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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."
I have a feeling that this is the case with many Abit motherboards. I have been the proud failure of two electrolyte leaking boards.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/04/175121 0&mode=flat
"Indeed, those who have repaired the damaged boards say that they have encountered crippled motherboards from Micro-Star International, ASUSTek Computer, Gigabyte Technology, and others."
;)
Well shit, and I thought the woolly jumper I wore when I built my box killed it. Now I don't have to feel so bad about sending our broken mobos back and claiming it arrived that way! (I'm joking, I'm joking! Nobody tell Dell or the Cowboy gets it.
Good thing my computer is from 97.
HTTP/1.1 400
but at least I'll admit to it. Unlike certain manufacturers.
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?
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?
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
Tech Support : Is there a capacitor leaking on your motherboard ?
Customer : What ???? How dare you talk about my moma like that, tell me right now, who's that #@&*%$ capacitor ?
getSexySig();
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
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?
no one yet wrote 'the capacitor couldn't take it. Har Har Har'
;)
Maybe it's a conspiracy - all the capacitors in the entire world would commit suicide at the same time, destroying computing world wide.
Or maybe I have nothing to reply to this. Except that, as a mostly-software-guy, I feel in many ways 'morally superior' to mere hardware faults...
My other
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.
ESR capacitors
I read this as: 'ESR capacitated and leaking all over my motherboard'. Trying to get that picture out of my head. Failed..Going home, to take a nap.
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]
Tis nothing that a little duct tape can't fix. =D
.. no probs as of yet.
Or worst case, you could still entertain your friends with the amazing exploding capacitor trick.
BTW: I have a Gigabyte 845PE
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
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.
In the early 90s some "clever" manufacturer made a line of 486 mainboards with n Kbytes of "Virtual Cache" on board. The cache memory chips were fake, just empty plastic chips soldered to the board. The BIOS was also hacked to show an unexisting cache and of course soldered to the board to discourage analysis/reprogramming.
Didn't they mean to say that "Leaking Capacitors Muck up Fotherboards"?
only works if the govt. lets it work
Notice that mp3 trading is a classic example of the free market applying pressure to the suppliers and yet instead of heralding it as a success of capitalism in action the US and others are applying protectionism to the music industry.
CDs are too expensive. The only analysis I need is that people are putting effort into copying them for free. The market wants to see a CD album for somewhere in the $3.99 region.
The CD producers have been prosecuted for running cartels and still they whine.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Basically anything that uses a switching power supply or a switching voltage regulator is at risk IMO. That covers most consumer and commercial equipment other than stuff that's physically too small to have one of these caps, or that handles only audio/radio.
Here we go again! Yet another base compound which was poorly made, put into a product, sold to others, put in their products, sold to OEMs, built into PCs, bursting and leaking, in the house Jack built. In this instance, instead of having one big company to point the finger at, we've got loads of little ones all over Asia. Fun!
Sucks, try finding s replacement motherboard has not been a good time either. It was my web and ut2k3 server too. Sorry for the downtime guys.
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
I am just curious if the Asus or Abit motherboards that I own might be affected ??
All the failed capacators seem to be from the company JPCON. On my motherboard (that also failed) they are branded JACKCON.
So if you board has these capacators, I'd keep an eye on them.
It's been well established that the ECUs in the '90-'94 turbo Eclipses and Talons (DSMs) were made with substandard capacitors which would leak after several years causing the exact problems outlined here. Traces on the board would be destroyed and teh things would be left useless.
The difference? Mitsubish *never* acknowledged the problem. They just fixed it under the covers in '95 and never told anyone about it. Nice, huh?
Thomas Dorris
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?
I've already lost a MOBO to these leaky capacitors. It really pissed me off, since it wasn't even a year old. And yes, it was an Abit board. I will never cheap out again.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
than it is to Soviet communism. One could think of it as capitalist fascism, as opposed to state fascism.
The primary difference is that in capitalist fascism the private owners of captial are free to contract members of the government into their 'employ,'whereas in state fascism it works the other way around and the state has military force at the their disposal at the bargaining table and in enforcing the contract. One could argue that this last is true of capitalist fascism as well, but I would refer such as wish to argue that to study the MS anti-trust settlement and to compare this to the nationalization of corporations under state fascism.
While the difference between the two is actually quite important at the government/corporation level it is, again, almost imperceptable at the prole level.
A slave is as a slave is compelled to do and giving an employee a nice little nametag that labels him an 'associate' doesn't, in truth, make him one.
KFG
> what other devices use these suspect capacitors? aircraft? cars?
