replace one old pos with another old pos and end up having similar or worse problems, fix original pos and keep ya local electronics guy in work.
Plus its environmentally friendly You wouldnt throw your granny out when she needs a new hip, throw her out when shes dead, not before.
I understand I wasn't talking about a very old machine if the repairs don't work out, check out ebay, also make sure the PSU is good rebooting issues can also be related to a bad PSU, good luck.
i would swap out the PSU first and see if machine keeps re-booting before i touch does caps on a old mobo.
Don't worry about the psu. Your caps need replacing if bulging/leaking. That's the source of the instability. That's why the modern motherboards use solid state caps...
For the off-topic replies: I will NOT replace the board / computer because that's not up to me, the question was about trying to fix the board, not about getting new hardware, which most probably implies new software / licenses and higher costs than just replacing 4 caps. If the replacement doesn't solve the problem, only THEN an upgrade might be considered. For the on-topic replies: Many thanks for your replies and suggestions. I forgot to take a note of the brand/model of the board, but it had a BGA CPU with a fan-less cooler, laptop RAM, 1 PCI slot (with a completely loose wifi tp-link card without the bracket) and a 3.5 sATA HDD. I didn't have another power supply at hand so I didn't test that, and on the safe side I went ahead and ordered the first capacitors which are identical to the originals. If the "Ohms" don't make that much of a difference (one says impedance, the other says ESR, not sure if they're the same), next time I'll go for the polymer ones since all newer boards use them. If the replacement works, then all it needs is a nano usb wifi and a new cell battery and it's good for a few more months/years. I also have a classic XBox v1.2/1.3 I bought on the very cheap side because the power button didn't work (always powered on), I think it came from a very humid environment. A good scrub to the board with acetone and isopropylic alcohol brought it back to normal, but it also has 2 bulged capacitors. I'll go ahead and try to replace those two, along with the other 3 big ones just in case. Luckily the clock capacitor never leaked, so that was the first one to go.
the current pos is a known quantity, get another pos and its an unknown quantity. better the devil you know.
if its an old machine you dont know how long its got left, even a standard 1 for 1 replacement part will probably outlive the whole anyway so go for 1 to 1. The original lasted this long.
Proprietary software might be tied to the hardware, so replacing hardware, even for an identical part, might break the software and I don't want to take that risk. I'm just giving a helping hand: if the repair works, good for me and my pocket, but if it doesn't, it's out of my hands and up to his original supplier EDIT: I would love if all the answers to computer problems were "your computer is old and sh***y, just get a new one". It's just that not all of us have such deep pockets, otherwise I would "just" get a new laptop every year, instead of using a 1st gen I5 asus that I found on top of a garbage container 2 years ago in a non-working state and brought back to life with used ram, keyboard and psu.. And I have a c2d asus on standby if this one decides to go on strike...
out of curiosity what are u charging this customer for replace does two bad caps here in my city no computer tech shop does that work any more...u have to take it a tv repair shop which are rare to find now a days no one repairs them any more and your looking between $75 to $85 for a job like that on a old mobo that can die a week later from other symptoms...u can go to Ebay or even Craigslist and get a POS with the software in it for around the same money.. so why not just do a better job to your customer and bring him a better machine u going to make the money anyway.
It's a friend, not a costumer. Computer/electronics repairs are just a hobby for me, not my main job, and I'm doing the recap myself. Also, getting an identical POS with the same software might me more common in America or other equally more populated countries, unfortunately not here in PT...