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Smoke from motherboard capacitor

Tags:
  • HIS
  • ASrock
  • Motherboards
Last response: in Motherboards
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October 8, 2014 8:27:22 AM

This past summer I built my first pc. Everything went very smoothly. About a month after completing the build, my buddy upgraded his pc and sold me some of his old parts, so I basically had to take it apart and rebuild it. I finished putting everything together and went to turn it on for the first time and a tiny puff of smoke came out of the case. It didnt boot and I didnt even realize there was smoke until a few seconds later so i didnt see where it came from. I reluctantly tired again, paying attention to all the components to see where the smoke came from. sure enough when i pushed the power, a puff of smoke came out of the top of a capacitor right next to the ram slots on the motherboard. I hadent touched the ram during the install at all and the motherboard is from my original build, not one of the parts from my buddy. luckly this time, everything turned on and it booted up and has been running fine ever since (its been about 3 months.) There hasent been any smoke since then. Im worried that one day the motherboard will just die and take other components out with it but im a college student and dont have an extra $100 to buy a new motherboard. Any suggestions? thanks!
My motherboard is:
ASRock Micro ATX DDR2 1066 AM2.AM3 Motherboard (960GC-GS FX)

More about : smoke motherboard capacitor

a c 242 V Motherboard
October 8, 2014 8:41:43 AM

If it worked for 3 months without issues, I wouldn't worry about it.
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a b V Motherboard
October 8, 2014 8:49:57 AM

If you've only had it a few month, I would contact AsRock and start an RMA. Smoke from the motherboard is never a good thing, even if the system appears to be working. Capacitors are important. Can you see any damage to the cap? Is it solid polymer cap or a traditional electrolytic cap? Is it bulged or deformed in anyway? Has anything leaked from it?
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October 8, 2014 10:36:18 AM

techgeek said:
If you've only had it a few month, I would contact AsRock and start an RMA. Smoke from the motherboard is never a good thing, even if the system appears to be working. Capacitors are important. Can you see any damage to the cap? Is it solid polymer cap or a traditional electrolytic cap? Is it bulged or deformed in anyway? Has anything leaked from it?


The capacitor in no way looks damaged at all. Its and electrolytic cap. I'll look into talking with AsRock
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a b V Motherboard
October 8, 2014 9:15:50 PM

That's odd. If it's a traditional electrolytic capacitor smokes (obviously due to heat), it swells and the top usually splits or bursts. Can't say as I've ever seen a polymer cap blow, so I'm not sure what that would look like.
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