Slashdot Mirror
Taiwanese Capacitors Leaking, Exploding
ackthpt writes "A few astute slashdot readers were on to something back when this article was published. After a tip (at e-insight.net) on failing caps over at amdmb I did a little looking around and found this article by Dennis Zogbi on TTI Inc.'s site, which goes into more detail. In a nutshell, many motherboards are now failing due to electolytic capacitors made with an inferior water-based electolyte. Within days or a few months these capacitors build up hydrogen gas and blow the rubber bung out the end of the capacitor, leaking electolyte and causing havoc. The problem may be widespread, as many consumer electronics made with these capacitors may also fail prematurely. Gary Headlee specializes in Abit motherboards, but as his FAQ states, he will work on other makes and the FAQ has more info on capacitor problems."
there's magic water in capacitors as well as magic smoke ?
No Norm, those are your safety glasses; I'll wear my own thanks...
Nothing new about the annoucement. Cheap electrolytic capacitors have been around and been a problem for years. There are other failure modes. i've fixed several old Mac's where the cap has pissed it's electrolyte all over the motherboard. Usually removing the cap, scrubbing the board and installing a new cap fixes the problem. Even worse is when the electrolyte is lost gradually. The product that it's in gets flakey over time and the problem is very hard to find. These problems are all made worse by exposing your gear to high temperatures. Never leave your electronics in the passenger compartment of your car in the summer.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
many motherboards are now failing due to electolytic capacitors made with an inferior water-based electolyte.
Early indications of capacitor/motherboard demise include failure of spell checking software.
If you're trying to boot up, and your rubber bung breaks and leaks electrolyte, then I'd recommend getting tested as soon as possible, especially if you were trying to boot from a strange floppy.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
The company my parents own bought 30 machines a while back which apparently all had these bad caps on the mainboards. When the first few mainboards started failing we tried to send them back on warranty, but our vendor wasn't cooperating, and shipping them all back to ABIT was resulting in too much down time. (shipping time, etc...)
So we went to the nearest electronic wholesaler in town and bought a box of the equivilent caps and soldered them on ourselves. It doesn't take more than 5 minutes and the caps themselves are very inexpensive.
Of the 30 machines we bought I think almost 25 have failed, just a matter of time before the rest fail I'm sure.
Open Source Time and Attendance, Job Costing a
Good god...how many of these things could be lurking about in automotive airbags...
Well I would hope none. The only thing in your air bag should be the sodium azide and an igniter. The last thing you need in an accident is a bunch of loose capacitors and crap being blown into your face.
Forget case mods, maybe we need to start modding our mainboards with better caps.
It is always important to buy quality components. I for example bought a *shuffle shuffle* Abit... BH6. Dang. Excuse me I have to go check something.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
Good god...how many of these things could be lurking about in automotive airbags, ABS systems, or in any sort of medical device?
:)
(Slightly OT)
While not quite as bad, this is becoming a problem in older automotive ECUs (engine control units). The problem is especially rampant in DSM cars (Mitsubishi Eclipse, Eagle Talon, Plymouth Laser) manufactured between 1989 and 1994. I know because it happened to me. All the big electrolytic capacitors leaked all over the place, pretty much destroying the board. One of the symptoms is a 'rotten seafood smell' coming from behind the console.
Mitsubishi wanted around $750 for a replacement. Luckily since this is such a problem, refurbished ECUs are available for cheap.
I can finally vent about my misery! This experience ought to be useful to anyone who is currently in the market for a motherboard. Simply put, don't buy Abit.
About 1.5 years ago, I purchased two motherboards from Abit. This one for an 800MHz Athlon system, and this board for a dual, 733MHz Coppermine system. Last semeter, my KA7 failed slowly over time. At first, I thought it was the power supply because it seemed all the capasitors around the power regulator were fried (they were encrusted with the carbon of some substance that appeared to boil out of them and burn). I replaced my power supply and motherboard. A few weeks ago, I started having interrupt failures on my VP6 (APIC errors on both CPUs). I replaced the motherboard with a Gigabyte GA-6VTXD (sorry for the shameless plug, but Gigabyte denies deep linking, and this is where I got the board - a great buy). Turns out the VP6 also had fried capasitors and I *know* the PS in my that dual proc box is solid (a well tested Antec). The only two Abit mobos I've ever purchased burned out their capasitors. The moral of this story? Don't buy Abit. While this problem is wide spread, Abit seems to have a particular affliction.
Why bother.
I suppose they're letting the magic smoke out prematurely.
(Lifted from the Jargon File)
Magic Smoke - n. A substance trapped inside IC packages that enables them to function (also called `blue smoke'; this is similar to the archaic `phlogiston' hypothesis about combustion). Its existence is demonstrated by what happens when a chip burns up -- the magic smoke gets let out, so it doesn't work any more. See smoke test, let the smoke out.
