Have you ever checked the capacitors on your motherboard? If not, then check it now. You might see some “overweight” or “fat” capacitors. They seem want to blow up (eat too much hey Miss Capacitor?;)). Prepare to get new motherboard if you see such capacitors on your motherboard. Or if you have some soldering skill, you might be able to fix it a relatively low cost.

I’ve seen a lot of this phenomena. Usually, it happens after few years of usage. Some motherboard somehow use a better capacitor so it will last longer, but some of them don’t. The age of the capacitors itself could be different from one to another.

A broken capacitor may produce instability of your system, because most of the time, capacitor is related with electricity. Failure of one capacitor may affect the whole system. So watch out!

Picture above is a sample of “almost broken” capacitor. You can see that the surface is getting fatter. At the worst case, it may blow and you should get them replaced immediately.

Leakage from the capacitors (broken capacitors guaranteed). Replace them as fast as you can.

Few sample pictures of well working capacitor. You can see flat top surface. No sign of “fat” or “overweight”.

So, I have broken capacitor on my motherboard. What should I do?
Easy answer it you got to have it replaced. Either by you, or trained technician.

Is it difficult to replace the capacitor?
Well, if you know basic soldering skill and can read capacitor’s value, then you are half the way to go. Here’s the simple steps to be taken.
1. You have to identify the type of broken capacitor. Most likely, the type is electrolytic polar capacitor. I will not discuss the type of capacitor right now, but if it’s looked like the picture above, then it’s electrolytic type.
2. Check the capacitor’s value. You can read from the label on its side. Usually, the value should read like picture below. It’s read 2200uF 16Volt. The one with gold line mark the negative pin. Never make a mistake when plugging the capacitor. Examine the positive and negative pins. You may blow up the capacitor if you plug it in reversed polarity.

3. Go to your local electronic shop in your town. Ask for electrolytic or elco capacitor. Don’t alter the uF value unless you know what you are doing. So, buy it with 2200uF and 16 Volt. Actually, you can use higher voltage (never choose lower voltage!), let’s say 2200uF and 35 Volt or 50 Volt, but higher voltage may cost you more without any profitable effect. For some reason, choosing higher uF is tolerable if you can’t get exact value, but I will not recommend it (again, unless you know what you are doing).
4. Buy soldering kit if you don’t have any.
5. The rest is up to you. Pull out the broken capacitor (de-solder the broken capacitor then pull it from the board). Then plug the new capacitor to the board. Make sure you have marked the positive and negative side, otherwise you may blow up the capacitor!

Plug your power supply and other components into your motherboard. Fire it up and pray that you will see no smoke or fire from your motherboard 😉 Good luck!