Is this motherboard failure a coincidence or a consequence of this?

[Galactical]

I've got this older Gigabyte GA-7vrxp motherboard that I've had for about 2 years already, and 2 PATA hard drives attached. I disconnect the second hard drive so I can put it in an enclosure, and after running the PC again for a few hours, I smell that horrible smell you all probably know. I open the case and see some capacitors bulged out and burning.

Now I'm wondering: could it possibly be because I simply removed that second hard drive that this happened?

Probably an important note: I replaced this board two years ago with the same model. I still have the old board in my garage, so I went to inspect it, and it turns out that the same capacitors burnt out.

Can anybody tell me what the heck happened? I'm hoping I can simply replace these bad caps (and possibly the power supply, since I think that might be a bit old, too). Any negatives to doing this?

 

[Blain]

If you're good at soldering, you can replace the bad caps. Cold solder joints are a royal pain.
But with a MB that old, why bother, since the other caps on the board are the same age?

Check ebay for socket 462 MBs using a KT400 or nForce2 chipsets.
You can get good quality PS pretty cheap if you watch for rebate deals.
Newegg has the Antec EA430 for $30 after rebate. Rebate goes out today, so hurry.

 

[Galactical]

Originally posted by: Blain
If you're good at soldering, you can replace the bad caps. Cold solder joints are a royal pain.
But with a MB that old, why bother, since the other caps on the board are the same age?

Check ebay for socket 462 MBs using a KT400 or nForce2 chipsets.
You can get good quality PS pretty cheap if you watch for rebate deals.
Newegg has the Antec EA430 for $30 after rebate. Rebate goes out today, so hurry.

Admittedly, replacing all the capacitors seems like it would be a hefty job, and something best left for a side project later on. So I think it's time for an upgrade.