Multiple-point Hardware And Software Failures in Two, Separate and Not-connected Computers At The Same Time...

Question

A few days ago, I was working on a restoration of a 100-years-or-so-old Calculus book on one of my Linux based computers, while my other computer with the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system was serving as Broadcast TV receiver with its USB HDTV tuner
in the afternoon.  The weather in Los Angeles was summer-like in November, with clear skies and 90 degree Fahrenheit temperatures.  All of a sudden, my Linux based computer halted in the middle of the processing it had performed hundreds of times
before in hotter days.  It would not restart.  The entire boot block of the disk seemed to have been garbled.  This did not seem even feasible at all, so I decided to shut its power off for a while.   It came back up after a while,
and everything looked normal.  Then, it did the same thing again.  I decided to open its cover and check on its multiple fans as there was nothing else that could go wrong.
I then noticed that the computer with the Microsoft Windows Vista Operating system which had been receiving the broadcast TV, was displaying a freshly-booted log-in screen.  It had "Blue-screened" while I was working on the other computer
across the large room.  This again did not seem any feasible as there had been utterly no connection between these two computers.  Even the AC power line circuit was different.  Furthermore, this computer had the most extensive air-cooling system
I had built to have it work through 107 degree Fahrenheit temperatures indoors.  Anyway, I logged back in and started the broadcast TV reception again.  Sure enough, after a while it "blue-screened" one more time...
I went back to the Linux-based computer and found all of its fans operating, but with somewhat hotter disk drives.  The problem was that in hotter days, the same computer had cooler disk drives with nothing different.  I concluded that somehow
the 80 mm fan mounted in the front side of the case, with its side with rotating blades clamped on the perforated part of the steel case serving as the fan grill, was starting up fine.   But, as the time passed the spring-loaded rotating hub was slowly
drawn toward the perforated steel case by two means: The partial vacuum formed by the suction generated by the blades of the fan, and by the magnetic attraction of the rotating hub with electro-magnets in it to the partially magnetized, perforated steel casing.
  The first effect was always there, so it was not the real cause, but once something else came along, it really helped the latter.  The hub was slowly drawn to the perforated steel casing due to magnetic attraction, with the holes in the casing
inducing a huge air-drag on the hub blades as there was no by-pass around to supply the extra-air needed to reduce the partial vacuum.  In addition, the rotating hub with the electro-magnets now was very close to the conducting metal surface and the induced
eddy-currents in the metal by the moving electro-magnets had added even more drag on the rotating hub, causing it to come nearly to a halt.  The disk drive electronics was heating up and was causing DMA access faults which in turn caused the Linux kernel
to panic and halt.
Well, this was nearly unbelievable, but true...  I had not brought any magnets into the room and I still do not know how the computer case got magnetized.  It has been working at the same location for years.  The solution was to move the fan
away from the perforated steel casing a little so that some air could come in through the gaps on the sides of the fan (hence supplying a by-pass), reducing the partial vacuum in front of the fan.  This kept the rotating hub far enough away to prevent
the massive induced eddy-current drag from slowing the fan down to a halt.  The computer now works perfectly with the very same fan as it has had been doing for years. 
The real solution is to saw the perforated part of the steel casing in front of the fan away, and to replace it with a better fan grill.  The best fan grill material  I have found is the finely perforated, thin, black aluminum sheet that is usually
used as a car audio speaker grill.  In fact, I use these in my Microsoft Windows Vista based computer.  The fans are quieter, with more air flow.  It also keeps dust away and you can brush the collected dust off easily.
The next problem was the halting of  the computer with the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system with a blue-screen.  The fans in it could not be the cause of this, as it had already had the best improvements I could put in it,  with even
externally powered fans that did not load  the computer power supply.  And, all of the fans were working well.  In the meantime, the Microsoft November 2014 updates for the Microsoft Windows Vista came out, and as usual I told the computer to
load and to implement them.  Sure enough, the computer again "blue-screened" in the middle of the update procedure.
That was somewhat too much, but there was nothing else I could do other than to debug it.  I had not changed anything in the computer and its power supply, completely internally updated by myself a few years ago, was working perfectly.  Whatever
was causing it was not in the hardware.  It was not in the November 2014 software updates either as it "blue-screened" before those were announced.  I brought the computer back up after several disk and other software checks and after the
completion of the updates,  I gingerly turned the network modem on.  I then sent the reports on the six failures (three "blue-screen" type failures and three "Anti-malware Executable" failures) to Microsoft with all of details
requested using the Microsoft Windows Vista problem reporting system.  Within minutes, the Microsoft came up with a diagnosis that the USB driver code in the system had a serious bug.  I had not changed this code in years.  It suggested that
I should use the "Microsoft Fix-It" for this problem and it pointed to a link to download it.  I did download it.  It ran and the "blue-screen" problem just went away, as if it had never been there...
-- Yekta

