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Illicit Leaky Capacitors Killing Motherboards
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."
That was fun, all Abit. The caps develop a bulge
:-)
on top and after a while they leak the stuff out.
Spontaneous reboots, blue screens and all sorts of fun.
I'm just glad it wasn't me doing the replacing
To quote: "The large volumes of passive content in any electronic device means that you have that many more chances for a product to fail". I can see that motherboards that pop are going to be a major pain in the backside, particularly for us small system builders, but what other devices use these suspect capacitors? aircraft? cars? lifts? phones? routers? Anyone care to speculate?
From the article:
"Zogbi cites tests by Japanese manufacturers that indicate the capacitor's lifetimes are half or less of the 4000 hours of continuous ripple current they are rated for."
4000 hours for the good capacitors? That's like 6 months of continuous usage. Surely shome mistake?
The batch of SunRay 1 terminals (first generation?) that Sun recalled due to a power supply problem have the faulty capacitors. They were the same brand of capacitors as some dual-CPU MSI motherboards we had that died.
At the time, I also wondered what other devices may have these faulty aluminium electrolytic capacitors, but it appears the answer is not many; probably due to their cost, they seem to be restricted to high frequency switched mode power supplies.
I had 4 motherboards at work randomly stop working, they 'might' have lasted 6 months. They bluged stuff out of the bottom, and then because of the bulge tilted over. I wish I had some pics of the stuff. No one belived me that the capaictors were the reason that the computers kept failing. Anyway, I would check the less expensive motherboard manufacturers. I am going to see if I can find one today and take some pics of it.
The article speculates that a scientist stole the recipe for the electrolyte and sold it (probably for a lot of money) to the competitor.
How difficult would it be to buy just one capacitor from your competitor (for $0.05), open it up and do a chemical analysis on it?
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
This is old news! (Sep. 2002) I submitted this to /. some time ago, but it was rejected...WTF?
Links to original (and informative) articles are Faulty capacitors and Passive Component Industry report.
In fairness most of the products affected carry a "Made in Tiawan" warning!
I checked over 3 epox boards I have here. They
appear to be fine. No suspect looking capacitors.
YMMV. I've been using an 8k5a2+ for a while and
I'm really liking the thing. Using it now. The
onboard sound is a PITA to get working with
surround and linux though. When you do give up
and get the OSS commercial driver, you'll notice a 30ms lag
in every game until you give up again and get
something cheap that works great with kernel
drivers like an es1371. Damn The Strokes are a
good band.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
My older ABit board suffered the same fate a few days ago. I took a pic here.
I've got replacment capacators here now, gonna attempt a repair later today. I've never tried to fix a motherboard before, so should be fun!
My old EP-8KTA+ suffered from this problem. I gave it to a friend who's an electronics freak and he checked out out.. said he's gonna try and replace the capacitors. I wonder if he'll get it to work again.
The effects were that first, I couldn't get it to run with my old power supply. Somehow the mainboard failed to switch it on. I had to use one that would switch on when u switched the power button on the backside. Then it just failed to work alltogether...Ah well.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
While this is pretty bad for the home consumer, its not as bad as it is for a large company who buys in bulk. Many of the larger companies, and even some smaller, will buy say 150 of the exact same type of system for their workers for various reasons. If this is an issue with that board, thats 150 computers that could die out for a known issue.
How many companies do you know have checked what mother board is in the, say, Dell Dimension 1234x Desktop Model? What they look at is they can buy it in bulk under a business license, it has a certain size hdd, and its easy to replace/repair. The Mobo on a business class machine like this isnt even taken into consideration unless you are looking for onboard something.
This is a lanadmins worse nightmare now.
We've had el-cheapo board with sub-standard components around for years. Back in 1998 when I was working for a major UK PC builder/retailer, we had a very large batch of motherboards with this same problem. It was the biggest capacitors on the board which used to fail, sometimes blowing a chunk out of the PCB!
Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
Think of how many decisions in business don't even look good on paper anymore. Companies shedding devisions that, while making money, aren't making BOOKOO money. All the games like 37.5 hour work weeks on your pay stub. And all of those assine hoops they jump through for tax reasons.
Now if I go to company A and say, hey, for yor next data center upgrade I can save you 80% of the cost by going with Linux I would be laughed out of the meeting. If I turn around and say I can save 10% of your next round of computer upgrades by skipping the floppy, they might buy it. If I say that I will save them a fraction of a penny on a penny component by going with a noname manufacturer, I'd get promoted.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
they're a little older @ 2000 so they may be safe from this, how far back does this go...the article mentioned that problems started showing in 2001
:)
Good question. I don't remember exactly when I built that machine. The 800Mhz Pentium III was fairly new when I got it, and 'orribly expensive. I'd guess it was 2001.
I also remember being annoyed at these new 1Ghz CPU's that made my machine obsolete
Abit cheap. Many of Abit's products have been chosen as top picks by numerous reviewers. They are just one of the manufacturers impacted by these sorry caps. I've had about half a dozen bad Abit mobos, primarily dual P III and single Athlon mobos, that have had this problem, and Abit has handled the RMAs in a completely satisfactory manner.
Aha! I had a guy come into our shop with a dead motherboard, and it looked just like that... an entire row of capacitors right along the CPU had just... exploded. The casings were loose inside the case and the dielectric was trailing down like a loose roll of ticker tape. I thought at the time that the system had been hit by a power surge, and we've been using that board as a warning to our clients to buy and use uninterruptable power supplies/surge protectors...
End of lesson. You may press the button.
I had a simalar experience with Compaq. It was on an older system (PII/300mhz) a few years back. I was on my computer one night, about to call it quits and I hear a loud POP! About 20 seconds later the computer crashed and went black. It did that often though, so I didn't think anything oddly of it. I assumed the pop was a tree branch or something.
So I come back the next day to turn on the computer. Nothing. It's dead Jim. So of course I open it up to see what's wrong. When I open it up, I saw the outside casing of a capacitor laying on the floor of the case, and noticed an odd indention in the case. Aparently a capcitor near the CPU on the MOBO just blew itself off the night before and put a dent in the case! I found on the MOBO where the capacitor was, and it had greatly expanded.
Now it get funny. So I call compaq, thinking that I can ask for a new capacitor, because it seemed to be an odd one that I didn't have a spare of. I call up and I say, I need to get a new part for my motherboard. He asks me what the problem is, not listening to my question. I said the computer won't turn on because of a problem with the MOBO. He took that as a cue to run me through making sure all the cables were plugged in, etc... At one point he thought I had it in sleep mode. Moron.
Anyway, he is like, well I want you to do this- and I said "well I can't really do that I know the problem is a capacitor on the motherboard gone bad". He tells me to hit the sleep button again, making sure everything is plugged in. I say I can't do that because the computer is taken apart on my desk. (to get to anything on those you had to take half of the Chasis apart to get to the mobo, which was now laying on the desk). He seemed rather taken back by the fact that I had even opened up the case, let alone taken out the mobo.
So he says to me "didn't you see the warrentee stickers" I said yea, but how else was I supposed to put in a Voodoo 2 instead of your crappy Rage card, and more memory. He seemed to think I was supposed to send it in for that. Anyway, he wouldn't send me a capacitor. And told me to get my warrenty stuff in order and then call them.
