Garbled Video in Games. Caused by bad capacitors?

[nissanman]

hi all, i recently bought a second hand motherboard off the internet, After i got the board i took it out of its box to inspect it for any damage, I noticed that about 9 capacitors on the board were bulged at the top but not leaking or broken. After installing the board into the case i strarted the computer and installed windows xp. I installed a few games on my computer and played them. They worked at first but now the video in them is all garbled and the games were completely unplayable. I tried switching video cards and installing new drivers but there was still no change. I took another look at the motherboard and noticed that 2 of the 9 bulged caps are directly below the agp slot. Could these caps be what is causing the video in games to become garbled? The system has also locked up a few times unexpectedly.

System Specs:

CPU: 1Ghz Intel Pentium III (overclocked slightly to 1.03Ghz)
RAM: 256MB SDRAM
Video: NVIDIA GeForce4 MX4000 128MB
Motherboard: DFI CM35-EC Via PM133 Chipset.
Power Supply: Hyena DR-8320BTX 300watt.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Could these caps be what is causing the video in games to become garbled?

Yep, sure could be. That's the down side of buying used computer components.

 

[nissanman]

Ok, Anyone know where i wud be able to find capacitors suitable for a computer motherboard? The markings on my current ones are 1000uF 6.3v. Id rather replace the caps then go out and buy a new motherboard.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

http://search.ebay.com/search/searc...ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=32&fsoo=2&fgtp=

 

[Nodsu]

Just go visit your local friendly electronics store. Tell these markings to the salesperson or even better, take one of the capacitors with you (for size comparison (you may be unable to fit a physically larger capacitor)). You can always replace with something with higher capacitance or max voltage and you may get away with slightly less capacitance too..

Mind you, since you are asking the questions here, you are probably unable to cleanly replace 9 capacitors. So instead of buying the new caps, take the whole mobo to a shop or an electronics guru and let them replace the things.

 

[nissanman]

Ok, ill take the board to a shop and have them replace them. How much wud it usually cost to have someone replace the caps?

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

An hour of labor will probably cost somewhere between $60-100 depending on the place.