Bad Caps On Motherboard

It often looks somewhat like a dried coffee stain.

Bad caps on motherboard.

A common cause of motherboard issues or failure is bulged or blown capacitors. The first thing to do is a visual check of the motherboard. Caps are usually marked at the negative pin with a lot of minus signs as well as the fact that the positive terminal is usually longer. After a close examination and bad capacitors are verified to be the problem i mark and remove all the necessary capacitors 680uf and higher.

Well bad caps typically have a domed or swollen top. Remove any obstructions like fan shrouds so you can view the entire motherboard and other add in. Checking for bad capacitors power down your computer and remove the power cord from the back of the power supply in place inspection or disconnect all cables relocated inspection open the case. Resetting the system after a freeze and the system will not repost.

Sometimes really bad caps can leak their electrolyte out of themselves too. You can use a capacitor with the same or higher voltage. You have to completely power down then power back up cpu vcore system voltage issues can also be associated with a faulty power supply. The bad capacitors or bad caps as they are sometimes called are black and gold colored low esr equivalent series resistance aluminum electrolytic cylinders about an inch in length and marked.

On the board the negative terminal is usually filled in and the positive terminal is marked with a sign. The bad capacitor s should have markings on the side like for instance 10v 100µf. Then you may see this brown crust around the capacitor or perhaps on it. Replace the capacitor s with ones with the same markings.

Before you decide your caps are bad always try a known good and high quality power supply. Note that some model systems boards use a mixture of low quality junk capacitors and high quality capacitors panasonic and or rubycon. Clip off the terminals roughly 2 mm from where they stick through the pcb. Back in april 2002 i had an idea to start a business actually spinoff of another business servicing motherboards at component level amid the mass capacitor failures plaguing the pc industry.

Check the top of each capacitor to see if it s bulging or leaking which is an indication the capacitor is blown.