Possible Reasons for Mobo Failure?

[Sama]

Hello all!

It's been a while since I've posted anything, and that is because my computer decided to quit on me a couple months ago. Thankfully, I now have the time to fix it.

Here's what happened. I wasn't doing anything strenuous on my computer, just looking at a file or something. Then, I heard a popping (or maybe an arcing) sound, my screen went black, and a small fire erupted on my motherboard. After I took everything apart, I found this:

The front
The back of the board look at the top right of the photo.
I'm pretty sure a cap blew

I am running an EVGA X58 SLI3 mobo with an i7-950 in an Antec DF-85 case (look at my signature if you need any more info about my setup).

The warranty from EVGA is up and they said repairing the mobo wouldn't be worth it, so I'd like to first know if they're correct about that. Has anyone had this problem before?

In addition, I would like to know why this happened, so if something other than the motherboard itself caused this failure, I can fix it before I put a new mobo in. So far, I have thought of these reasons:

-PSU is shot | I tested it and it's fine

-Power surge | I do have a surge protector, but you never know

-Grounding/short issue with the headers? | The damage was near the USB headers....

Any other ideas? Let me know if you need any more info. Thanks guys.

-Sama

 

[Snipeye]

I'm a bit stumped on the cause; given the age of it, I would have expected any bad parts on the mobo would have reared its ugly head before your warranty expired. As for the repair; I'm siding with EVGA on this. The damage on the board is easily evident, and it would be cheaper to just replace it then try to repair it (and risk another short or fire).

 

[Scortch]

From what you've said, my guess would be that it just went out. If your PSU is fine it's probably not a power surge issue. The PSU would normally take the brunt of that. When the PSU blows it can send a power spike to the MoBo and fry that out, but if the PSU is OK I would assume that that didn't happen. As for trying to find the fault within the MoBo that caused the cap to blow, that's a bit beyond me.

I will say test your CPU and RAM as a spike in power, such as one that a blown cap can cause, can damage those parts as well.

And just to add another voice to the chorus, definitely replace versus repair. I don't know of a credible tech that would even entertain the notion of repairing the board anyways.

 

[PedroPacas]

Get a new one as there looks to be too much damage.Everytime You clean out your PC always check your mobo for bulging caps,found 6 on my mobo & had them replaced with no ill effects.