Corosion on capacitors on MB

[Zoinks]

There is crusty looking stuff on the tops of two large capacitors on my 2 year old Gigabyte 8IHXP MB. Is this serious enough to leave the computer off? Can they be replaced? Is there an easy way to do it?

Does anyone know what kind of warranty Gigabyte has? I can't find any info on their website on warranties.

 

[someone16]

Any sign leakage/bulging is not good. Try and contact Gigabyte for an RMA, I believe they have 3 year warranties? Anyways, leave the computer off for now, i might take other components with the mobo if the caps blow

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: someone16
Any sign leakage/bulging is not good. Try and contact Gigabyte for an RMA, I believe they have 3 year warranties? Anyways, leave the computer off for now, i might take other components with the mobo if the caps blow

depends on how far gone they are... I ran my SL-75FRN2-L for a few months after I saw some of the caps were leaky, without ever a single problem, and it's fine.. and you likely would be fine too... but the mobo will not last forever like that. it's not terribly expensive to fix, provided the caps are not too large (uF) they'll probably cost a buck or 2 each, sometimes more.. so it depends on how many are dead, and if you can get the caps cheap... but caps are very easy to fix.. i'd much rather fix the mobo myself than dick around with a manufacturer for an RMA, and waiting for it to return, etc... too much hassle.
take the mobo into an electronics place and price out some matching caps.. if it's only a couple caps, i'd do it for sure... on my mobo, i have to fix about 8 of them.. might not be worthwhile, but i haven't priced anything out yet.

 

[RobCur]

i lucky if my mobo last a year! most of it last less then 6 months
I replace so often,quality of the mobo has gone down the drain ever since they manufacturer over seas instead of USA. cheap = low quality + defects

 

[Bluestealth]

I ran into a site online while looking for a modded bios for my board which I had lost in a reformat. It talks about the exact problem you are having, new to the forums so I dont know how to do links but the site is http://www.badcaps.com. I had a problem with one of my Soyo boards a while back with the capacitors swelling, this later led to a power surge that fried the onboard Ultra DMA 66 controller, lol. The board kept working but a few months later I replaced it with some random Asus board. Which recieved a new processor from my old computer whose board has a bad southbridge chip its entire life(No Key/Mouse Controller, 1 USB port working etc...). I would suggest you try to RMA if you have a warranty before you attempt to fix it, since its easier and it more or less garantees a working board .

 

[Zoinks]

You might not know how to post links right but you sure can find good ones! (Link looks ok to me though.) I guess I'll leave it off until I can get it fixed.

Now if I can just find my receipt...

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: Zoinks
You might not know how to post links right but you sure can find good ones! (Link looks ok to me though.) I guess I'll leave it off until I can get it fixed.

Now if I can just find my receipt...

just how bad are the caps? chances are you can run it for a while if they are not completely leaky.. I ran my board for quite a few months knowing they were bad, and they never really got any worse.. it ran rock stable the entire time. but if they are bad, definitely don't chance it.

 

[Zoinks]

How do you know just how bad they are? There are just two that have a little crustyness on top. Similar to the top leak here: http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm. It doesn't seem too bad but then again, how do you know that they aren't about to explode?