Hey there. After a few hours of web searching I found this forum and hope the experts here can give me good advice. I had never heard of "bad caps" before yesterday.
This is on an old eMachines T3092 AMD XP 3000+ w/AU31 motherboard that's worked flawlessly until now. (Well not really, the CPU speed dropped to 1.3MHz a few months ago)
While just surfing the web, the machine clicked and the video cut out. Since the case fans and power were still on, I assumed it was just a problem with the graphics card, and switched to on-board gfx. At that point it would boot up part way, for a few seconds, and then shut down again. After that it won't start at all. I mean, the fans and disks start up, but the video stays off and it never POSTs. Recently (a month or two ago) I'd bought one of the ATI HD cards for it to play some recent games, and it worked alright(despite slow CPU), but I knew it was way too much for the 300w Bestec powersupply and risked it anyway. I put off getting a new one since it was working, but did mean to eventually... honest! Thinking from my layman's computer knowledge that it had finally failed/wasn't making enough juice, I just bought a brand new 500w PSU. That didn't fix anything! So now I'm here.
If you turn the system on clean after it's been powered down for a while (at least several minutes) it will usually boot up, as long as the hard drive is not connected. (the DVD-ROM works, so I can run a Linux Live CD on it or something) That HDD works fine in another computer I'm using as a fileserver right now.
It seems random when it will POST and when it won't. The only thing that definitively stops it is the HDD. Not memory or peripherals. One thing that allows it to always boot up is clearing the CMOS or removing the battery completely. At that point it will boot with video, say "Error reading settings" and stay up until I try to SAVE the settings, then it shuts off again.
Hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL or pressing the power button almost always puts it into this "no video" state, instead of rebooting.
Did an examination after finding this site. Sure enough, there are 9 bulging capacitors around the CPU/heatsink. Would have never thought that was abnormal before. There was nothing but dust under them, but a few of them had a hard brown dried up substance on top. It's a different color than the dust.
I took the motherboard out, thoroughly cleaned it (even though I dust it every 2 months, it was caked with hard packed dust in crevices I didn't know existed) and reconnected, but the same problem exists.
Do these symptoms sound like they're being caused by the bad caps? Or is it possibly something else like the CMOS battery?
eBay has this motherboard for $35-$55. They say "new", but the same board at parts.emachines.com is >$160. Do people here buy from eBay? Are these sellers legitimate?
Would it be worth it to try and fix this (I'd have to buy a soldering kit and practice since all I have is a cheap hobbyist iron that has barely been used), or is buying the replacement mb the best option?
Buying a new PC is too expensive for me right now.
Thanks!
(apologies if this is posted in the wrong forum)
This is on an old eMachines T3092 AMD XP 3000+ w/AU31 motherboard that's worked flawlessly until now. (Well not really, the CPU speed dropped to 1.3MHz a few months ago)
While just surfing the web, the machine clicked and the video cut out. Since the case fans and power were still on, I assumed it was just a problem with the graphics card, and switched to on-board gfx. At that point it would boot up part way, for a few seconds, and then shut down again. After that it won't start at all. I mean, the fans and disks start up, but the video stays off and it never POSTs. Recently (a month or two ago) I'd bought one of the ATI HD cards for it to play some recent games, and it worked alright(despite slow CPU), but I knew it was way too much for the 300w Bestec powersupply and risked it anyway. I put off getting a new one since it was working, but did mean to eventually... honest! Thinking from my layman's computer knowledge that it had finally failed/wasn't making enough juice, I just bought a brand new 500w PSU. That didn't fix anything! So now I'm here.
If you turn the system on clean after it's been powered down for a while (at least several minutes) it will usually boot up, as long as the hard drive is not connected. (the DVD-ROM works, so I can run a Linux Live CD on it or something) That HDD works fine in another computer I'm using as a fileserver right now.
It seems random when it will POST and when it won't. The only thing that definitively stops it is the HDD. Not memory or peripherals. One thing that allows it to always boot up is clearing the CMOS or removing the battery completely. At that point it will boot with video, say "Error reading settings" and stay up until I try to SAVE the settings, then it shuts off again.
Hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL or pressing the power button almost always puts it into this "no video" state, instead of rebooting.
Did an examination after finding this site. Sure enough, there are 9 bulging capacitors around the CPU/heatsink. Would have never thought that was abnormal before. There was nothing but dust under them, but a few of them had a hard brown dried up substance on top. It's a different color than the dust.
I took the motherboard out, thoroughly cleaned it (even though I dust it every 2 months, it was caked with hard packed dust in crevices I didn't know existed) and reconnected, but the same problem exists.
Do these symptoms sound like they're being caused by the bad caps? Or is it possibly something else like the CMOS battery?
eBay has this motherboard for $35-$55. They say "new", but the same board at parts.emachines.com is >$160. Do people here buy from eBay? Are these sellers legitimate?
Would it be worth it to try and fix this (I'd have to buy a soldering kit and practice since all I have is a cheap hobbyist iron that has barely been used), or is buying the replacement mb the best option?
Buying a new PC is too expensive for me right now.
Thanks!
(apologies if this is posted in the wrong forum)
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