Am I afflicted by the Capacitor Plague? (got photos)

[darussiaman16]

Check out a few shots of my MoBo:






These are the bottom 3 caps from reverse angle:



Larger versions of the above can be seen 1.here, 2.here, and 3.here.


Yes, this is an old motherboard, Socket A, in fact. Is this really the infamous "capacitor plague" that I am witnessing (i.e. are they failed capacitors)? The odd thing is that this motherboard works! I have not done strenuous testing but so far it boots every time; seems to have no problems. I spent a lot of time screwing around with BIOS settings. I even flashed the bios and installed WinXP on a freshly plugged in hard drive (all before I noticed these caps). And I never got any shut downs, no random reboots, no instability problems or other weirdness as far as I remember. So, if these really are failed capacitors, why is the mobo still working? Am I going to experience problems later if I continue using it? Like if I start playing games? Or is it safe to say that it will continue working perfectly if I haven't had any issues yet?

This mobo is the Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro, by the way. Thanks.

 

[p1n3apqlexpr3ss]

Yea, theyre def bulging a bit and spurting out a bit of acid... it may work now, but not for much longer ill imagine

 

[violentlyhappy91]

If you know how to use a soldering iron, it's easy to fix, if not, head down to your local radioshack or whatever, and they should be able to fix it for you. Basic capacitors can be replaced within a few minutes. I replaced all of them on an old board and put Solid State Caps on instead, took a few hours, but I overclock it a lot so it works out. Good luck.

 

[outlw6669]

Yup, those caps are on the way out.
As with above, they should not be difficult to replace if you are handy with a soldering iron....

 

[darussiaman16]

Thanks. Do you guys buy your capacitors online? If so where? Or locally somewhere? I don't know any electronics stores that sell them. I don't believe radioshack has them, unless it's a very small selection.

I am going to at least try to repair it by recapping it. I've done soldering before so I think I'll be okay at it.

 

[jsc]

Keep in mind that most motherboards are 4 layer boards. You need to be really careful.