Blown capacitors on motherboard: Repair or replace?

[Downaski]

Are blown capacitors on motherboards repairable through soldering, or is board replacement required?

[Wadey68]

Hi,

simple answer is yes you can replace them. Might be difficult to identify replacements.

But, what has caused them to blow? Faulty power supply? And what other damage has it done?

It is worth a try I guess, but you could spend a long time chasing down other faults and maybe damaging other components such as RAM, Processor bridges etc.

Lee.

[Downaski]

Hi Lee,

Thanks for your reply, that makes sense. I was just asking in a more general sense about motherboard capacitor issues. From your experience, how often does a blown capacitor end up causing problems with other components?

[Wadey68]

Hi,

personally I have never seen a motherboard capacitior blow - but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It is more likely this is a symptom and not the cause. Heat, age and high or overvoltage are normally the killers of capacitors.

What actually happened to the motherboard? Do you have a photo?

Lee.

[Downaski]

Thanks for your reply and for explaining this. Just to be clear, I don’t actually have a motherboard with this issue, but I’m generally interested in computers. Can you clarify one thing: are blown capacitors always caused by another issue, or can they fail on their own?

[machinist]

Blown capacitors on motherboards can happen for a few different reasons. Sometimes it is caused by external issues like a faulty power supply, voltage spikes, or consistently high temperatures inside the computer. Other times, capacitors fail on their own over time as their internal materials degrade, which is especially common with electrolytic capacitors that have a limited lifespan.

A blown capacitor can be both a symptom of these underlying issues and a cause of further problems if the system continues to be used. It can sometimes affect nearby components, and in severe cases, leaking or bulging capacitors may damage circuits or other hardware. Figuring out why a capacitor failed is important to prevent it from happening again and to help the motherboard continue functioning properly.

[adnadeau]

Yes, capacitors can blow on motherboards and they can be replaced. About 25 or 30 years ago there was a major problem with computer boards made in Taiwan. You can Google it. It involved technology theft of electrolytic capacitor electrolyte composition. These are thru-hole capacitors; not surface mount. Someone gave me a computer with most of the capacitors blown. The small electrolytic capacitors on motherboards have an X on the top of the case. These are score marks so that the capacitor will burst its top when it goes bad. The bottom of the cap will also leak electrolyte onto the motherboard. They are extremely difficult to replace, as the motherboards of that era were multi-layer, as many as 5 layers. There is a risk of damaging the inner layers when desoldering the damaged caps. I ended up using a very tiny drill in a pin vise to remove the cutoff pin and solder in some cases.
Computer motherboard technology nowadays is mostly surface mount. Surface mounted components need special equipment to replace them. You could ask a computer repair shop if they experienced any cap failures.

[machinist]

Yes, capacitors can blow on motherboards and they can be replaced. About 25 or 30 years ago there was a major problem with computer boards made in Taiwan. You can Google it. It involved technology theft of electrolytic capacitor electrolyte composition. These are thru-hole capacitors; not surface mount. Someone gave me a computer with most of the capacitors blown. The small electrolytic capacitors on motherboards have an X on the top of the case. These are score marks so that the capacitor will burst its top when it goes bad. The bottom of the cap will also leak electrolyte onto the motherboard. They are extremely difficult to replace, as the motherboards of that era were multi-layer, as many as 5 layers. There is a risk of damaging the inner layers when desoldering the damaged caps. I ended up using a very tiny drill in a pin vise to remove the cutoff pin and solder in some cases.
Computer motherboard technology nowadays is mostly surface mount. Surface mounted components need special equipment to replace them. You could ask a computer repair shop if they experienced any cap failures.

That’s really interesting! Was the motherboard you repaired one of the early Pentium series?

[adnadeau]

It was a Gigabyte GA-6VXE7+ (Rev 3_0). The incident I was referring to was known as the "Capacitor Plague". There's a Wikipedia entry about it.

[machinist]

Thanks for sharing. From what I’ve read, the Gigabyte GA-6VXE7+ (Rev 3_0) supported Pentium II and Pentium III processors and used the VIA Apollo Pro133A chipset. It's interesting how the multi-layer board construction from that era made repairs quite challenging, even though through-hole capacitors are generally easier to replace. It must have been difficult to replace those components without damaging the inner layers.