Did a capacitor on my motherboard Leak?

[Mr Lion]

After a long drive with my computer in my car I go to turn my pc on and it didn't boot, I took it out of the case and got the mobo to turn on but it gave a dram error. I tried separate known good ram sticks in every slot still no post. I look closer at the back of the mobo and there is a weird dark sticky residue on the front and back of the mobo. Is this a capacitor leak, and is my mobo dead? The motherboard is a ASUS ROG B450 gaming 2

[Levent]

Nope. Its thermal pad grease.

[Mr Lion]

also could this have killed my cpu?

 

[Fasauceome]

The white fuzzy spot on the motherboard definitely looks like stuff from inside a capacitor

 

 

 Is the blue goo on the cooler mount thermal paste or do you not know how it got there?

 

[da na]

Just now, Mr Lion said:

also could this have killed my cpu?

 

Nope it's just thermal pad grease

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

The white fuzzy spot on the motherboard definitely looks like stuff from inside a capacitor

No it's bits of the thermal pad that tore off when it was removed.

[Levent]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

The white fuzzy spot on the motherboard definitely looks like stuff from inside a capacito

 Is the blue goo on the cooler mount thermal paste or do you not know how it got there?

Pretty sure, that is what happens when grease gets dusty. Seen it couple of times in my own PCs over the years.

[Fasauceome]

Just now, Levent said:

Pretty sure, that is what happens when grease gets dusty. Seen it couple of times in my own PCs over the years.

 

1 minute ago, Hairless Monkey Boy said:

No it's bits of the thermal pad that tore off when it was removed.

That makes more sense.

 

@Mr Lionas for the discoloration, that's quite normal on motherboards, either runoff from pads or just manufacturing residue left over. Have you reseated the CPU yet?

[mariushm]

There's no electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard, with possibly the exception of a few around the audio chip in the bottom left corner of the motherboard.

Only electrolytic capacitors have liquid or semi-liquid electrolyte, the capacitors modern motherboards use are solid polymer capacitors, no liquids inside. 

There's a thermal pad between the heatsink and the chips used in the vrm (mosfets or power stages, doublers etc), that thermal pad has some oils or "grease" and it's supposed to be non-conductive, so it's unlikely to have damaged your motherboard.

It should clean with isopropyl alcohol or acetone (but note acetone can attack plastics or inks on plastic sleeves, using it on bottom of board where there's no printed text or plastics would be safe and fine)

 

The tiny chips with PU printed near them look to me like mosfet drivers, basically they're sort of amplifiers - they take the command from the vrm controller which tells the mosfets to turn on or off, and amplify it so that the mosfets of a power stage will turn on or off much faster. It's like the difference between opening a door with your hand or kicking the door open with your foot - the faster the mosfets open or close, the more efficient and cooler and better everything is.

They probably added some thermal paste on top of those chips because of the height difference compared to the other chips around them.

 

[Spotty]

There's no electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard. Those capacitors are solid polymer capacitors which don't leak. 

 

The oily residue you see on the board as others have mentioned is oil from thermal pads.