I just bought an ASUS M2N32 motherboard and it makes a big deal about how it has solid state capacitors. What's the difference from normal capacitors, and how can I tell if my video card has them too?
The big deal is that there was a huge batch of bad caps spread into every thing some one stole a incomplete formula for the fluid in the caps and that fluid caused premature failure rates. Well they found out billions of the caps were affected no real way of telling how many were bad and no way to recall only the bad ones. This hurt everyones "trust" in electrolytic capacitors and now there is a big movement to eliminate them from any ware they can completely.
And the difference is one is filled with an oil mixture the other is not.
here is the wikipedia page on them your video card probably has a mixture of types.
They wont leak oil so wont fail prematurely from that and they resist higher temps.
If you look at your graphics card you can see if it has electrolytic capacitors, they usually stand off from the board and have 2 legs. They look like small cylinders usually.
Solid state caps are usually square/rectangular and sit little higher than the circuit board.
They are most likely to be surface mount.
They also typically cost more and are more reliable with tighter tolerances. Not really a big deal if your mobo manufacturers buy the correct electrolytics from vendors. However, many mobo manufacturers outsource to the cheapest ODM. And the ODM buys equivalents and you end up with fake electrolytic caps.
Its easy to spot the two different types visually. One has a smooth, solid top, while the other usually has an X, Y, or K ... or whatever, grooved into the top.