Sigh. There goes another 10 years before our flying cars get here.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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
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.
Theres no need, they didn't let them get away with the *real* secret formula...
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
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/
now the drip?
What the hell is the next STD for motherboards?
digital clymidia?
However, I'm glad that this is happening to boards that end up in the hands of tech-savvy individuals that can spot the problem. People who buy ABIT, Asus, etc... boards expect a lot from the product that they recieve and are usuially knowledgeable about the equipment that they run.
I could only imagine if this happened to a major computer company, how it would be swept under the rug (which it may already have been). I see that IBM is named in the article, so at least they are willing to accept the failures. IBM is one of the only computer makers that I trust anymore after the way that they handled their hard drive failure issues. Yes, they tried to fix the problem by changing the uptime specs, but in the end, they got the problem worked out without too much hassle to customers (hardware zealots excluded).
I would like to know if this problem has been documented by any users that aren't using products from the manufacturers listed in the article and their expierence with the equipment, service and support.
I don't keep a lid on my coffee so when I walk around I look busy -me
High-Reliability motherboards don't use electrolytic capacitors for their onboard power supplies anyway. You'll only find these types on the typical built like crap (found in the majority of PC's built today)high volume motherboards. 5000 hour lifetime is what you'll find for typical ratings on low esr and long life electrolytic capacitors. This is only 200 days of continuous use.
High-Rel designs use very low esr tantalum caps. like these T530 Series
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
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
hmmmmmm.....gotta pop some cases open when I get home, they still work which is a good sign, and 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
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
> Anyone care to speculate?
;)
you've come to the right place...
I think this is all a bunch of crap. I haven't had ANY problems with the capacitors on MY motherb(&%.. ^)*!~`. ^X^X^X
I've been using a Tyan motherboard for the past 13 months and have had no such problems. I like their products, and hope that they've not used those dodgy capacitors on other models.
Follow me
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
The issue with electrolytic capacitors is this:
All capacitors have what is called an equivelent series resistance, or ESR (great: now we have 2 TLAs that are overloaded in context: RMS and ESR... )
The ESR only matters when there is a current flow through the device - a static voltage does not create (much of ) a static current flow - that is rather the definition of a capacitor. So if you are putting a DC voltage across the device all is well.
However, if what you are putting across the device is NOT DC, but rather DC with an AC component on top of it, then there will be a current flow as the capacitor tries to hold the voltage constant (again, that's rather the point).
However, due to the ESR, some of that current will cause heating of the device (power = I*I*R).
In caps with the good electrolytic, nothing much happens. In caps with the bad electrolytic, the electrolytic breaks down into hydrogen and oxygen, as well as boiling into steam. Pressure builds, and eventually the cap leaks. Since the other stuff in the electrolytic is caustic, your PC board traces rot away.
Now, at low ripple currents, this does not happen very fast, and any cap will have a long lifespan. However, as you approach the limit of the cap, the heating becomes the dominant factor, and the cap will cook itself fairly quickly.
That's where that 4000 hours comes from - that is not the cap running with a few tens of milliamps of current ripple across it, that is the cap getting amperes of current rammed down its throat, and running very hot.
That's also why you use tantalum caps wherever possible - tant's don't have an electrolyte, they use a very spongy tantalum slug with lots of surface area. They don't have quite the capacitance per unit volume that electrolytics have, but they don't leak, either. (but they do blow up real good (sic) when you exceed their rated voltage!)
www.eFax.com are spammers
The company where I work bought 300 microcomputers 2 year ago , now at least 10 micros per week appears with capacitors problem. Who is the reponsable for this damage, the vendor, the manufacturer, the computer integrator?
Is possible to change the capacitors?
By the way, the motherboards are Shuttle Spacewalker ME64, there is no reference about this problem manufacturers site.
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?
The trick isn't to find out what chemicals are in there. That's a relatively trivial exercise in gas chromatography or a mass spectrometer. Most well equiped schools, universities and certainly any research lab could do it and tell you the exact mix of chemicals in the electrolyte. I'm certain it happens most of the time.
But it doesn't gain you much. You then have to figure out how you get to the end result, or how to do it in the most cost effective fashion, or how to do it on a large scale.
Think about it - you can buy a chocolate cake from any supermarket, and its pretty easy to figure out whats in it. But without the recipie its pretty hard just to throw flour, eggs, milk and chocolate in a bowl and get the same cake, or be able to make 3000 a day and sell them for 5 dollars.
of the capitalist model with the model itself. A common error. Even economists make it with distressing regularity.
