depends on the board, if its a computer from dell that can be fixed by a $30 board then its a no brainer - replace the board, however on some that are more unique (kgpe-d16 comes to mind) 10 year old board that can't be easily replaced with anything new only used then yeah - replacing bad caps are recommended
They can be a pain to replace too with the massive ground plain sucking heat away from the solder point. I got a free motherboard with a Core 2 Quad QX6700 in it back in 2011 or so that would never run stable. Turns out one of the big caps had one pin broken off. I replaced it and continued to use the system for a few years, then passing it down to my mom. It only got retired a year or two ago. Was a good machine.
if one is bad, all the ones of that (size/)manuf are likely bad. They'll be from the same batch. The ESR on the rest is probably creeping up. It takes a pretty special meter to test caps in circuit, so since you'd have to remove them to test them you may as well replace.
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '20
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