one test unit I had to stop working last week, on debugging it I found out why it would not boot, and was making a Hard drive bad type clicking noise, but not coming from the hard drive.
This is a blown capacitor, it actually had a pinhole in the top, and quite blown out.
I’ve seen this happen exactly twice in many years(over 16 now!) of PC building. It happened about 1.5 or so years back, and just last week on me.
This was actually a test unit using old hardware, of the same batch as the other that blew, so seems for sure some bad capacitors hit the market (for long term usage anyway). I am saving this specific model, and the capacitor example for training incoming hardware techs on what to look for if such happens again.
Taking pics of this on super macro mode is easier said than done, took me a bit to fine tune the focus properly
I am not a photographer.
