Thread: Blown caps on ASUS board

  1. #16
    Master Apprentice phantomotap's Avatar
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    O_o

    You know, I've never had a problem with my ASUS boards.

    *shrug*

    I know the trends; I guess I've just been lucky.

    Soma

  2. #17
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
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    I see it this way, they can't all be bad or nobody would still buy them.

  3. #18
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    Some motherboard warranties are as short as 1 year. Even the longest are only 3 years. Most of the computers I use are more than 3 years old.

    It all depends on the expected utility of the product to the user, and the cost.

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by RoD View Post
    If the motherboard is out of warranty then it is outdated and isn't worth the energy investment for that reason. Either way the effort seems wasted. After a warranty period another motherboard to drop in there could be had really cheap.
    According to the OP this motherboard has AGP. Good luck finding a brand new motherboard with AGP.
    Or you could get a new one with PCI-Express and just get a cheap PCI-Express card for graphics, but then you'd most likely have to get a new CPU and memory since it's very unlikely that anything that fits in an old AGP MB is gonna be compatible with parts from this millenium.
    And there you go, brand new PC. I'd try changing the 50c caps first tbh.

    Anyways, an 850 watt power supply seems like way way too much for such an old system. In fact i'd say 400 watts even sounds a bit much. It seems to me that people always overestimate how much wattage is needed for a computer. Wattage on PSUs has almost become this hyped sales-figure like GHz was back in the days of Netburst.

    I had an old Corsair PSU blow up in my face once, didn't have the money for a new one so i bought a no-name 350watt PSU for pennies, figured i could use it for a month or 2 until i could afford something worth keeping.
    Initially i figured i could only run one of my graphics cards on this PSU, i was using SLI at the time. After a few weeks i tried hooking up the second card and it purred like a kitten. No issues whatsoever. This was 2x GTX260s and a Core i7 920 on a 350-watt PSU.
    I think i even have some pictures of the setup running Mirrors Edge if i'm not mistaken.

    Also i seem to recall reading something about PSU wattage and efficiency. Aren't PSUs most efficient when running just below their peak-wattage?
    How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.

  5. #20
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neo1 View Post
    According to the OP this motherboard has AGP. Good luck finding a brand new motherboard with AGP
    Google, replacing luck since 1995ish.

    https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C...w=1366&bih=600

  6. #21
    - - - - - - - - oogabooga's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RoD View Post
    Google, replacing luck since 1995ish.
    The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997. By the end of 1998, Google had an index of about 60 million pages.

    I know you said "-ish", but I thought the actual dates might be interesting to somebody.
    The cost of software maintenance increases with the square of the programmer's creativity. - Robert D. Bliss

  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neo1 View Post
    I had an old Corsair PSU blow up in my face once, didn't have the money for a new one so i bought a no-name 350watt PSU for pennies, figured i could use it for a month or 2 until i could afford something worth keeping...
    Don't do that! You realize that the PSU controls the voltage and currents in to your computer, right? If the PSU goes bad, then who knows what kind of hell it could cause?
    I very much doubt manufacturers will replace your Motherboard, CPU, GPU, Memory, etc in case of a PSU incident with a cheap PSU.
    Not to mention that wrong voltage and currents could damage your components or stress them in such ways that their lifetime goes down.

    Also i seem to recall reading something about PSU wattage and efficiency. Aren't PSUs most efficient when running just below their peak-wattage?
    PSUs are typically rated how well they perform at 70, 80 and 90% load IIRC. They're different scenarios and as such they often need to be treated and optimized individually. So you might see a good PSU performing well at some load but not other loads.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    Don't do that! You realize that the PSU controls the voltage and currents in to your computer, right?
    ...wait, what? So you're saying that the Power Supply Unit supplies voltage and current to my computer? Eureka! It all makes sense now.......

