Hi, Matt.  Thanks for responding.  I've passed this along to my friend,
along with later postings which pointed to an industry-wide problem.

Things are getting rather out of hand where I volunteer, and we have a
_huge_ supply of bare ATX type mainboards there for test and evaluation.
Somehow, the day-crew can't bring theyselves to put any stickers or
notes with any of these boards as to whether they are presumed good, or
as to what their symptoms were if they arrived there presumed dead.
It gets to be kinda discouraging and time consuming to troubleshoot
this type of board.  So many of them just seem to lay there dead, no
matter what we try.  We have no one there willing/able to take the time
to replace caps, so probably a lot of boards which might have actually
been repaired, end up getting pitched.

 MM> The bulging caps are caused by age, drying out of the electrolyte, and
 MM> high temperature.  Lots of factors enter the picture.  All
 MM> electrolytics dry out with age, starting from the assembly line and
 MM> warehouse storage!

So, if I _ever do_ try to repair a mainboard with bulging caps, there is
no need to go to the local "surplus electronics parts" place, or to
cannibalize off of a 3-5 year old 'dead' mainboard?
 
 MM> The 90 or so I've replaced thus far on the Soyo MBs have for the most
 MM> part tested as a pure resistance, dead shorted, in a range from .5 to 3
 MM> Ohms. Several of the boards I've fixed have also needed new PS's, so
 MM> there is at least _some_ collateral damage.

Were these "good quality,"  name-brand PS's?  BIR, I've read here
recently about el-cheapo power supplies killing mainboards, and now bad
caps on mainboards killing power supplies.  Not a good situation, IMO.

 MM> Best bet is REPLACE them as soon as possible!

I talked to him the other night, and he has taken those boards out of
service, based on my initial prediction of impending death.  I dunno
what he intends to do with them, or with those Slot A Athlons he took
out of these boards.  I mentioned to him one vendor I saw who has OEM
Slot A boards starting at $20, but he had a previous problem with that
same vendor, so that wasn't an option for him.

 sometimes I almost the XT-AT days.  Troubleshooting seemed
simpler back then, but I wouldn't like to go back to those hardware
performance levels, just the apparent reliability levels.

- - -  JimH.


... Jim, why does everything these days have to be so danged complicated?-Bubba
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