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#1
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faulty capasitors
HI,
Mobo has been on and off for the last couple of weeks. (occationally harddrive is not detected at start up) Someone suggested this might be due to bad capasitators. How does one gauge the "capasity" of capasitors? Multimeter? OR |
#2
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faulty capasitors
"Juve" wrote in message
... HI, Mobo has been on and off for the last couple of weeks. (occationally harddrive is not detected at start up) Someone suggested this might be due to bad capasitators. How does one gauge the "capasity" of capasitors? Multimeter? OR No need for a meter to check the capacitors on a motherboard. When they go bad the ends of them rupture and leak. Visually check each of them and if they are leaking a substance (usually dark in color) then they are bad, if not don't worry about them. For what it's worth, the capacitors usually have a couple of little grooves in the ends of them. They are actually there to allow the capacitor to break open at that point and allow pressure to escape in an emergency. During an electrical short the older one's that did not have the relief grooves would explode like a firecracker causing much damage. |
#3
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faulty capasitors
Heres what they look like 'Bad Caps in Mobos' (http://home.earthlink.net/%7Edoniteli/index27.htm), they can also develop a high internal resistance with age due to the electrolyte drying out... but swelling and bulging is a common thing. Here's another link responsible for 'bad caps' apparently due to industrial espoinage....! 'Hushed up.' (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,939887,00.asp) It should be noted this only applies to certain capacitors and not all the capacitors of that brand and it probably may not be related to your problem specifically. I've changed a couple of the green GSL types but quite a while back now, from memory I think they were Luxor or something like that. Always use high temperature low ESR types where heat and high ripple pulses are concerned, capacitors do go bad with age and heat though, the gunge they sometimes leak will eat the protective lacquer on the mobo and gobble the copper tracks in no time. Davy |
#4
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faulty capasitors
Juve wrote:
HI, Mobo has been on and off for the last couple of weeks. (occationally harddrive is not detected at start up) Someone suggested this might be due to bad capasitators. How does one gauge the "capasity" of capasitors? Multimeter? OR Bulging caps indicates internal failure and a pressure buildup. The stress relief lines break open, when enough pressure is present. The bottom (rubber) seal, can also start to protrude below the capacitor body, and cause the cap to tilt on an angle. http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/kt7/image004.png Brown color on the top of the caps, is from leaking electrolyte. The brown liquid can also dry on the motherboard surface. (This is a picture of the inside of an ATX supply, but the same problem can happen on the motherboard.) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...4/PSU_Caps.jpg Capacitance can be measured with some multimeters, if they have a capacitance option. My $100 meter can measure capacitance, but only for a restricted set of ranges. If the capacitor is resistively leaky, I'm not sure whether the multimeter could get a proper reading or not. Paul |
#5
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faulty capasitors
Juve wrote: Mobo has been on and off for the last couple of weeks. (occationally harddrive is not detected at start up) Someone suggested this might be due to bad capasitators. How does one gauge the "capasity" of capasitors? Multimeter? www.badcaps.net As others have said, you'll usually see a bulged top on a bad capacitor, but a multimeter or even a capacitance meter will rarely show anything wrong with such capacitors. An ESR (equivalent series resistance) meter is needed, but it's not useful for motherboards because the capacitors are wired in parallel. |
#6
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faulty capasitors
Juve wrote:
HI, Mobo has been on and off for the last couple of weeks. (occationally harddrive is not detected at start up) Someone suggested this might be due to bad capasitators. How does one gauge the "capasity" of capasitors? Multimeter? OR Because you say "occationally harddrive is not detected at start up" I like to ask, did you check the CMOS battery? If that's the culprit the computer time, while the computer has been off, might be wrong. |
#7
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faulty capasitors
"Juve" skrev i meddelelsen
... HI, Mobo has been on and off for the last couple of weeks. (occationally harddrive is not detected at start up) Someone suggested this might be due to bad capasitators. How does one gauge the "capasity" of capasitors? Multimeter? OR Might also be your PSU, try changing it -- Mvh JBJ |
#8
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faulty capasitors
Open up the case and look with a flashlight. Bad capacitors will be
discolored on top. Usually due to air moisture. "JBJ" wrote in message k... "Juve" skrev i meddelelsen ... HI, Mobo has been on and off for the last couple of weeks. (occationally harddrive is not detected at start up) Someone suggested this might be due to bad capasitators. How does one gauge the "capasity" of capasitors? Multimeter? OR Might also be your PSU, try changing it -- Mvh JBJ |
#9
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faulty capasitors
Somewhere on teh intarwebs "Maggy" typed:
Open up the case and look with a flashlight. Bad capacitors will be discolored on top. Usually due to air moisture. Once upon a time all advice given here was qualtiy advice.... -- Shaun. DISCLAIMER: If you find a posting or message from me offensive, inappropriate, or disruptive, please ignore it. If you don't know how to ignore a posting, complain to me and I will be only too happy to demonstrate... ;-) "JBJ" wrote in message k... "Juve" skrev i meddelelsen ... HI, Mobo has been on and off for the last couple of weeks. (occationally harddrive is not detected at start up) Someone suggested this might be due to bad capasitators. How does one gauge the "capasity" of capasitors? Multimeter? OR Might also be your PSU, try changing it -- Mvh JBJ |
#10
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faulty capasitors
Don't be so quick to criticize Shaun. Poor quality mobo's (cheap) often
react badly to humidity. I've seen the results and believe me, (or not) the top end of capacitors are very prone to corrosion. this is just one possibility to the op problem. "~misfit~" wrote in message ... Somewhere on teh intarwebs "Maggy" typed: Open up the case and look with a flashlight. Bad capacitors will be discolored on top. Usually due to air moisture. Once upon a time all advice given here was qualtiy advice.... -- Shaun. DISCLAIMER: If you find a posting or message from me offensive, inappropriate, or disruptive, please ignore it. If you don't know how to ignore a posting, complain to me and I will be only too happy to demonstrate... ;-) "JBJ" wrote in message k... "Juve" skrev i meddelelsen ... HI, Mobo has been on and off for the last couple of weeks. (occationally harddrive is not detected at start up) Someone suggested this might be due to bad capasitators. How does one gauge the "capasity" of capasitors? Multimeter? OR Might also be your PSU, try changing it -- Mvh JBJ |
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