Leaky capacitors are destroying motherboards...

[Theophylact]

...and the problem may be widespread.

[JacobM5727]

note to self, steal complete formula
im glad some companies are doing the right thing though

[Tomteriffic]

This is the second go-round for Abit with bad motherboard caps. A large number of their Slot 1 440BX boards had the same malaise. I have at least one board in for re-capping at any given time, it seems, and have started the practice of keeping a freshly re-capped board back as a spare.

The problem, as before, was sourcing inherently defective caps from the lowest bidder. The good news is that this time, they're doing the right thing, whereas before, even during a warranty period, you were pretty much out of luck.

[Neø]

capacitors on my aunt's motherboard leaked after the PSU fried......

-Neø

[Neø]

and do bad capacitors affect overclocked PCs more than PCs running as intended?

-Neø

[Omardeth]

i don't think this is the second time with abit i think it is all the same when you look at the time frame they are talking . it is just hitting the more mainstream media now .

[John Prophet]

This is semi old news as far as the story of the formula being stolen and messed up etc..I swear it reminds me of Animal house when they stole the wrong answers to the test and all failed, lol.

"and do bad capacitors affect overclocked PCs more than PCs running as intended?"

Well, anything that makes the psu put out more power will make mor eproblems for the leaky caps...for instance we had a board with a P3-800 or thereabouts...it had bad caps..it would NOT boot...but it would boot with a slower celeron...why..the celeron drew less power and thus presented less of a problem to the psu and hence the caps "didnt matter as much"...its sort of like a sprained ankle..yeah you can walk to the fridge and back...but not carrying a 100lb knapsack!

So the OC'ing just makes the power supply try to output more..therefore the caps have to strain a lil harder to filter that power and get all the spikes and fluctuations out of it....the more power they have to output, probably the "dirtier" the power gets...which leads to instability and or lockups etc. We are talking "digital" as in 'precise'..that cpu need 5.0v not a variable 4.7 to 5.3 all over the map with all sorts of little spikes and sags.

[thekingofpain]

Ive been tossing the Abit boards that do this and ive recently realized I could have been sending them back to Abit---(simple fix, but im not one to solder on m/b's myself) its usually an older board no reciept and no recollection where it was purchased and the user is wanting to upgrade anyways---but still, Abit may possibly have provided some compensation---
No I dont want a replacement BE6 etc not available m/b at this point, and I doubt they would trade me 6 dead ones for a NEW IC7-MAX3 or similar---oh well :-|

[golfcart]

Abit is fairly easy to deal with in that situation. You can do the whole RMA online and even pay them with paypal. Last time I returned a board to them with no documentation at all, it was $25 to have the caps replaced. The board I got back was the same one I sent in so they actually repaired it instead of replacing it. I think it took 4 or 5 weeks all together.

I just noticed leaks on my epox board the other day so now it's time to see how they handle it. If it's more than $25 with them, I probably won't even bother

Edit for link: Abit RMA

[willy_ph]

Wow, who bumped this thread??? I posted news about this nearly a year ago. http://www.techimo.com/newsapp/index.pl?photo=1602