Are This Caps Blown? (Pictures)

[Vassara020]

Are this Caps blown?

[Sixpac_XP]

nothing oozing or brown outside the top of the caps.. looks ok to me but some seem to be pushing out a bit.

Question is though.. why? problems with motherboard?

[Bizkitkid2001]

THey aren't blown, but they are bulging a bit.

If there is no problems, you shouldn't worry much now.

I have 13 caps on my motherboard that are bulging and oozing, but everything is fine.

[JPMiller]

oozing is bad...
bulging is merely worrisome..

[Vassara020]

Ok here is my problem?

This is a friends computer who asked me to take a look at it.

Now when I first got the computer and turned it on it it seemed to be ok.
I got all the regular sounds Like it was going to boot just fine,but the monitor
just said Cable connected?.So I opened it up and made sure all the cables where corectly hooked up and all the cards where corectly seated in the right
spots and tryed again same thing. Cable connected? Now at this time the monitor
was hooked up to a ati all in one wonder card (This is how the monitor was hooked
up when it last worked) So I decided to take out the card and hook the monitor up
to the on board display, but when i turned the computer on now I just got a black
screen with long intravels of beeping and that is when I noticed that the caps next
to the cpu where bouldge up and there was some white chalk like stuff coming from
the center x mark on top of the caps. You do not see this chalk like stuff in the pics
because I cleaned it away but it was there. So I am wondering if blown caps could
cause this kind of behavour.

All so when I removed the heat sink from the cpu to get the close up pictures I notice that there was not much Thermal paste between the cpu and the heat sink.

what you see on my finger is all there was and the cpu had scuff marks like the paste had been wiped away(I do not know wheater or not my friend opened it up)
could this cause the behavour I described above.

Thank you for any help you can offer.

[Vassara020]

Ok after the problems listed above I decided to reacemble the computer and
bang I got new found life out of the computer, but here is a screen shot of what
the computer screen said.

And along for the ride was a wonderful beep code.
Beep Code Audio
Yeah so I rebooted it and I got this screen.

Thats all Noting changed just this screen.
Yeah so I rebooted it and I got this screen.

And thats It. Now when I boot the computer I get one of the three
results listed above. In Random Order.

[RamonGTP]

Looks like a bad installation, or one that has gone bad. I wouldn't necessarily blame the caps, but who knows. Generally when they're bulging, it shouldn't cause problems, but at the same time, it usually means that you will start seeing them leak before too long. The computer also had a ram error, so you might want to check into that too. Bad memory can easily cause file curruption.

[Peter M]

The machine can't read from RAM properly. This causes the BIOS checksum error as well as "unreadable" files. And yes, those bulging capacitors ARE defective, and possibly cause these problems (through unsteady voltage to the CPU).

[Bovon]

Guys, there is a lot of MIS-INFORMATION on computer websites concerning capacitors.

Since about 2001(?) we have been dealing with motherboards (and other boards) that have defective capacitors, we need to understand a capacitors properties before we can definitely pronounce one (visually) good or bad.

A large capacity type capacitor's, such as these round tubular types are, main function is to filter AC hum/noise out of a DC circuit..they do not pass current to ground. A capacitors properties is to pass AC but block DC current.

Once the capacitor becomes 'leaky' (meaning it is beginning to 'leak' or pass current thru itself), it will generate heat. (the movement of electrons thru any medium will cause heat because electrons have mass).

Any capacitor that is passing electrons, creating enough heat to cause swelling of its container..is causing destabilization to the circuit it is supposed to stabilize by removing minor amounts of hum/AC-noise.

Depending on the circuit it is in can determine the amount of leakage that circuit can manage and continue to function.

I have repaired one board here that only one capacitor showed a very slight amount of bulging at the top..but they were hot to the touch while the board was still operational and in-service. Once removed from the board and individually tested, I had about 90% leaking capacitors

[DanU]

PeterM and Bovon are absolutely right. The caps should NEVER bulge like that. If they're bulging, that means they are degrading and soon will pop. Since they're all of the same "quality" (or lack thereof), they should all be replaced, not just the bulging ones.