Your motherboard may have leaky capacitors.

[kgraeme]

A story at IEEE Online talks about how capacitors on motherboards are leaking and causing problems. The article mentions that Abit has publicly acknowledged the problem and will fix or replace faulty boards. IBM has apparently also contacted some customers about the potential problem.

Aluminum electrolytic capacitors with a low equivalent series resistance (ESR) are high-capacitance components that generally serve to smooth out the power supply to chips. Throughout 2002, they have been breaking open and failing in certain desktop PCs. Motherboard and PC makers contacted by IEEE Spectrum have stopped using the faulty parts, but because the parts can fail over a period of several months, more such failures are expected.

So far, the only motherboard maker to admit to the problem is ABIT Computer Corp. (Taipei), and the only major PC maker to acknowledge being affected is IBM Corp. But the problem is likely to be more widespread. Indeed, those who have repaired the damaged boards say that they have encountered crippled motherboards from Micro-Star International, ASUSTek Computer, Gigabyte Technology, and others.

An interesting aspect of this story is that while Abit and IBM acknowledge the problem, other motherboard manufacturers are having their lawyers cover up the problem when their names showed up on a site listing their boards as also exhibiting the leaky caps.

 

[kgraeme]

It's also getting some attention at slashdot.

 

[spanky]

boo

 

[Painkiller]

My old abit KT7 had some white stuff on top of the caps. Board still works fine though.

 

[Eug]

I dunno if this is related, but it was quite disturbing for me nonetheless: My exploding Firewire enclosure.