Is this leaking electrolyte? -PC randomly freezes or restarts-

[bubum4n]

Hi guys,
About a month ago I bought a new CPU/Mobo/RAM combo to replace my old Phenom II.

I now have an Intel Core i5 4570 with a Gigabyte Z87M-D3H and 2x4GB Gskill Sniper DDR3 1600mhz ram sticks, running on my old Topower TOP-650PM PSU.
This is the PSU I have been using on my Phenom II for a year and a half. I also have installed a Sapphire Radeon 7870 Ghz edition.

The thing is that I have been experiencing random freezes and reboots since a couple of weeks ago.
At first, I thought it had to do with RAM sticks but I put them through some tests and turned out fine, I also tested the HDD because the PC froze several times while transfering data from one partition to another or from usb sticks to HDD, but it also operated correctly.

Yesterday I borrowed a PSU from a friend and while I was installing it I encountered this:

I've never seen such a thing, and I haven't noticed it until now...it looks like a yellow liquid had leaked out of the capacitor...is this electrolyte? If I touch it, I don't feel anything odd, and nothing sticks to my finger. So, it's been there long enough to dry or it was in this condition right out of the box, but I believe I should've seen this when installing the mobo.

I used my friend's PSU last night for about 3 hours without experiencing abnormalities, and I left the PC on downloading games on steam overnight. I played a little Grid 2 (30 mins) and everything was fine...Could my old PSU had caused the capacitor to leak? I have recently replaced the PSU fan because it was noisy, but nothing more than that.

At the moment I re-installed my PSU to see if it freezes or reboots...but I'm clueless and expecting something to happen.

Any help? Thanks!

Update:

This is a chart with voltages informed by Gigabyte's Easytune
I'm suspicious about the +12V value, it varies from 11.52V, to 11,592V and above 12V. Isn't 11.52V too low?

 

[scout_03]

rma that old psu first if it still under warranty then if you still have the issue you will need to rma the motherboard .

 

[bubum4n]

Unfortunately, I'm unable to rma the psu because it's out of warranty.
For example, Lets say I replace the psu for a brand new one and the problem is solved. What can you say about the yellowish liquid on the mobo? I'm concerned about that too.

 

[thently]

electrolytes are what plants crave... LOL

 

[scout_03]

this is the specs psu should be http://pcsupport.about.com/od/insidethepc/a/power-supply-voltage-tolerance.htm could that your is not giving enough power for the system i use this on the sensor part to check voltage and other http://www.hwinfo.com/ the free one .

 

[bubum4n]

I've replaced the PSU for a brand new one, let's see what happens...

 

[scout_03]

be around for result .

 

[bubum4n]

Ok, so the PC also freezes and restarts with the new PSU, BUT, I noticed that when it hangs, the HDD LED is stuck on. I have a WD Caviar Blue 1tb drive, so I thought I could change AHCI mode to IDE mode and see what happens.
I uninstalled Intel Rapid Storage and put the HDD on IDE mode last night, and so far it's working fine without anything strange, I'll see how it behaves for a few days and post the results.

 

[scout_03]

if it working this way keep it at these settings .

 

[bubum4n]

Nope, not working...it steel freezes/reboots randomly. One of the times the screen went blank with black diagonal lines and an annoying sound loop coming from the speakers. I've been doing some research and it seems that 7870's are known for this kind of bug, so I'm about to start tweaking the card the way the guys in the forum say, and if it doesn't work I'll lend it to a friend to see if he has the same problem. If he has, I'm gonna try "RMA'ing" the card.
I'm tired of this bull*...I hope I can isolate the problem and live in peace, even if that means no GPU.

 

[scout_03]

the friend test will be a good thing for the card ,but i would check with gigabyte and send them picture of the motherboard ask for rma .

 

[bubum4n]

I'm thinking that maybe I don't wan't to worry trying to solve this issue related to the GPU. I'll just put it on my friend's rig and if it freezes/reboots I'm gonna rma the hell out of it.

