Ive been wanting to do a mod with a computer my uncle gave me recently, but it has an old mobo with messed up capacitors. Since im a bit noobish with electronics, I would like to know what are the basic things to look for when buying new capacitors. I've noticed some numbers, but I dunno what they mean either. The little bit i know is jsut about what i can rememebr from what I learned about circuits back in highschool a couple -ears ago...so can anyone help me? thanx!

electrolytic capacitors have the voltage and capacitance on the side, and the negative pin marked with (-) or a line, sometimes both...

e.g. 16V, 3300uF

you need to keep the capacitance the same, but you can go higher with the voltage if you have problems sourcing the exact voltage... be aware that ripple and physical size increase with large voltage caps...

BadCaps is a good place to start... it has a listing of known good brands, along with ordered lists of how good each series is

examples of good caps:

Panasonic
Nichicon


examples of ok caps (but possibly bad/mediocre):

Teapo
G-Luxon

examples of bad caps:

Vent


when you start desoldering caps, make sure you note the polarity when you take them out, usually the silkscreen has one of the sides shaded to indicate the polarity, but this isn't a strict rule...

something to consider is that when a cap fails, it can fail open-circuit or short-circuit... if it's the latter, the cap failure can damage other components, so even if you replace all the caps, the mobo might not work properly or at all...

that said, I've managed to successfully repair two PSUs and one motherboard by cap replacement alone, so as long as the component cost isn't too high, I'd say it's worth a try

sounds good!
Is a radio shack a good place price-wise?

you won't find the type of caps you need at RadioShack... they only do general purpose grade caps

Mouser, Digikey, and Newark are good places online