Usenetter Jay Maynard tells the following story: "Once, while hacking on a dedicated Z80 system, I was testing code by blowing EPROMs and plugging them in the system, then seeing what happened. One time, I plugged one in backwards. I only discovered that *after* I realized that Intel didn't put power-on lights under the quartz windows on the tops of their EPROMs -- the die was glowing white-hot. Amazingly, the EPROM worked fine after I erased it, filled it full of zeros, then erased it again. For all I know, it's still in service. Of course, this is because the magic smoke didn't get let out." Compare the original phrasing of Murphy's Law.
Michael C. Hollinger
Rubbish. What are you xenophobic?
Unless you buy a known grade of electronics you have no hope of getting stable, reliable kit. American or otherwise. Quality costs period.
If you've used a cheap board for a mission critcal server then who is at fault? It ain't the supplier.
Do a Google search on "tanatlum shortage" and you'll see that there was a flury of articles about a year and a half ago. This prompted development of other electrolytic capacitors, one of which is the aluminum electrolyte that seems to be having problems.
I assume that it's only taken this long to find the problem due to the development time and time to qualify (ha!) and integrate these new caps onto boards. Needless to say, I guess they needed to develop the caps better, but they may have rushed to market since there was little else available (at a decent price).
Good god...how many of these things could be lurking about in automotive airbags, ABS systems, or in any sort of medical device?
For the most part, none.
Electrolytic capacitors have a fixed lifetime and are by nature unreliable. They don't meet MILSPEC for electronic components. An F16 fighter for example, won't contain a single electrolytic capacitor.
Where reliability is critical, Tantalum capacitors are used, but they're physically larger and more expensive. Any -critical- system manufacturer(automotive safety systems, medical equipment, etc) that uses electrolytic capacitors should be shot.
Want to see some fun stuff? Do a search for "capacitor" and "Bose" on Google. Bose had a TON of problems with bad capacitors in their car stereo systems(installed on millions of vehicles from at least a dozen manufacturers), and it took years for the car manufacturers to fess up to the problem and offer recalls. Bose knew about the problem for years, so one presumes the car companies did. The Ford Pinto incident apparently never taught companies anything; they still don't issue recalls until enough people die/get hurt that it becomes in the company's financial interests to announce a recall.
Some never did announce a recall, until recently. Audi used Bose speakers in the 1991 200 Quattro 20v turbo(car I happen to drive), and the orientation of the circuit boards for the rear speakers were such that the (conductive) electrolytic fluid often caused serious shorts- the Audi enthusiast community knows of at least a few 200q20v's that met their untimely ends due to speaker FIRES. Loud thumping, smoking, popping, etc are more common.
It was pretty much exclusive to the one model, of which only about 2000-3000 at most were imported. The number of reported problems were low(I'd say maybe half a dozen fires), but keep in mind- this wasn't a Ford Taurus will millions on the road.
Audi continuously lied to us- we have proof that they knew from about 1992 onwards that the speakers were defective. A year or two ago we banded together and got a LOT of owners who had experienced speaker problems to call in and report the problem.
When we called Audi, each owner was separately told "we have no knowledge of any problems with your model vehicle"(or something to that effect.) I guess they didn't think we would talk to each other, eh?
Only after several owners submitted paperwork to NHSTA did we see any action; early spring of this year, Audi -announced- the problem and said there would be a recall. It took months to get the replacement circuit boards in and for the recall procedure to get out to dealerships.
Still, guess what? If you report a problem with your car to NHSTA, you can't actually follow up with anyone at NHSTA. The ONLY people you can talk to are a bunch of lazy government call center workers who can ONLY mail you a form or take information on a new case over the phone. You could have evidence of over 50 vehicles that have had said safety problem, and guess what? The call center couldn't care less, they just want to mail you a @#$! form.
Ask any Audi owner and they'll tell you- they love their car. My 200q20v is well over a decade old, but(thanks to a $500 ECU modification) does 0-60 in under 6 seconds, has all wheel drive for incredible traction, 5-speed, stealthy looks(looks like a 5000, basically) and huge amounths of interior and trunk space. Galvanized panels(standard in most audis since 1985 or so) means that there is barely a spot of rust anywhere on the car despite living its entire life in the Northeast US.) Audis are the most utilitarian of german luxury cars, and you usually get more for your money(in terms of features and interior quality) compared to a BMW or Mercedes...and Audi's all wheel drive system is still the best(despite what Subaru would like you to believe, Audi has been doing AWD since 1980, dominating the rallying world at the time. Subaru is about 15 years behind the game.)
But, ask any Audi owner what they think of the company, and the answer will probably change dramatically. It is a terrible shame when such a great product is hampered by piss-poor support.
Part of the problem may be that the engineers are underspecing the capacitors in an effort to cut costs. A friend of mine used to have a job evaluating component reliability. He had lots of graphs that showed reliability as a function of how hard the component was driven in the circuit, for example dissipating 5W in a 5W transistor instead of using a beefier transistor.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
[A plain starfield. Narrative text draws across the screen:]
"Lone escape pod from SS Hermes - Survivors one.