Just as HTML, XHTML and XML are all implimentations of the SGML standard, the capitalist model is simply a broad umbrella which leaves quite a bit of leeway for creativity and alternative modes.
Modern Western interest driven capitalism isn't the only possible implimentation. "Islamic Banking" is, for instance, attracting a great deal of, ummmmm, interest, these days, despite the fact that it eschews the charging of interest.
It is, nonetheless, a capitalist banking system, as were many of the monetary systems of the ancients who practiced free merchantilism. What's more, many modern western capitalists still raise their capital just as the ancients did.
"Sweat equity" is still capitalism.
KFG
Although if you agreed with it would simply be "common sense."
By the way, this post is insightfull as well.
KFG
I recall hearing a loud popping noise in my computer room, a few months back. I've not had any problems since the pop, but it might be a good idea for me to open it up and take a look at the caps.
you don't have the insight to understand the difference between insight and spelling.
You might, now that you bring it up, wish to check your own.
Checking your eyes wouldn't be a bad idea either.
KFG
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
Imagine a bewolf cluster made of motherboards with leaking capacitors.
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.
Don't click on link, or you'll remove your eyes with a spoon! Anybody knows why this is still moderated at 4?
....
There is no spoon
you don't think that, maybe, just maybe this has to do with all the over-clocking that is oh-so trendy these days?
anyone know if the soyo dragon k7v is affected by this? myself and someone i know have both had dragon boards lose stability (spontaneous reboots, lockups, incomplete posts) after around 1 year of use.
Actually, if you're looking to use them as bypass filters (as most of the applications they're used for in motherboards are), capacitors get cheaper as the frequency of the ripple you use them with increases.
Their reactance to AC drops as the capacitance and/or the frequency increases, so you can use a smaller capacitor on a higher frequency for the same effect as you would were you to apply a larger capacitor to a lower frequency.
What's this Submit thingy do?
It's a pretty simple fix though. Pull the ECU, remove the dead caps, clean board really well, $2 worth of good quality caps from Digikey and back in business. You can find detailed instructions on how to fix it here
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
How about combo VCR's and DVD players, or low-cost DVD players, or just plain VCR's? Most of the new ones suck so bad they die about 4-8 months after you buy it. i.e. Walmart Taiwan/Korea manufactured ultra cheap home electronics.
I know people who are on their third VCR/DVD player because then dang things keep dying and they are not worth repairing. One person has been through 2 Sony highend digital VCR's as well so it's not just the cheap stuff.
Lot's of failures lately, this explains a whole lot.
Quit your job and start your own business.
I fail to see the socialism in that attitude.
KFG
Hmm... Or maybe the explosions generate enough lift to make the car fly? Maybe this could be a blessing ;).
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
Please, don't tell me this is still the same problem almost 15 years later.
..who dumped their boards thinking they were simply dead? Will companies come up with a reimbursement/replacement policy?
Any class action suit underway?
-- Leeeter than leet
We have replaced 25 Gateway E-3400 733Mhz motherboards. This is about half of the number that we have of this particular motherboard and model. Several capacitors are bulged and black stuff is leaking out the top of all these. We have several other models and speeds of the same model but it only is affecting these 733's of a certain age.
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
Adam Smith wrote: "the government of an exclusive company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatsoever." So even the guy who definitively linked prosperity with a free economic system - one where the politicians don't exert much control over the markets - could see that the reverse situation - where the markets own the political power - should be avoided at almost any cost.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Then you wouldn't be a "wage slave" in those terms. You would have risen to the status of "the help."
While there is a difference in class status between the scullery maid and the corporate manager their *state* is the same.
I used the term "wage slave" in the sense of ability to personally control ones working conditions or not. The classical form of wage slavery that you refer to still exists in a form though, but it's slavery to the interest charged by lending institutions rather than the company store.
If you need to borrow money to own a car so that you can get to work, you may well be a wage slave, even in the classical sense. It's just less obvious.
I fully admit that I'm an odd bird in today's world. By *my* standards the guy who barely scrapes by with his own pool cleaning business is of a higher status than a corporation president, no matter how much he "makes."
The classical American Dream is *independence,* not income.
KFG
Oh pulleaze. People are bad. When the right sequence of events occurs, evil can propogate from bad person, to bad person, magnifying itself. This happens regardless of the legal framework. Some frameworks are better than others. Soviet style socialism was probably more corrupt than global corporatism, and far more secretive. "In Soviet Russia..." this story would not have appeared in any of the state controlled news outlets. In fact, in the real Soviet Russia exploding TV sets were a leading cause of fire because the tubes were bad.