 

[bubum4n]

the friend test will be a good thing for the card ,but i would check with gigabyte and send them picture of the motherboard ask for rma .

I already contacted and sent pictures to gigabyte tech support but they didn't care about the issue...they just told me to update BIOS.
And...I haven't experienced reboots or crashes when running without the GPU. Coincidence?

 

[scout_03]

but if the rma work for the motherboard, you get a new motherboard then the gpu could be working .

 

[bubum4n]

I swapped gpus with my friend and my pc also hung up while running with his gpu. I tried using onboard video but also crashed.
So today I used my pc in the morning to read the newspaper and such, then I went out, when I came back I tried to watch a video on youtube and the screen started going off and on, then the computer crashed; The reset button was not responding so I waited and it automatically rebooted, then crashed again on windows (8), rebooted again and crashed, rebooted again and oh surprise! "disk boot failure".
I put on another disk and it didn't even went through POST, screen was black and no beep, I tried resetting it but again the reset button didn't work; it self rebooted again, and the same thing happened.
The third time it booted, I installed windows 7 and when the system started I tried installing the Gigabyte drivers from the cd and got BSOD. After that, the system booted normally and finished installing the drivers. Right now I'm writing from my pc with the fresh Win7 install.

But I've had it with this...I don't know what to do. I contacted the local store and they told me to bring the cpu and mobo on monday for them to check the issue, if they encounter the same problem they are going to send it to the dealer and see if they can do anything for me.
If they can't recreate the event when the computer crashes (which is of course, totally random) I will have to contact gigabyte myself and send it to RMA and God help me.

Thanks for helping me cope with it guys.

 

[scout_03]

will be around for result on this .

 

[InvalidError]

I seriously doubt the yellow stuff is electrolyte:
1- electrolyte is quite conductive so if it leaked and covered this many components, your board or CPU would have been fried beyond repair already
2- those caps have no pressure-relief vents stamped into them, which usually means they're solid-type
3- the bottom-seals require considerable pressure to pop before caps can leak and are unlikely to do so without visible deformation of the cap's casing either at the top or around the bottom 'rim' holding the cap

So the yellow stuff is most likely a small spill of conformal coating, solder flux or other benign stuff in the area.

 

[bubum4n]

Guys, I have news.
Yesterday I went to the local store to RMA my video card (it suddenly died) and the owner told me that he sold another two haswell cpus with gigabyte motherboards that also experienced random freezes. One of the clients claimed that when her cellphone was near the cpu case it would cause the computer to crash if it rang.
I tried it at home and experienced the freezing when the cellphone was next to the computer. After that, I left the phone on the opposite corner of the room and rang again but nothing happened, while it was still ringing I approached the pc and I put it on top of the cpu case, guess what? it freezed again.
Maybe, MAYBE it's the reason why I was experiencing so high instability, I always have the phone with me when I'm using the PC.
I will try leaving the cellphone far enough and see what happens.

In case this is proved right, is there anything I can do besides leaving my cellphone on the bed?

InvalidError: So the yellow stuff is most likely a small spill of conformal coating, solder flux or other benign stuff in the area.

That's what the guy at the store told me...even though I'm kind of skeptical.

 

[InvalidError]

In case this is proved right, is there anything I can do besides leaving my cellphone on the bed?

Your computer should not be that vulnerable to EMI-induced crashes - at least not with all the aluminum/steel covers, panels, etc. in place which should effectively shield it from external interference.

If your computer case is all closed up, little to no EMI should be able to get inside the case so something else must be acting as the antenna. Unplug all unnecessary cables and accessories and plug them back in one by one to see which one causes your PC to reboot when you call yourself.

One possibility is that you may have bad ground either on the PC, power cable, wall outlet or building level. This could certainly make your PC much more vulnerable to EMI, particularly if some other attached device is grounded properly (or at least better) while your PC isn't, causing all fault currents to go through a likely unintended path.

