I built a system about 4 years ago, and kept it fairly well ventilated with 3 case fans and 1 slot fan, and the PSU fan, collectively pulling more than 60 CFM (or so) out of the case I would guess. I live in Detroit where it does tend to be rather humid in the summer, but not ridiculously so--plus I'm an A/C whore and like it absolutely frigid when I'm home...like below 70F. I usually left the PC running 24/7 with rare exceptions for most of the 4 years. Also, I typically keep the temperature above 60 degrees year round, though I do turn the A/C off during the summer from about 7AM to 4PM and during the warm months it can reach temperatures of 90 degrees or more in my loft while I'm at work.
The system started exhibiting some intermittent problems sometime around March, and rather than pick it apart and trying to isolate the problem, I figured it was just time to cut the cord and buy a new one first, then pillage its working parts for later use. One tangible problem the system reported, apart from oddities like the system suddenly failing to produce video through any card I put in the AGP slot or simply locking up without warning or apparent reason, was that it reported the power on the USB bus was not able to accomodate all its devices--decidedly strange since I actually had already removed most of the USB doo-dads. I also downloaded and ran some basic diagnostic utilities to no avail.
When I finally got around to taking it apart--I was surprised to find something that I hadn't expected and don't recall ever seeing. Forgive me if this is in error, I'm not an electrical guy, but about half of the 20-or-so what I think are capacitors on the main circuit board, y'know, the little silos, had tops on them that were corroded, discolored, and appeared to be either rusting or leaking some sort of acid. Basically, they looked like corroded alkalaine batteries.
This was an Epox 8K7A+ motherboard, with 512 Mb of crucial Memroy in twin DDR sticks, an AMD Athlon 1.4 MHz CPU, with an ever-changing array of PCI expansion cards and AGP cards, hard drives, etc., running XP Pro SP1. I never had a single twitch until March of '04 or so.
I found this interesting story online, but really don't know if this was the cause of my problem or even if it was what I should do. I do still have the receipt, so I guess I should pursue the warranty. I guess these can be replaced if this is what I'm suffering from, but it sounds expensive and like an uncertain repair that can screw the board up more, and it can't be cost effective since the board is pretty much done being a prominent option in the market.
Interestingly, I did notice that the Epox site has release notes listed for all its socket A motherboards with BIOS updates still available...save 3 (one of them mine). Does anyone know if this board was affected by the supposed STRANGE BREW some capacitors had been shipping with? Or does anyone remember it happening? Not the sort of thing that Ted Koppel would necessarily report on, but still, I must have been completely obvlisous as I don't remember even hearing about it.
My other thought/question was, is it possible that environmental factors such as humidity, or large swings in room temperature may have accelerated or caused altogether the corrosion problem? If so, should I do something like altering my climate control settings in my living space? Would it be good/bad/futile to put a few silica packets inside the case to prevent moisture from accumulating?
If anyone has any thoughts/ideas/insights, I would appreciate it.
Thanks...
The system started exhibiting some intermittent problems sometime around March, and rather than pick it apart and trying to isolate the problem, I figured it was just time to cut the cord and buy a new one first, then pillage its working parts for later use. One tangible problem the system reported, apart from oddities like the system suddenly failing to produce video through any card I put in the AGP slot or simply locking up without warning or apparent reason, was that it reported the power on the USB bus was not able to accomodate all its devices--decidedly strange since I actually had already removed most of the USB doo-dads. I also downloaded and ran some basic diagnostic utilities to no avail.
When I finally got around to taking it apart--I was surprised to find something that I hadn't expected and don't recall ever seeing. Forgive me if this is in error, I'm not an electrical guy, but about half of the 20-or-so what I think are capacitors on the main circuit board, y'know, the little silos, had tops on them that were corroded, discolored, and appeared to be either rusting or leaking some sort of acid. Basically, they looked like corroded alkalaine batteries.
This was an Epox 8K7A+ motherboard, with 512 Mb of crucial Memroy in twin DDR sticks, an AMD Athlon 1.4 MHz CPU, with an ever-changing array of PCI expansion cards and AGP cards, hard drives, etc., running XP Pro SP1. I never had a single twitch until March of '04 or so.
I found this interesting story online, but really don't know if this was the cause of my problem or even if it was what I should do. I do still have the receipt, so I guess I should pursue the warranty. I guess these can be replaced if this is what I'm suffering from, but it sounds expensive and like an uncertain repair that can screw the board up more, and it can't be cost effective since the board is pretty much done being a prominent option in the market.
Interestingly, I did notice that the Epox site has release notes listed for all its socket A motherboards with BIOS updates still available...save 3 (one of them mine). Does anyone know if this board was affected by the supposed STRANGE BREW some capacitors had been shipping with? Or does anyone remember it happening? Not the sort of thing that Ted Koppel would necessarily report on, but still, I must have been completely obvlisous as I don't remember even hearing about it.
My other thought/question was, is it possible that environmental factors such as humidity, or large swings in room temperature may have accelerated or caused altogether the corrosion problem? If so, should I do something like altering my climate control settings in my living space? Would it be good/bad/futile to put a few silica packets inside the case to prevent moisture from accumulating?
If anyone has any thoughts/ideas/insights, I would appreciate it.
Thanks...
Back up your data and replace it with a shiny new $55 Shuttle AN35N Ultra, is my suggestion 
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