    If the PSU goes bad, then who knows what kind of hell it could cause?
    I very much doubt manufacturers will replace your Motherboard, CPU, GPU, Memory, etc in case of a PSU incident with a cheap PSU.
    Not to mention that wrong voltage and currents could damage your components or stress them in such ways that their lifetime goes down.
    Well i believe most modern power supplies come with Overcurrent Protection, though i could not say whether this one had such features. Please bear in mind i never said running your PC of a cheap noname PSU was a good idea, my point was that one can usually run alot of big parts on far less voltage than you would expect. (I didn't say this was a good idea either, mind you)


    PSUs are typically rated how well they perform at 70, 80 and 90% load IIRC. They're different scenarios and as such they often need to be treated and optimized individually. So you might see a good PSU performing well at some load but not other loads.
    Yes but running a 6-7-8 year old PC on an 850watt power supply would mean running at maybe 30% of the maximum wattage when idling, not 70 or 80. One could imagine the efficiency being horrible this way, but i have nothing to back up this claim.

    Google, replacing luck since 1995ish.

    https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C...w=1366&bih=600
    I stand corrected. Seems like polishing an old AGP turd is still possible. I'd still say that trying to fix the broken capacitors is the way to go, the worst thing that could happen is that you mess it up and have to buy a new PC, which was probably gonna happen soon anyways, best case is that you get a few more years out of the old dinosaur. On the other hand, buying a new MB would fix the problem, but then what when another component fails in a year or two? Do you scrap the brand new mobo and all the old parts then and buy new, or do you keep breathing life into this ancient relic?
    How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.

  9. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neo1 View Post
    ...wait, what? So you're saying that the Power Supply Unit supplies voltage and current to my computer? Eureka! It all makes sense now.......
    I assume you're just being sarcastic here...

    Well i believe most modern power supplies come with Overcurrent Protection, though i could not say whether this one had such features. Please bear in mind i never said running your PC of a cheap noname PSU was a good idea, my point was that one can usually run alot of big parts on far less voltage than you would expect. (I didn't say this was a good idea either, mind you)
    Yes, but who knows if your no-name cheap-as-brick PSU has such a thing? Even if it did, how well does it work?
    For that matter, does it filter out voltage spikes?
    Since there is so much that can go wrong and there are absolutely no guarantees of any functionality of any sort - one would be very non-wise indeed to buy a PSU that has no guarantees of working well. PSUs such as no-name brands that comes cheap as brick. It would be a different story if there were plenty of critical reviews to back it up, though.

    Yes but running a 6-7-8 year old PC on an 850watt power supply would mean running at maybe 30% of the maximum wattage when idling, not 70 or 80. One could imagine the efficiency being horrible this way, but i have nothing to back up this claim.
    That would depend on the PSU. Some are efficient even at 30% load. How many modern PSUs, in average that are efficient at 30% load I cannot say.
    It might be that optimizing the PSU for some load level might make it less efficient for another load level, a tradeoff, but I am no expert in the field and cannot say if it is so.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    I assume you're just being sarcastic here...
    How prudent of you.

    Yes, but who knows if your no-name cheap-as-brick PSU has such a thing? Even if it did, how well does it work?
    For that matter, does it filter out voltage spikes?
    Since there is so much that can go wrong and there are absolutely no guarantees of any functionality of any sort - one would be very non-wise indeed to buy a PSU that has no guarantees of working well. PSUs such as no-name brands that comes cheap as brick. It would be a different story if there were plenty of critical reviews to back it up, though.
    Good, then we agree. In the particular case i mentioned, the circumstances were different, but in general the PSU is the last place i would skimp out on when buying a new PC.
    How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.

