure. Bulged caps can go for many months before they act up in a noticeable way. It depends upon the motherboard. Frequent lockups are the most common warning sign.
He should replace them though and he needs to get going on it now because by the time he reads about it and orders the caps it will be a few weeks.
John
I had a cap go out on an epox 8RDA which damn near caused a fire. It fried an area of the motherboard and took out several nearby components and my 6800U started artifacting after the incident. I own a Motorola 2-way radio dealership and see lots of electronic equipment problems, The OP needs to do something NOW and downplaying the matter is not a good idea. The best advice is to stop using the equipment NOW and do not attempt to use it untill it is repaired or replaced. You could possibly loose everything both data and component wise in your system.
I guess it doesn't hurt to be cautious. I wasn't really downplaying it. It is just that what you described hasn't been my experience. In terms of data loss, the data is on the hard drive. Either way, he should attempt the repair rather than just replacing the board. He has nothing to lose if those are the options.
John
I've had diodes and transistors in the CPU voltage regulation die and burn out - that was on a board with seven out of nine large capacitors bulging. It does happen.
... whose filesystem structure is read into, buffered in, and written back from system RAM which in turn gets fed by the CPU whose voltage regulation goes bad. That coupled with unmonitored busses (no ECC RAM, no parity protection on CPU bus, no ECC in CPU caches) is a great recipe for file system disaster on the HDD as well.
Besides, what happens if the dying CPU voltage regulator shorts out the power supply in the middle of a harddisk write access? No good either.
Shut down and repair. Now.
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