Leaking mobo caps?

[dawgtuff]

My son's Dell Dimension 4550 shut down and won't reboot. I took the case off, blew out the dust and noticed there was a crusty red clay looking substance on the tops of two of the mobo capacitors. Is this what caps look like when they leak or go bad?

 

[dfuze]

Not 100% sure, but I think so.

 

[Evadman]

I haven't had a dell cap blow, but the ones I have seen are black or yellow. Check if the cap is flat on the top. If it is bulging under that red junk, it is bad, or on its way out. My bet, is unless your sun was eating a pb&j sandwich over the mobo, it is likely a blown cap.

 

[RebateMonger]

Could be. Dell certainly wasn't immune from leaky or bulged caps. Your symptoms certainly match those of failed capacitors. As noted, you'll usually see some bulging (sometimes only a slightly rounded top on some or all of the caps), too.

Search of Badcaps.net for the term "Dell 4550":

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/search.php?searchid=866515

 

[jjmIII]

is this what caps look like when they leak or go bad?

yes!

 

[dawgtuff]

Thanks ya'll. After I made this post, I Googled " Leaking computer capacitors" and got a lot of hits with pics of bad caps. Yes, bulging on the tops,split tops, rusty colored crud on the tops are all indications of degrading or defective caps. As I looked further into my son's box, I found 4 more caps that were bulging/leaking. I guess I can't complain. This Dell has lasted 8 years w/no problems.

 

[RebateMonger]

After a year or two of problems, Dell offered extended (five-year) motherboard warranty exchanges for bad caps. They called it something like "Thermal incidents". I see there's now a class-action lawsuit over the bad cap problem on Dell motherboards. I believe the lawsuit is limited to Optiplex machines. But I know for certain that the Dell 400SC servers had the problem, too. I own six of them and half developed bad capacitors after a year or two of constant use.

 

[jaydeee]

that is a sign of a dieing motherboard. I had it before and it only take couple of weeks before it died.

if you still have the warranty then its time to use it. for end user like us there nothing much we can do about it.