Answer 1

I ordered the capacitors on Friday and they arrived on Monday, November 17, 2014.  I removed the motherboard from the machine, by removing all PCI and AGP boards, drive and fan connectors and the computer power supply first.  The motherboard then
simply unbolted from the case and came out with the CPU fan assembly still attached.
I wrapped the solder side of the motherboard with aluminum foil and set up a work place with the aluminum foil under the motherboard and myself electrically well grounded.  Here came another surprise:  There were four more capacitors of the same
kind just behind the CPU fan assembly and their tops were also deformed with one of them leaking the electrolyte inside from the the top.  Luckily, I had ordered more than two capacitors to get the quantity discount and the lower rate of shipping. 
I do use them in other circuits I occasionally build.
Technically, the only thing one needed to do was to unsolder the six old capacitors from the motherboard and to solder six new ones in in their place with the correct polarities.  However, due to fact that the capacitors span the 3.3 V power plane and
the ground plane in the multi-layer motherboard, it is nearly impossible to unsolder these capacitors using regular, fine-tip soldering irons.  The thick copper of the power and the ground planes carry the soldering iron heat away very fast, preventing
the solder from melting quickly.  Continuous application of heat at this point will simply burn the internal insulating epoxy layers and cause shorts inside the motherboard which are impossible to fix in any reasonable amount of time.
The only reasonable way to remove these capacitors was to dismantle the capacitors from the top leaving their already soldered leads in place.  The new capacitors were then tack soldered to these stubs using lead-free, hard solder.  However, the
CPU fan assembly and the CPU itself had to be removed from the board to be able to work on these capacitors.
To dismantle the capacitors from the top, I first drilled small holes at the tops of the capacitors at the intersections of the indentations using the tip of a hobbyist's knife.   I then used needle nosed pliers to peel back the triangular sections
of aluminum from the center at the tops to their bases at the top edges of the capacitors.  Next, I  removed the plastic layers covering the outside of the capacitors by scoring the plastic layers first from the bottom to the top using the tip of
the hobbyist's knife and peeling the plastic layers off starting at the cut.  The following step was to cut the aluminum cans of the capacitors from the top to the bottom using the hobbyist's knife like a can opener.  One could not use a saw like
tool here to accomplish the feat as the saws generated very fine metal chips which were very hard to remove and were certain to cause shorts in the densely populated mother board.  The cans were then peeled off the rest of the capacitors starting from
the top at the cuts using needle nose pliers, revealing the spiral-wound metal-paper layers of the capacitors.
The wound layers of the capacitors were peeled off layer by layer by cutting into the layers from the top to the bottom, leaving only the two aluminum electrodes which were crimped and soldered to the leads of the capacitors.  The picture below shows
the six capacitors with one of them dismantled (left) and with all of them dismantled (right):
The  black disks below the aluminum electrodes are the rubber plugs covering the bottoms of the capacitors.  The rubber plugs were then cut in half using the hobbyist's knife and removed using the needle nose pliers.  It was not possible to
solder to the aluminum electrodes, so these were trimmed at the point they were crimped on the leads of the capacitors, leaving only the stubs of the capacitors' leads soldered to the motherboard.
The new capacitors with suitably trimmed leads were then soldered to these stubs with the correct polarities using lead-free, hard solder.  The capacitors were lightly bonded together using a flexible glue to prevent them from moving.  The picture
below shows the new capacitors as installed into the motherboard:
I then assembled everything back together and turned the computer on.  The BIOS complained on the boot screen that the CPU was out of its socket and it needed to be reset.  I set BIOS parameters correctly to their original values.  The computer
came up and worked without any problems.  I typed this message on  my newly repaired computer running the  Microsoft  Windows Vista operating system. 
By the way, the manufacturing date on the motherboard is 09/12/2002 and the CPU is a Socket-478, 2.4 GHz, Intel Pentium-4.
-- Yekta