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Illicit Leaky Capacitors Killing Motherboards

Posted by chrisd on from the plans-out-the-back-door dept.

mcd7756 writes "The IEEE Spectrum magazine has an article about how capacitors made with a stolen formula for the electrolyte are leaking and causing motherboards to fail. Some computer manufacturers are admitting to the problem; others are hiding it."

6 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. I have no comment... by EmagGeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    other than this is just further proof of the lenghts corporations will go to in order to make more money. Theft, lies, deceit, are all perfectly acceptable business practices these days, especially in east Asia.

    This story has been circulating around for a long time, but this article is a good update on what's going on. I was very surprised to read that manufacturers actually threatened that guy who put a list of problem boards on his website.

    You know, this is an all-too-disturbing trend. If you look at the behavior of media-giants, RIAA, MPAA, and now computer hardware makers - they'd all like to see us just locked in our homes, doing what they want us to do, seeing only what they want us to see, and not having any communication with anyone else... because if we can communicate with other people (i.e. by publishing a list of boards that are prone to failure), we'll realize just how badly we're being taken. That would eat into profits, and therefore should be made illegal. Heaven forbid consumers are allowed to make informed decisions..

    Starting to sound like Soviet Russia?

  2. You get what you pay for by amigaluvr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This shows that quality comes at a cost. If you truly want to get good quality goods, don't expect to keep forcing the market to make cheaper and cheaper products.

    Why would a company steal a formula such as this? so they ddn't have to pay as much for the 'real deal' and then henceforth could sell at a cheaper price and undercut others. When this happens quality suffers.

    It has happened in many other industries and frank, I'm surprised it hasn't yet happened in something as stressed and pushed-cheaper as the motherboard and other componentry markets.

    Rampant commercialism is causing problems like this

    1. Re:You get what you pay for by archeopterix · · Score: 5, Insightful
      This shows that quality comes at a cost. If you truly want to get good quality goods, don't expect to keep forcing the market to make cheaper and cheaper products.
      Unfortunately this works one way only. While low cost very often means low quality, high cost does not guarantee high quality. Free market only works if consumers are informed.

      Now the article mentions that motherboard manufacturers' lawyers threatened the guy who posted the list of affected motherboards on the net. I think that this is the real problem, not the faulty capacitors, industrial espionage or businesses overcutting costs - these things will always happen, but the situation gets really bad when the mechanisms for fixing them stop working.

    2. Re:You get what you pay for by InadequateCamel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I hardly call $250-300 ASUS motherboards "pushed-cheaper" "componentry"(?). I'll go out on a limb and say that cheap capacitor fluid doesn't drop the price by a significant amount. If the boards start being pressed on stale Melba toast and shipped in Tupperware containers, then I will really get worried :-)

      Commercialism isn't the problem, it is unscrupulous business practice. Ethical and commercial are not mutually exclusive, believe it or not. It is just getting harder to separate the two...

      Happily running an A7V266 with my fingers, toes and eyes crossed.

  3. Well no, actually by kfg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's starting to sound rather like America, and exactly the sort of capitalistic tyrany the founding fathers were afraid their republic could turn into.

    You see, the difference is, in Soviet Russia the government owned the means of production.

    In America the means of production are in private hands ( the very definition of capitalism) but own the government.

    A subtle difference to the man on the street perhaps. After all, at serf level tyrany is tryany, but it isn't fair to slander it with the label of the great "evil empire." It's pure laissez-faire capitalism and a "free" wage slave is still a slave.

    KFG

  4. watch out for bad power supplies by Wansu · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Power Supplies also use low ESR electrolytic capacitors. I'll bet some of the bad capacitors turn up in power supplies too.

    --
    Wansu, th' chinese sailor