Exactly what is the conspiracy here? Are you trying to tell me that the Japanese engineer who stole the formula had a meeting with the contractors who cut corners, who then agreed to threaten the manufacturers so they wouldn't say whether or not they were guilty? And since I've got the Simpsons on my mind now, I want to know exactly how the saucer people were involved in all this.
No, this is not starting to sound like Soviet Russia at all. Don't you see the irony in complaining that we "can't communicate" by "publishing a list"? First, we are communicating on Slashdot. Second, the IEEE article already contains some preliminary investigative work that can be used to develop such a list.
No, it won't be easy to track down all the bad boards. Nobody ever said freedom was easy, but at least it's possible. So kwitcherbitchin, open your case, check the caps, and start asking questions.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I've got an Abit BE6 (1). Been going strong for 3 years... I don't want it do die. I've already upgraded to an Abit KX7-333R, but I don't think the newer boards have any of these capacitors. My BE6 is becoming a DVD player. I just hope maybe it was a lucky batch since it's been going this long... or it's going to die any minute now.
Understanding is a three-edged sword. -- Kosh Naranek
....And easier filtering of RFI, and easier PFC, and ....
I figured anybody who needed my little primer didn't need any more complexity.
Some of the new quarter-brick DC-DC converter modules are simply unreal in the densities they give.
I worked with folks on a project that used about forty half-brick supplies to make an array capable of delivering several KW at 24VDC. Lots of fun.
www.eFax.com are spammers
In the consumer electronics repair industry this has been a problem for a while. I have had, for my sins, a few ham radio transcievers with this problem. The Kenwood TM-732 suffers from leaky capacitors on its control head, sometimes so much so that it will eat through a copper track on the PCB and stop the unit from functioning. It may be that this is due to a company stealing a formula, but it has become far more widespread.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
I tried 3 months ago to get my out of warrenty motherboard replaced and they flat out refused. Thats the last time Ill even build a machine with any abit hardware.
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.
sheephead
7d9e63e9501751ff4bf9307989d5623d *SheepHead
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.
I just had my Abit VP6 repaired by Gary Headlee, mentioned in the article, and he did a very professional job. He noticed a couple of traces that I had scratched with the back end of a card, and he repaired those for me, too. Turnaround time was less than a week.
I'm sure he's going to be quite busy now, being slashdotted with broken hardware, but you can check out his prices at http://home.att.net/~garyheadlee/services.htm.
Maybe this is old news, but it's new to me, and I am most grateful slashdot ran that story today. I knew nothing about such a problem, and I just got a new Abit motherboard a couple days ago that I strongly suspect has failing capacitors. I've been trying to figure out the problem in this thread, so this story has been very enlightening to me in my current situation. Now I need to figure out how and where to get my capacitors replaced before they blow up or start leaking.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
I am scared to take the sides of my case to stop my PC from overheating. Now it feels like I am sitting next to a microwave with a box of bullets in it set for 10mins on high. Aiieeee!!!
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
That explains a lot! I wondered if it was my power supply, my UPS, or something bigger. I believe that my video card may have been damaged from the bad capacitors on my mobo also. Here is a picture of my bad 8K7A. I wonder if EPoX is doing any replacements or repairs.
This is the lowest thing Microsoft has ever done in order to sell additional licenses.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The USAF had, in the 1970s and 1980s, a field electronics reliability assessment program. About 1% of the electronics boxes in Air Force inventory were marked with a stencil that said "If this unit fails, send it back to ... for analysis." An Air Force unit tore the failed components apart and found out what went failed. And why. Components were pulled apart and examined in detail, using electron microscopes and other analysis tools to figure out exactly why the thing failed.
When the USAF found something, articles would appear in Aviation Week and other trade magazines, with company names, part numbers, pictures of failed components, and detailed explainations of exactly how the manufacturer had screwed up. This was very effective in tightening up quality control. It is, in fact, one of the main reasons minor components are far more reliable than they used to be.
This stopped during the Reagan years.
In the heyday of 3.5" diskettes, Sony had a unit in Japan analyzing failed diskettes sent in for warranty replacement. They discovered that the main cause of failure was scrapings from the shutter getting onto the recording surface. A redesign of the shutter cut failures way down.
you may have a constitution but I don't.
I have the legacy of a state that was created in order to protect landowners from the people.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Better power supplies put out less ripple, which means there's less heat generated inside these sub-standard capacitors. So even if your board has these things mounted to it, you might not see the problem for months or years.
Yet another reason not to cheap-out when building a system.
