Is this a symptom of possible bad caps?

[X509Certificate]

I've been having some very strange problems with a Tyan S5396 motherboard. When I hit the power button the CPU fans, case fans, and GPU fan spin but the board does not POST. Instead, it just sits there with the fans spinning. Sometimes if I power it off from that state by holding down the power button for a while then hit the power button again it will startup and POST. After a successful POST everything is fine. This is my third Tyan board with this kind of problem.

I have:

1. Run with only one stick of RAM. Swapped the RAM. No RAM (Get the right beep code)
2. Run with only one processor. Swapped processors.
3. Used a different video card. No video card (Get the right beep code)
4. Tested power supply voltages using power supply tester.
5. Swapped power supply for one with more power (went from 850w Thermaltake to 1000w Silverstone)
6. Removed all connection to case headers and drives.
7. Removed board from case and run it on top of non conducting surface.
8. Tried to turn on the board by shorting the right pins instead of using the case button.

Nothing helps. No matter what I do I always have to power it on, wait for a bit while the fans spin, shut it down, then press the power button again. Sometimes even that doesn't work and I have to play with combinations of hitting the reset button and power button and pray that it starts up (usually does start eventually).

Could this be a symptom of bad capacitors? I visually inspected them following the instructions on the badcap website but could not find anything wrong with them. Besides visually inspecting the capacitors how can I verify that they are OK? Any other theories about what could cause this problem?

[kc8adu]

Re: Is this a symptom of possible bad caps?

post pics of the board and caps.
i just recapped a bunch of tyan stuff that were full of brown noname caps.
they would not post or if they did they would lock up.recapping fixed every one of these.

[X509Certificate]

Re: Is this a symptom of possible bad caps?

Here are some pictures. Sorry they're not so great but I didn't have time to take the motherboard out of the case and take better ones. Some of the caps say Rubycon and others say Sanyo








Let me know if you need better pictures.

[kc8adu]

Re: Is this a symptom of possible bad caps?

am i seeing things or are a few of those rubycons starting to bulge?

[Topcat]

Re: Is this a symptom of possible bad caps?

I was seeing that myself, but the pics weren't clear enough. Also, please try resizing them, they took ages to download!

[X509Certificate]

Re: Is this a symptom of possible bad caps?

Sorry about the pics guys I took them at the last minute before hopping on a plane didn't have time to take the motherboard out of the case. I'll try to get better pics when I come back. My impression from observing them in person is that they might be slightly bulging but I'm no expert and don't know what's normal and what is not. Certainly they're not blulging as bad as some of the pictures on this forum.

[Fizzycapola]

Re: Is this a symptom of possible bad caps?



affordable 10 - 14MP camera's this xmas

[linuxguru]

Re: Is this a symptom of possible bad caps?

Are those white-striped MCZs genuine stuff? I thought they were gold-striped. Maybe the Indonesian Rubycons are always white-on-black...

[Yamo]

Re: Is this a symptom of possible bad caps?

I just wanted to toss my hat into the ring here because I'm experiencing the exact same problem (though on a different motherboard, Gigabyte P35-DS3R) and would love to see a solution. When I first push the button, I can hear the fans begin to hum, but then it stops here and doesn't continue to boot - nothing lights up on my keyboard and the monitor sits at "please check signal cable". Then I have to wait maybe 15 seconds or so (if I don't wait it has a tendency to repeat the previous step), power down, and then power on again. This time around, everything is normal - the fans hum, my NUM/CAP/SCR lights blink for a second, and the computer does its regular POST business

After posting my problem on another board, I was pointed here because my situation looked like it might be caused by bad capacitors, so it's sort of comforting to know that someone else is going through exactly the same crap that I am