PC woes

[pfloyd]

So I've been discussing what's been happening to my primary PC at home with some of the more PC-savvy folks at work and wherever I am.
An idea has struck me, but I haven't been able to do more investigation on my own PC as yet.
Leaking capacitors.
That can be causing the reboots.
Mind you, I've had this PC for four years now, and it's a possibility.
So if they're leaking, can they be replaced and the board salvaged? Will I have to buy a new board, and possibly a case? (I might as well get a 1.2GHz PIII barebones then.)
Hmm...
Any other thoughts out there?

Comments

[cyber-pagan.livejournal.com]

unless you are really really really experianced with electronics soldering, I would say buy a new motherboard. No one actually fixes this stuff anymore, if its old enough to need repair, then its too old. A new motherboard is less than $50 on ebay for a new p4 board. A pIII board? Thre might be a few of those around that still work. Actually a good used P4 pc is less than $200. I recently bought two compaq EVO 310 systems (p4 2.4ghz, 40gig, 512mb, cd/rw, dvd) for $180 each. They are former HP corp systems, work perfectly and are plenty fast, even if they are a couple years old. Lots of dell systems on ebay like that too, and those are usually pretty good. I've been working in the computer industry since before desktops, I build and manage pc's - mainframes, unix, windows etc. I've always built my own computers for home, but I can't build them cheaper than buying them now (unless I steal all the parts), so I just stick with a major brand name and buy last years tech. As always ymmv.