Leaking Capacitors

Felix · 4 Dec 2006 at 22:27

Just opened up my PC and found that several of the capacitors are leaking (brown crusty stuff on the top of a swollen capacitor). What has caused this? Old age or heat?

Werewolf · 4 Dec 2006 at 22:30

probably a combination of both, some capacitors are much more prone to this than others which is why some manufacturers will state "only Japanese capacitors used" (or similar) in their advertising (iirc the japanese ones tend to be much higher quality than those made in China etc).

jongeeone · 4 Dec 2006 at 22:38

My mobo said "all solid capacitor" so im thinking they cant leak?

btw what does iirc mean?

Talkie_Toaster · 4 Dec 2006 at 22:50

jongeeone said:
btw what does iirc mean?

If I Remember Correct

jongeeone · 4 Dec 2006 at 22:57

lol thanks

Felix · 4 Dec 2006 at 22:59

Its a bit of a pain in the butt as I wasn't planning on doing a major upgrade now, though this m/b and CPU have lasted me 5 years.

shimy182 · 4 Dec 2006 at 23:06

Felix said:
Its a bit of a pain in the butt as I wasn't planning on doing a major upgrade now, though this m/b and CPU have lasted me 5 years.

yupe yeah deffo due for another upgrade

Dr.EM · 4 Dec 2006 at 23:23

Could just change the caps (assuming its just the filtering ones, big ones?), but then 5 years is getting on in computer terms

Werewolf · 4 Dec 2006 at 23:45

Felix said:
Its a bit of a pain in the butt as I wasn't planning on doing a major upgrade now, though this m/b and CPU have lasted me 5 years.

KT7 or KT7A by any chance?

james.miller · 4 Dec 2006 at 23:47

Werewolf said:
KT7 or KT7A by any chance?

it's a good bet, isnt it? that, or an epox board.

the caps are very cheap to replace if your confident with a soldering iron?

Felix · 5 Dec 2006 at 07:21

Well you lost

It's a Gigabyte board.

Werewolf · 5 Dec 2006 at 09:45

that probably explains why it lasted 5-6 years then

macca40 · 5 Dec 2006 at 10:32

Abit/ KT7A still got one gets used daily had it from 2001

CurlyWhirly · 9 Dec 2006 at 23:33

Werewolf said:
that probably explains why it lasted 5-6 years then

I'm still using a Gigabyte motherboard (GA-7VAXP) and it's around 5 years old and still going strong.

So Gigabyte is a reliable motherboard brand then?

Millwall.FC · 10 Dec 2006 at 00:47

jongeeone said:
My mobo said "all solid capacitor" so im thinking they cant leak?

btw what does iirc mean?

it was probably the polymer leaking they need this to store the charge i think "solid capacitor" is the construction of it

ghgh · 10 Dec 2006 at 08:37

ive got a gigabyte ga7zxe (socket a, sd ram)) that has been running 24/7 for about 5 years now and it has never crashed once running xp and the caps still look fine. Never had any problems with gigabyte mobos. Also have a gigabyte ga6bxc (slot 1) running a p3 450@600 thats from around 1999/2000, even ran seti/folding@home 24/7 like the zxe since 2001 till a few months ago when it wasnt worth the power keeping it on. I've had nothing but good experiences with gigabyte motherboards.

Alexrose1uk · 10 Dec 2006 at 13:17

Got an old Slot1 (I think) Pentium 3 mobo from 1997 from MSI thats the same

Lasted for donkeys, better than any other Tiny Computer used stuff I've ever seen!

Biohazard · 10 Dec 2006 at 13:44

Yeah the K7/A was bad for it, had two of them 7 then the 7A both done it eventially. Put me off Abit for a while.