Morons at compaq. When I build systems for people, I expect them to take them apart. It's not like I overclocked it or anything.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
The early graphite-colored AirPort Base Stations had a very widespread nasty problem of failing because of two capacitors failing - two Lelon capacitors. Apple acknowledged the problem within a certain serial number range (PW940XXXXXXX through PW952XXXXXX), and fixed the problem for customers out of warranty. However, Apple continued using the same apparently-faulty Lelon caps, and graphite base stations continute to fail. All that's needed is to replace these two capacitors; see this site for background information, and a picture of the Lelon capacitor compared to others. It's significantly smaller, considering the voltage and capacitance ratings, than other similar capacitors. Since it's a Lelon (one of the brands mentioned in the article), and because one of the supposed benefits of the secret electrolyte was to be able to make the caps smaller, it now seems clear what went on here. Apple hasn't made the graphite base stations for some time now, but they kept using the same faulty Lelon caps until the very end.
For anyone who wants to repair their base station - the symptom is all red lights, continuing to power cycle, and perhaps even a faint hissing noise coming from the failed capacitors - I recommend Radio Shack 35V 220uF electrolytics (272-1029). They're small enough that the base station doesn't have to be modified (the hardest part of some of the suggested replacements), and seem to work fine. I've replaced a few with these now, and they've all been working like a charm.
I'm willing to bet some of these capacitors ended up in cheap power supplies. I can't tell you how many ATX power supplies i've replaced in the last couple of years. Almost all of them smell like burning electrolyte when they die.
The old adage applies; you get what you pay for. I've since stopped buying $29.00 power supplies and sub $100.00 motherboards. Now I pretty much only use Intel server and workstation boards (unless i'm building an Athlon machine).
-ted
I brought it back to the place I got it http://www.nanosys1.com/, (I don't work for them, BTW) and they not only took my board back and RMA'd it, they sold me a newer one at 10% over cost. I think I would be greeted with confused looks and laughter if I went to Best Buy or Computer "Go-Round".
I now have my motherboard back (they explained that it's better to RMA through them, since they have a relationship with the board makers; more chance of MSI fixing/replacing it.) and my new board is chugging along nicely. I've been buying stuff from them since '97 and now that I've moved out of the Mpls area, I drive an hour and a half to do business with these guys. Happily.
A couple of years ago when i used to work on tech support for Packard Bell machines, we started getting people phoning up saying "my computer smells of fish" - most of them also complained that their computer was no longer working. Turned out the capacitors on the power supply were leaking - and for some reason the electrolyte smelled of fish.
I think maybe they just used cod liver oil or something.
--
cHris
In an editorial I read lately an interesting statistic was mentioned - A survey of Americans showed that 19% thought that they were in the top 1% income bracket. Not only that but a further 15% thought they would be in the next year.
Another fun quote (so that none of this comment is original material) is from Alexis de Tocqueville:
"The American Republic will endure until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."
Now the Bush crew are doing one better: bribing the people with visions of their own money while giving the majority of it to that almost-mythical richest 1%!
Or at least that's how I feel about it.
Wah!
Kemet Electronics is near where I live. They make a considerable chunk of electronics and computer related capiciotors. I have heard they started cutting costs through "dynamic engineering restructure" (what exactly does that spin mean) - ever since they have had to lay off lots of workers because they are getting less and less orders due to quality problems.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Well, I was wondering if the thief stole a decoy formula. Either an outright fake, or more likely the material was made using two or more ingredients, and the makers of those ingredients were told it was the only ingredient (or it was merely called "capacitor dielectric A7" and "...A8"). Right now some engineers and managers are celebrating that their theft protection trick did work. And I congratulate them.
As I'm working as an IBM Tech Supporter, I can tell you guys that the problem with motherboards (systemboards/planars) and leaking capacitors are well konw by IBM.
IBM's way to handle that problem (internally known as ECA063) are as following:
If an customer calls in and tells us that his (or hers) computer can't start, we have to ask them to open the computer and take a look at the motherboard and see if they can see any buldging or venting capacitors around the CPU or if the computer has a fishy smell (!)? If they can, then we will replace the motherboard, even if the customer is without warranty...
The problem with the computer not srtarting can be linked to the PSU, but in some cases it's the motherboard which as failed.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.