Bad caps on motherboard

[Jimmy9190]

I took my gf's HP desktop to a computer repair shop today, we know it has a virus that came from a People of Walmart picture her sister sent in an email. I took the pc in to drop it off for virus and any malware removal, they opened up the side of it and said the motherboard was bad, it had bad caps on it.

They showed me the caps they were talking about, about half a dozen I could see that had bulging tops, but none of them had actually ruptured. There were some bulging caps in other areas in the pc too. They said caps go bad like that due to heat and old age.

Is this what happens when a cap on a pc goes bad? I always thought they were OK till they ruptured and spilled their contents all over whatever circuit board they are part of.

Just trying to be sure the repair place is telling me the truth. They also have a nice pc they rebuilt with a new processor and operating system. We may just buy it. It has a

2.7 gHz dual core Celeron processor
768 MB of RAM
Windows XP Home Edition
Malwarebytes
Avast 2010 Home Edition
DVD, CR-ROM, CD Read and Write

Plus it won't have all the trial bloatware on it. Price is $175.00, which I think is pretty fair, but I would like to hear what you guys here think. I know nothing at all about the innards of a computer.

Also, there is some data on her old pc that we want to try to retrieve, old tax records, her resume', stories and poems she has written and some pictures she wants to keep. Is it possible to remove them from the pc with the bad caps, and more to the point, would I be able to retrieve the data myself? The pc shop said they can do a data transfer for $50.00, but if I can, I would much rather do it myself.

Thanks.

 

[Audi Junkie]

Bulging caps are bad caps.

 

[The Critic]

Why in the world would you buy a rebuilt pc in this day and age?

You're better off keeping an eye out on slickdeals for a new computer for around the same price.

 

[donz26]

I must be tired-- I thought thread title was Bad CAPS on KEYBOARD.

I'd just use that computer as-is 'til it dies.

 

[greenaccord02]

They're right, the caps are bad. Keep your stuff backed up and use it till it dies, then get something good. NOT REBUILT. The specs on that machine you're talking about are terrible, even if it only costs $175. Get a real computer that has some decent specs (so it'll last you awhile) and have the peace of mind of all new parts and a warranty. It may cost a little more, but it will be a much better value.

 

[simple_gifts]

Ah, the Critic's "around the same price" theory of car buying applies to computers too... 8)

I would not buy a $175 machine with 768Mb RAM.

I have a recent thread about a supplier of used equipment. There are HP machines 2.8GHz Pentium 4 with 1Gb RAM for $51

 

[Jimmy9190]

The computer already died. It won't run any programs at all.

When it first had problems, all of the icons on the desktop completely disappeared. I checked online for info and ran explorer.exe and they came back, the computer worked for 2 days then the icons were there but nothing would run. It kept giving an error message that said something like "unable to find xxxprogram.exe" and would not even run any program even after booting up in safe mode. I thought this was all because of the virus it contracted.

And no offense intended but we don't really want to buy a new pc from any online source we know nothing about, that will have a lot of try and buy bloatware junk on it we don't need and my gf won't use.

This computer repair shop seems to be very honest and up-front, not trying to sell us something we don't need. They have a good reputation around town for that and doing good work. I bought our router there, it has been working fine, and they have clued me in on some very good free downloads, like Avast and Malwarebytes for instance.

Thanks for the help here.

 

[The Critic]

In this day and age, especially if you just do basic stuff, they're all about the same:

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=2306533

Now that's a good deal. You can download a program online that will remove all of the bloatware.

 

[bepperb]

Don't buy a used pc for that much. Buy the cheapest thing at best buy, walmart, dell.com and it will be years faster for not much more, maybe 50 bucks if you shop around.

 

[greenaccord02]

If you're dead-set on buying something from this shop, that's OK. You could get a better deal elsewhere, but it's good to support local business. However, buy something new through them instead of the rebuilt thing. The specs are TERRIBLE and the XP it comes with won't be supported for long, either. Then what will you do? It can't run windows 7 at anything other than a snail's pace. You'll have to buy a new computer in 2 years...

Make your own decision, but you've been warned.

 

[berniedd]

Yep, bad caps' poor quality because of penny pinching on HP's part. If your GF's satisfied with Win XP, check this out:

badcaps.net

If you're handy with a soldering iron, you can do the bad caps replacement yourself. If you don't want to do it, you can send them your board, they'll do it for you.

Consider that if you buy a new board, it may have poor quality caps on it too and they will fail in short order.

 

[Rick in PA]

They could be counterfeit capacitors. There was a rash of them, even getting into name brand stuff, in the recent past. I remember reading about a particular name-brand flat panel TV that had chronic problems with them.

 

[punisher]

I have been recapping motherboards for years. Now moved into television repair as well. I had one TV (Samsung) with bulged caps after 18 months. I am really popular with Digi-key.

EDIT: Avoid those "Samwha" capacitors. Those are just looking for a reason to take a dump.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

I keep a motherboard in my office to show people what the inside of their problem-child computer looks like when the caps burst.

Buying used isn't all bad. But great deals exist if you look around. A nettop from newegg that has wireless n built-in runs $169.99 if you wait for a sale. Slap a hard disk and RAM in there, on sale, you're looking at $225 for a new unit that will plug-in to your HDTV.

 

[Jimmy9190]

Thanks for all the replies here. We don't have an HDTV. And we don't want one either, at least not right now. This used-rebuilt pc is a lot better than the computer that has the bad caps and virus in it, and it will do for now and should do fine for what she uses it for-internet and email and that's really about it. She has been sharing my computer at home, but she really wants and needs her own computer again.

She doesn't need a pc with all the higher-end specs. My gf is from a large family and with Christmas coming up, a more expensive pc is just not in the budget right now. We can just take the old damaged one home too, and later on if she needs it we can have a data transfer done from the old hard drive if I can't figure out how to do it myself. There really isn't anything on her old PC that she can't live without.

 

[Rand]

They had some much better used pc's for under 100$ on that site that was posted here a couple days ago.

 

[tmorris1]

I don't understand how someone posts and asks for advice and then outright rejects all of it. What was the point of the post other than to tell us that the caps were bad?

 

[Jimmy9190]

I posted this topic because I wanted to know about the condition of the caps on the dead computer. I know nothing about the innards of a computer and wanted to be sure the bulging caps could cause the old pc not to work at all.

This post got turned into a "is a used computer post a good idea" post because I asked about the used-rebuilt pc at the computer repair store. My gf bought the used computer, she did not want to spend a lot of money on a new one or a "bigger and better" used one. And neither of us trusts any website for something as big as a computer purchase, unless maybe we were buying a new one online from a known legitimate retailer, like Best Buy, etc.

She did buy the used pc for $175, it will work just fine for what she needs. I am using it right now and it's doing fine, much better than the pc she had before. If it lasts a year or more, she got her money's worth from it. Probably next year sometime we will buy her a new pc or maybe a nice laptop if she wants one and I will move this pc to the garage. I always wanted a pc out there so I could go online for repair info and use my FSM on CD while working on her car or my truck.

This pc will do OK for a while. It was my gf's money and her decision to buy it and it is what she wanted. Sorry this post got out of hand and off its original topic. Lots of posts on BITOG seem to do that very thing.