ASUS A7V266-E, Memory & Capacitor ???s

ASUS A7V266-E Socket A Motherboard VIA KT266A Chipset DDR DRAM

I have 1 bar of 512 memory already installed. The motherboard should hold 3GB. My son installed 2 bars of RAM - Samsung (high 178142 Density) 1GB PC3200 400 Mhz DDR Memory Module - and my computer started but the hard drive wouldn't do anything. We took 1 out and tried again but still wouldn't work. Does anyone know why this memory wouldn't work in this motherboard?

Also, my son noticed a capacitor was blown and 2 others were bowing outward as if ready to blow. My computer is still working but I know these need to be taken care of soon. Is it worth it to have someone fix/replace these capacitors? Or would it cost so much I might as well buy a new motherboard?

Seems it is the mainboard probelm instated of RAM,

You should replace your mainboard capacitors or swap another board.
You can comare the cost of fixing the capacitors including parts and labor with the new mainboard, maybe just used mainboard will work.

Hope this helps!
Bill

Hi there this is what i could find out about your system specs is that this motherboard was released over 8 years ago, also your motherboard specs say that your DDR Ram FSB is 3X 184-pin DIMM 3Gb DDR SDRAM PC1600 - PC2100 FSB... Now pc2100 is 200fsb and the newer ones are 2700 at 333 and 3200's at 400 fsb you bios can not read the chips this is why it will not boot, you might be able to find a bios firmware update but do not think this will do anything really as the system hardware was not built to talk that fast between parts and somthing burn out.
Also the capacitors are about to pop and this could put extra volts throw a major part of you computer and kill it all as well.

You should be able to find a replacement board for this on ebay even some store's might have old stock laying around cheap or even buy a new system and sell the parts you no longer need or keep them like me as spare parts for friends.

Characteristics of the Asus A7V266-E
CPU
Supports Socket A Athlon XP/Athlon/Duron processors
Chipset
VIA KT266A VT8366A + VT8233
Form factor
ATX
Expansion
5 PCI - 0 ISA - 1 ACR - 1 AGP Pro- 6 USB
Memory
3X 184-pin DIMM 3Gb DDR SDRAM PC1600 - PC2100
FSB
100Mhz to 250Mhz in steps of 1Mhz
Vcore adj.
1.80v, 1.825v and 1.85v
Vio adj.
2.5v, 2.65v, 2.75v and 2.80v
Audio chipset
C-Media CMI8738 PCI

Hope this helps you out.