 

[scout_03]

been searching around for the interferance and it been know since 2007 on tech power-up ,and only some kind of mobile phone made this and the nothrbridge been affect when it is getting hot ,you could try this faraday build to test your system http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/build-your-own-faraday-cage-heres-how/

 

[bubum4n]

This is making me mad...yesterday I went to a lan party and my computer froze twice...I couldn't tell the guys to stop using their cellphones, it's their right to do it.
I contacted gigabyte to see what they can do and I'm also contacting Intel to ask if they know anything about this issue.

I want a solution without anything to do with building a faraday cage over my case lol.

 

[InvalidError]

I want a solution without anything to do with building a faraday cage over my case lol.

Instead of building a Faraday cage around your PC, you could simply move it in a window-less steel case unless your current case is already all-metal and window-less.

Window-less metal cases already are Faraday cages for most intents and purposes so building a Faraday cage around one wouldn't help much.

 

[bubum4n]

This is making me mad...yesterday I went to a lan party and my computer froze twice...I couldn't tell the guys to stop using their cellphones, it's their right to do it.
I contacted gigabyte to see what they can do and I'm also contacting Intel to ask if they know anything about this issue.

I want a solution without anything to do with building a faraday cage over my case lol.

I want a solution without anything to do with building a faraday cage over my case lol.

Instead of building a Faraday cage around your PC, you could simply move it in a window-less steel case unless your current case is already all-metal and window-less.

Window-less metal cases already are Faraday cages for most intents and purposes so building a Faraday cage around one wouldn't help much.

It is indeed a windowed metal case, If you mean windowed by having perforations for two 140mm fans on the side and the front is made of this kind of "grating"?. I don't know how it's called in English, it has hundreds of super tiny holes for allowing the air to pass through.

If you mean windowed by having literally a window with an acrilyc sheet then no, it's not windowed. Nevertheless, I've never had any issue with the case being susceptible to EMI, it's the same I was using with the Phenom.

I haven't gotten any reply from Gigabyte yet, but something tells me it has to do with their product.

Oh, and before I forget, I received a reply from Intel, they told me they didn't receive any claim regarding this issue, mine is the only one. They are now also trying to help me solve the problem.

 

[InvalidError]

It is indeed a windowed metal case, If you mean windowed by having perforations for two 140mm fans on the side and the front is made of this kind of "grating"?. I don't know how it's called in English, it has hundreds of super tiny holes for allowing the air to pass through.

I meant "window" as in large areas of non-conductive material.

For EMI from cellphones and other common sources which are under 6GHz, holes would need to be larger than 10mm diameter to let remotely significant amounts of EMI through. Stamped mesh on metal panels are usually 3-5mm across while holes on cosmetic and filter front-cover mesh are usually 1-2mm across so neither would count as a window.

If some of your metal mesh is mounted in plastic frames though, it may not be grounded properly to the rest of your case and that might let more EMI bleed through than it otherwise should.

You haven't said if you tried unplugging all your non-essential external peripherals to see if that reduces EMI susceptibility with your phone to rule out the possibility of an external pick-up source or sink.

 

[bubum4n]

InvalidError said:
If some of your metal mesh is mounted in plastic frames though, it may not be grounded properly to the rest of your case and that might let more EMI bleed through than it otherwise should.

You haven't said if you tried unplugging all your non-essential external peripherals to see if that reduces EMI susceptibility with your phone to rule out the possibility of an external pick-up source or sink.

The front cover is mounted on plastic, but I believe most cases are built this way.

About unplugging non-essential peripherals, I tried plugging in the monitor and keyboard only and finished with the same result, video flickers and the pc freezes then shuts down or reboots.

If the problem is the pc case, why didn't I have any problem when I was running the Phenom on it? I think it has to do more with the sensitivity of the components to EMI.

I'm getting tired of this...I may actually end up asking my folks to buy me a new motherboard from Asus, to see if I can end this.
I already spent all my money on the whole system plus the new psu. I'm pissed off..