I turned on my PVR box yesterday and it emitted 4 long beeps before powering itself off. I went through the usual procedure of taking things out one by one until it was just the video card left. I noticed that one of the capacitors seems to have the top bulging out ever so slightly and there's a small amount of dried yellowish-brown stuff on the top. Are these signs that the capacitor is leaking? Would it account for the computer turning on long enough to beep four times before shutting itself off? And, if it is a bad capacitor, is the motherboard junk or is it possible to remove it and solder on a new one? I have some basic soldering skills, but I'm not that great at really small stuff. (Oh, and if anyone knows what four long beeps on an Abit KT7E *means*, I'd really appreciate that too, since it doesn't say in the manual)
That does sound like a leaking cap tbh... the older Abit boaards are aslo suceptible (*sp) to this as well. You can attempt to re-solder a cap, but you'd need a fine tipped iron, and i'm not sure about the rest... somelike zap might be the best person to speak to.... http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/awardbeep.htm
Here's an image for reference: The reference says that 4 long beeps could indicate a failing CPU fan, but I've tried a few and I get that each time, so I'm leaning even more towards the bad capacitor explanation.
Looks like a leaker to me mate - not sure why it shouldn't boot though, doesn't look terminal yet. I have an old Abit BP6 stuffed under my bed somewhere - it has loads of leaky caps and still runs ok. Probably unstable but never ran it long enough to find out. Repairs are tricky from what I have read - the tails of the capacitor are soldered through the layers of the PCB. I suppose you could try cutting them off so you can solder a new cap to the old tails?
the cap is leaking, without a doubt from looking at that image... Your board will not work without replacing the capacitor. You don't have to solder the cap direct to the motherboard, you can solder the cap to some wiresso it's easier to attach. Then just hot glue it to the motherboard somewhere near by. If the board is setup in the same way as most other motherboards, the area of the board that you have the leaking cap in is responsable for providing the voltage to the northbridge, so with the damaged cap, you're not getting a consistent current and voltage to the northbridge, which in turn, leads to instability/non booting.
