Goddam capacitors

[theVodkaCircle]

My PC crapped itself today. Went wierd, rebooting itself, cd lights and HDD lights constantly flickering, monitor not turning on.
Opened the sucker up (there was SO much dust there) and vacuumed it out. No change.
Turns out ONE capacitor (worth a buck or two) on the vid card had died and made nothing work.
Luckily I had on board video as well as the AGP card so we're back in business.
So if your PC is doing wierd sh!t, have a look on the motherboard and video card at all the little components that look like barrels. Look for ones that look like slightly over full or bloated. It may also have a brown powdery substance on the top. They will also probably not be sitting flush on the motherboard or vid card. If you find one, then thats more than likely to be the problem.
Now all you have to worry about is your skill with a soldering iron

 

[MysteryGirl]

Thanks for the great tip!

 

[bulldog]

If you've blown a capacitor chances are components around it on that PCB are probably damaged, don't expect to get your PC back to 100% when something like this happens, quite often the true exent of damage won't be known for a few months.

 

[theVodkaCircle]

Yeah Im going to try and replace the component and see how it goes but Im not holding my breath. Just checked a mates price list and I should be able to get a new system minus monitor/mouse/keys for about 700. Time to start saving