Sounds like the caps to me. Check out www.badcaps.net for pics of bad caps.

Some of the symptoms on that website describe my situation. It seems like the only option at this point.

Alright, I need suggestions now. My mobo is an MSI KT4V, and I've always liked it a lot. My video card is an 8x AGP Geforce 4, and I want another 8x board. Newegg only sells a couple new ones, and neither are a reputable brand. I'm also wary of buying a used one off Ebay.

For the time being I'll be using a friend'* 4x AGP MSI KT3. Should I use it permanently, or should I find another 8x board? I hate the idea of slowing down my graphics capability more than it was before, but the KT3 is also free. Are there any sources for cheap, reliable Socket A motherboards? I'm not familiar with any brand other than MSI, and if I don't stick with this KT3 I need a solid board with a good BIOS.

Any and all advice/suggestions are welcome! JP, do you think I could salvage my KT4V? Badcaps doesn't sell a kit for my board... :(

Look through www.microcenter.com They have good prices, and usually lots of sales on MBs

Absolutely you could do it. Do you have a soldering iron? If so, check it'* wattage, to see if it'* comparable to whats listed on badcaps. Also You'll need some solder wick, which you can get at radio shack.

From there it'* just following the steps on badcap, they walk you through it step by step, just as with the techinfo forums here. And they also have series of forums just like here.

I rebuilt a dual proc P3 board (and a few others). My biggest suggestion: GO SLOW. Take your time, maybe pull a cap, take a break and come back. You are younger and have better eyes, so maybe you'll be able to proceed a bit faster than I did. My bigggest problem was that the circuit traces are so tiny, my iron would slip and skip across the board (because I got impatient and put too much force oin the iron), and I thought I'd ruined it. By the time I had all the new caps in, I'd ham handed that board so much I figured there surely wasn't any way it could possibly work... but it fired right up and has been running as the domain controller in my house for 6 months now.

You won't need a capacitor kit - simply pull the motherboard, and look at each cap. You'll need:

It'* height in MM (I didn't have a metric ruler, so I googled 'metric ruler' and printed one out.
It'* voltage and capacitance rating. (Printed on the side of the cap).

Then just go out to badcaps and order them individually. I got mine 2 days after I placed the order.

Also, it'* an absolute must to make a sketch of the board, and write down where each cap is located, and it'* polarity with respect to the board. I have no doubt your board is marked as to where the + lead goes, but sometimes the board is wrong - you want to remount the new one the same way the old one came out.

I really think you can do it - the real question is how comfortable are you with you're soldering skills? If you're a bit rusty, find a circuit board out of something to practice on first.

Go check out their forums... you'll find plenty of posts from people who had never even touched a soldering iron before who met with success.

Also, I'd be happy to do it for you for no cost (well, except shipping and parts) if you really don't want to mess with it. But I think you should try it - the worst case is you ruin something that didn't work anyway.

After looking at the capacitors, it'* obvious that some of them are junk. At least 5 of them have bulging tops (while the others are nice and flat), a couple of them are sitting at a bit of an angle, and 3 of them are actually leaking out the top of the capacitor.

I'm not sure if I'll try to repair that board or not. JP, did you replace every cap on the board? Badcaps said that even if some of them appear to be normal they may still be junk. I'm intrigued by the idea that I could fix it, but for the time being I'll throw in the KT3 to get me by.

John... thanks for the link to Microcenter. If anyone else has suggestions for a cheap Socket A board, please let me know. What are some of the good models of Socket A boards? All I know to look at is MSI... it'* hard to tell if some of the other Ebay stuff is good or not.

I replaced them all, about 12-14 as I recall. But I'd recc you do it in 2 phases:

1) Replace the obviously bad ones
Power up and see if the problem is fixed, and then decide if you want to:
2) Replace the rest

The reason I say this is that the fewer you replace, the fewer chances for having an oops.

Make sure that you are electrically grounded when you work inside of that PC or you will be zapping the components. The amount of ESD that it takes to destroy something is well below the visible threshold in which you will see an arc!

another source for mobo'*:
http://www.pricewatch.com/motherboards/socket_462.htm

you know what I think about this Ben? Apples are yummy.

I used to have an Apple II GS... does that count? Other than that, the only Apples you'll find in my domicile are the Braeburns in the fridge

And thank you for the link, popatim.