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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. We had 50 mobos go bad by jarkko · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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 :-)

  2. Screw home PCs, what else are these components in? by RMH101 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

  3. Unreliable anyway by BenjyD · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

  4. Re:Screw home PCs, what else are these components by ozbird · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  5. Low-ESR capacitors by 43tom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!

  6. Re:Experienced it first hand by FrostedWheat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!