Does a bulging capacitor automatically indicate "capacitor plague?"

[benbaked]

Is a bulging capacitor top an automatic positive indication of the "capacitor plague?" This is on my GA-965GM-S2 in the HTPC, this is the only one I've noticed on the motherboard.

 

[deadlysyn]

It's definitely a start. I had one rig that started giving me stability issues after a couple years of service. I had pulled the side off the case for a good dusting when I noticed a couple of bulging caps. It was about the time that I was upgrading my P4 to the Q6600, so that rig got upgraded from the Celeron D to the P4, with the Abit AS8 and solid state caps. I still have that rig running with no issues. I am even thinking about seeing if I can push the P4 a little farther. If need be, I have a cooler or 2 that I might be able to swap in to replace the XP-90C.

 

[CgS Drone]

Yes it is, the only way to test it would be to take it out but it obviously is going and by the time you removed it you would be putting a new one in anyway.

 

[xoke]

I've seen bulging caps last for one week and three plus years, but if your having issues that's a good place to start.

 

[Bobnova]

Some tests i saw (by oklahoma wolf) indicated that a bulging cap is already essentially dead, if the board is still functioning it is because it doesn't strictly need that cap.
That was just one test though.

In any case, a bulging cap is a failing (or failed) cap.

 

[Old Thrashbarg]

Is a bulging capacitor top an automatic positive indication of the "capacitor plague?"

It's usually a sign of the plague, but sometimes if it's just one otherwise good quality cap, it indicates that a particular area of the board is getting too hot.

But that bulging one on your board looks like it might be a Chemicon KZG series, which is known to have a lot of failures. If that's the case, you should probably replace all the ones of that type. It looks like there's only four of 'em, so it wouldn't be a big project.

 

[benbaked]

Thanks for the advice folks, you're confirmed what I suspected. I'm not having any stability issues with the system at the moment, just something I noticed when I took off the case lid. I was surprised to see a bulging cap on a relatively recent motherboard. I don't know that I'll replace the caps, might be less trouble/effort to just replace it with a cheap Fry's combo in a couple of months on BF.

 

[madhatter256]

It's usually a sign of the plague, but sometimes if it's just one otherwise good quality cap, it indicates that a particular area of the board is getting too hot.

But that bulging one on your board looks like it might be a Chemicon KZG series, which is known to have a lot of failures. If that's the case, you should probably replace all the ones of that type. It looks like there's only four of 'em, so it wouldn't be a big project.

In my experience, if it's a brown cap, then it's from one of the low-quality brands motherboard makers put in to squeeze out profits.

I would immediately change them.

You can order quality caps from badcaps.net.

 

[Austin3334]

Yeah that cap is definitely bad. We get either blown or bulging caps like yours at work all the time.
While replacing the caps would obviously fix the current problem, that doesn't fix the source of the problem.

So now we just replace the whole motherboard instead of having customers come back in for the same problem where a new cap is blown/bulging or the replaced one is blown again.

 

[EarthDog]

LOL, what is capacitor plague? If one cap exlpodes its going to affect the others??? I have never heard that term before!

 

[Austin3334]

LOL, what is capacitor plague? If one cap exlpodes its going to affect the others??? I have never heard that term before!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

 

[EarthDog]

So a capacitor goes bad and instatly goes back to caps made in 99-07? I guess that board was made around that time...

Thanks for the info!

 

[Austin3334]

So a capacitor goes bad and instatly goes back to caps made in 99-07? I guess that board was made around that time...

Thanks for the info!

Yes thats what were all saying here...
anyways that board was on the market in 06 so obviously before 07...

 

[benbaked]

So a capacitor goes bad and instatly goes back to caps made in 99-07? I guess that board was made around that time...

Thanks for the info!

This is the fourth board I've had affected by it (asus, soltek, epox, now gigabyte). Seen it on a friend's abit and his brother's shuttle, seen it on several imacs at work, Dell is going through a legal tangle over this sort of thing right now. I don't know how much of it is the supposed bad electrolyte formula and how much of it is just Gigabyte using low-grade parts on this particular board, like I said I was shocked to see it on such a recent board. The last board I saw this on was my 8rda3+ from like 2004. This board has no voltage adjustments and doesn't respond to vid pad mods (thx Gigabyte) so its not like I've abused it overclocking. Not that I haven't tried.

Anyway, it will give me an excuse to upgrade on BF.

 

[EarthDog]

I havent owned a board that didnt have SS caps in years so Im shocked at all this actually...

 

[Jmtyra]

Is a bulging capacitor top an automatic positive indication of the "capacitor plague?"

Only if it's a Dell.

 

[larrymoencurly]

I don't know that I'll replace the caps, might be less trouble/effort to just replace it with a cheap Fry's combo in a couple of months on BF.

Good luck finding a cheap CPU-mobo combo at Fry's any more because some employees have said that the company has decided to discontinue them, and ads in the past few weeks have featured none of them. Worse, they're advertising CPUs alone, at the same prices as the combos with the same CPUs. And even if you do find cheap combo, unless it includes a Gigabyte mobo, it will probably still have some bad caps on it.

The capacitor plague has affected a lot more than just Dells, and I've had mobos where Ltec, OST, or G-Luxon caps failed. If one cap of a given model bulges, then most likely most others of that model that are exposed to the same temperature or are in the same type of circuitry are also going bad.

 

[torin3]

Also, you can have caps go bad from 'dirty' power.

I work in a shop with about 100 lathes, mills and other machines that have any where from 1/4 HP to 40 HP motors on them. Our power is not anywhere near clean. We've had several computers develop bad caps on them from good manufacturers. We wound up putting almost all our computer on UPSs to cut down on the number of dead PSUs and blown motherboards.

 

[Jester999999]

OK *edit* no one knows why this has happened...

Firstly I notice your overclocking. This is the reason the capacitor has swelled ... It is not a heat issue but instead an over voltage issue and the electrolytic capacitor is prone to swell if subjected to voltages beyond their specs. This is a common knowledge thing in electronics field.

In other words you pushed the voltage to far and the cap couldnt take it.

Easy way to see this happen and watch one pop is get a low voltage cap and wire it up to a higher voltage supply... it will pop like a fire cracker.

And it is NOT "capacitor plague" ... *edit*

Cleaned up your post, you have PM - I.M.O.G., Forum Admin

 

[EarthDog]

Jester, while your information may be correct (who knows without supporting links or something), you dont need to call people 'stoopid'.

With that said, its funny that I, and many others here who overclock, and the minority who overclock with extreme voltages rarely see this issue. If you took the time to read through the thread, you may have caught the fact that it was on an old motherboard which whose caps supposedly had this problem.

I dont know whats right to be honest, as a wiki link and your lack of supporting information still leaves me wondering.