  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neo1 View Post
    How prudent of you.
    If I'm wrong, then feel free to correct me. I can't "read" you, so I can only guess if you feel sarcastic or not.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  12. #27
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    I would contact ASUS though in this case I feel you are somewhat to blame. You never should have built this system with a 400W PSU. You have been running with a less than adequate PSU for god knows how long (and you as well, but I don't know you didn't tell us) which is a danger zone for components and then you powered down the machine and installed a 850W PSU. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you did not relieve the stored power from the capacitors prior to installing and powering on with the new PSU either. That is a trick formed in the wake of a terrible motherboard intel used back in late 90's, early 00's called the 440BX (PIII). With the 440BX it would pop caps or short out when a new PSU was installed if the board had not been drained of power previous to the new PSU being booted with the system.
    Whoa there fella. Before you go jumping to conclusions read my post. My post had two very clear and distinct points.
    • My current ASUS Crosshair 2 board had issues with shutdown prior to installing Windows 7. It does not have bad caps.
    • My older system is the AMD 3.2 GHz Athlon and is almost 8 years old. It is the one that recently started to malfunction due to bad caps. The 400W PSU was more than sufficient for the system at the time. I was upgrading the PSU b/c I am also going to replace the entire system but figured I could at least keep it running on the 850W until then.


    The 850W PSU did not cause this problem as it started long before I purchased it. What likely happened is that at some point the airflow was clogged and heated the board up. After I gave it to my wife she later reported it having weird dots on the screen. After looking at it I realized the entire system was filthy dirty and was not allowing airflow to the board. I fixed this and mentioned she should keep the system clean or face hardware failure. The system continued to function correctly after that. The only time the system started acting weird was after the hard drive crashed and I reinstalled a new one. To illustrate how old the system is the BIOS on the system had to be customized to support large capacity drives as the original OEM BIOS's do not support this. I had to create a merged BIOS from two BIOS images to even get the system to recognize the drive. The rest of the BIOS image is identical to the OEM ASUS image.

    One big problem is Vista never installed quite right the second time and some of the tricks I used to get the system to work with it (without appropriate drivers from ASUS) had long been forgotten. As well it appeared I had a bad stick of Corsair RAM (also a known issue with their old DDRs). Note that the bad caps could have also caused this bad report so I might have discarded a good stick of RAM. However....both my father and I received RAM from the same lot and 1 of mine was bad and both of his were bad on delivery. All of the RAM for this system came from a bad lot and I should have RMAed every stick to be safe.

    The system and chipset does not support Vista+ so that is one cause of instability. However over the last few months the system was completely shutting down and would require the PSU to be reset (IE: turned off and back on via the PSU switch). At one point the system refused to boot at all and simply powered on and did not POST. This is the same behavior that happened this time and then I noticed 3 bulging caps. Regardless of what people say....bulging caps are failed capacitors. They may not be leaking or completely destroyed but their capacitance is more than likely below spec. One tell-tale symptom of blown-caps is the system turning on and then failing to POST. I noticed the bulging caps after having went through the entire checklist of re-seating memory, CPU, etc,. etc. like any good old A+ certified tech would. My A+ cert. is a bit old but it's not 'that' old. Also as has been said ASUS boards are notorious for blown caps circa 2004 - this is a known fact. Many suppliers were affected by the bad electrolyte issue. AFAIK, other manufacturers who used the same supplier like Dell are still in a lawsuit over this issue. However, that being said I do not feel this board underperformed or malfunctioned prematurely. Most cases of bad elecrolytics failed within the first few power cycles....not after 8 years. Granted caps and mobos should last about 10 to 15 years but this system was a gaming system and I pushed it pretty hard. Could bad electrolyte have reduced the lifespan of the caps? Probably so but I cannot prove that.
    Note that the old NVidia 7800 AGP GPU that has been up to 105C due to inadequate cooling is still ticking. I have yet to kill an NVidia card even after overheating them.

    ASUS has been good to me over the years and I do not blame bad electrolyte for my current problem. Some cars don't last 8 years so for a gaming mobo to last that long is pretty good in my book. The system is at the end of its life and doesn't even support the assembly instruction set demanded by games today.

    I will be purchasing a new ASUS board to replace it and will use the 850W in it. The 3.2 GHz was a good system and the ASUS A78NXE-Deluxe mobo brought me many good times but she is finally dead.

    I do not think my current ASUS board has bad caps on it but to be sure I will be tearing it apart soon to clean it and check for bad caps.
    Last edited by VirtualAce; 09-24-2012 at 08:24 PM.

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