Ship destroyed by Chameleonic Microbe."
[A pause, then the words 'by Chameleonic Microbe.' are deleted, and replaced with:]
"by Chamelionic Mycrobe."
[A second pause, then 'by Chamelionic Mycrobe.' is deleted, and replaced with the much simpler:]
"by shape changing weird space thing.
Non essential electrics all down, including spell checker.
Massage ends."
Help fight continental drift.
Just as we have "server grade" components in the tech industry, other standards exist in different industries.
Hmm - I take it the server grade components only blow up after the server is linked on slashdot?
The only thing in your air bag should be the sodium azide and an igniter. The last thing you need in an accident is a bunch of loose capacitors and crap being blown into your face.
Actually, I would rather be hit in the face with a bunch of capacitors than aerosolized sodium azide, which is highly toxic by US definition, and is about as healthy as sodium cyanide powder. It is commonly used as a laboratory preservative since it can kill just about anything...
The NaN3 and ignitor are not actually in the air bag - they are in an inflater, with a filter so they don't end up in the air bag.
There are also system design issues. You can push the caps to the very limit of their rated ripple current, or you can use more caps and share the current around.
Medical stuff routinely uses electrolytics. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to fail a lot less often than doctors and nurses. They do not. The lifetime depends on the grade selected by the engineer, and how hard the design pushes the cap. A good cap used properly can last for many years of continuous service. That's good enough for many applications, even in safety-critical systems. You can't be serious! Tantalums are notoriusly flaky. Not only that, the usual failure mode is that the cap vanishes in a spectacular flash of purple fire. Every capacitor failure I've ever seen in computing equipment has been a tantalum. An engineer who used to work at Motorola told me that tantalums were banned from pager designs. At the time, Motorola would rather pay the premium for ceramic caps than risk tantalums. It depends entirely on the service life that is needed, and the degree of redundancy you can afford. Satellites and airbags have to remain in service for decades without repair, so electrolytics are probably unacceptable. Medical equipment generally doesn't need such high reliability, and frequently uses electrolytics. (Seriously. Med equipment is regularly replaced, there's no point in making it more than a couple of orders of magnitude more reliable than physicians, and the critical stuff has spares sitting on shelves.) Telecom equipment can afford redundancy in almost everything, and so it's full of electrolytics.-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
80% of the world's supply of coltan, the ore from which tantalum is extracted, is found in the Congo (formerly Zaire). Illegal mining has caused large sections of Kahuzi-Biega National Park and the Okapi Wildlife Reserve forests to be cleared. The U.N. has determined that 90% of the gorillas in these parks have been killed in the last five years, primarily by the illicit miners, leaving only about 3000 remaining. The miners kill the gorillas as a threat to their safety, and sell the meat for extra income.
It's not an easy problem to solve: coltan sold for upwards of $600/kg in the late 1990s (although it's down to about $100/kg today.) A team of miners can produce about one kg per day, and each miner can earn about $200 US/month in a region where the average income is $10 US/month. Technology's demand for tantalum has driven the poorer residents of these nations to take the easy money where possible. And according to the U.N., both sides in neighboring Rwanda have been funding their civil war in large part by sales of this illegally mined tantalum.
What can be done? It is reported that deposits of coltan have been found in dormant volcanos in Greenland. And there are legitimate mines elsewhere in the world. MoBo manufacturers can and should agree to purchase and use only "gorilla safe" or "non-Congo" tantalum caps (or they can continue to use better quality electrolytic caps.) But this will only occur if the demand for gorilla-safe tantalum crosses some magical political threshhold. I wish I knew what it would take.
John
I use tantalums instead of electrolytics as a rule. Electrolytic caps have a higher ESR, and the dielectric fluid is prone to leakage. The lifetime of an electrolytic is shorter than that of a tantalum - they have a finite lifetime, as the liquid electrolyte evaporates.
While it is true about tantalumns having a particularly impressive failure mechanism, once you remember not to reverse the polarity you don't have problems. Electrolytics also behave poorly when reversed. In addition, electrolytics have a minimum operating voltage and a maximum operation voltage. And how's this:
"Conventional aluminum electrolytic capacitors which have gone 6 months or more without voltage applied may have to be reformed."
Electrolytics are also physically larger than Tantalums, not smaller. They are indeed more expensive, but worth it.
Yes, I use ceramics whenever possible (esp. NP0/C0G, none of the x7r or worse grades). Ceramics are the best general purpose - no polarity issues, small physical size allows them to be extremely close to the DUT (for bypassing), and they have pretty good SRF. The only problems - the max capacitance you can get isn't too good. Polyprop/polystyrene are better for high fidelity audio type signals (earthquake detection anybody?).
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.