Chip H.
BTW, probably the world's best Tantalum capacitors are made by Kemet. Their products have been in everything from the original IBM System 360 to the International Space Station.
I posted a newsgroup question about a year ago. nobody had any answers.
my company sells computers that controll security systems. I specified abit motherboards because they were allegedly really stable. I have a BH6 at home that's been solid for 4? years of 24/7 use.
my company got seriously hosed when these computers started dying. I feel like someone should be responsible for my company's loss. whether that's abit or their supplier or whoever.
does anybody have any leads on where to go or what to do?
it just now occurred to me to write to Ed Foster of Infoworld and see if he can publicize the problem and convince somebody to step up.
If everyone who got hosed writes to him, he's more likely to take up our cause.
any other suggestions? thanks
my livejournal is interesting and worth reading - I swear. I know everyone thinks their blog is interesting. mine is.
So, the upshot is that I replace one bad cap board with another one, and about a year later, it goes bad. At least maybe I'll be able to get ABIT to fix this one.
In the meantime, I'm on my third MB in this machine. Using an ASUS with an honest-to-god Intel processor and chipset. Among other things, I'm tired of chasing down 3rd-party finger pointing incompatibilities, when somebody's butt-thumper video board doesn't play nice with somebody's Intel-clone chipset.
Everytime I have to change MB's though, it costs me a bundle, because the video board, power supply, and RAM usually have to upgraded, due to increased requirements or incompatibilities.
"So if you board has these capacators, I'd keep an eye on them."
Uh, I'd wear eye protection if you do.
Sorry - that was lame.
I keep a stock of 680uF, 200V caps for this.
I've seen a lot of it. I also keep a lot of small tantalums around for the bypass stuff.. some is really critical around the switching power converters, but the OEM's use aluminum because its cheaper.
I wrote a much more detailed synopsis of the failure mechanism I discovered in another post, but darn if I can find it.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Nice laugh!
In general, I think there is way too much emphasis on high performance and low cost these days, with nowhere near enough emphasis on stability and quality. This capacitor issue is just one symptom of quality generally going down the toilet.
Over the past year, I've personally had three motherboards become unstable or fail outright due to "exploding capacitor syndrome". The three boards were all different brands (MSI, Abit, and FIC). On the MSI, several of the capacitors literally exploded, and the board wouldn't boot any more. The Abit and FIC just went slowly downhill in terms of stability, as the capacitors became bloated and started to leak. I also scavenged a fourth dead board (another MSI with exploded capacitors) from one of my clients, who was throwing it out.
If you've got a little experience with soldering, it's not too difficult to replace the caps; this will generally restore the board to working order, provided none of the capacitors shorted out and took other components with them when they died. All you need are replacement low ESR capacitors (Panasonic FC series are good, you can mail-order them from places like Digi-Key); a soldering iron and desoldering tool (from your friendly neighborhood Radio Shack); some wire cutters (for trimming the capacitor leads after you've soldered them in place); and a steady hand.
If you get particularly unlucky, you may also have a fried switching regulator (MOSFET), or even burned PCB traces. It may still be possible to salvage the board even in extreme cases like this, but you'll need to buy replacement MOSFETs as well, and get a little creative with soldering some wires to the board to bypass the burned traces.
I've already repaired both MSI boards and the Abit. The MSI from my client turned out to be more trouble than I expected though (one of the VIO regulators was toasted). The FIC is next up on the operating table...
Yeah, some of the ones I've had that blew were the JPCON ones. I've also had "Chhsi" and "I.Q." capacitors bulging and/or leaking as well.
is the caption under the picture: "busted cap."
Reminds me of EE lab. Our lab TA told stories of how he used to charge up caps and then leave them on the bench, so when his TA would pick them up he'd get a huge shock. He also warned us not to reverse the polarity of caps, or they pop. Of course, we proceeded to find out what else would pop. Sadly, most components just get really hot.
Anyway, to cut to the chase, the moral of this story is if an EE student threatens to "pop a cap in your ass" beware of lab benches.
I had exactly this problem on an Epox 8kta+. It is a fine product, but after 4 of 16 low-ESR capacitors blew, I just replaced them all. Epox has not admitted the problem AFAIK, but in their new boards they have sensibly switched to Sanyo quality low-ESR capacitors.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted and ignored otherwise.
Quit your job and start your own business.
I fail to see the socialism in that attitude.
I certainly plan to do just that. At some point, I may need to employ people to help in my business. Once I do that, according to you, I become a slaveowner, and my employees are slaves. Makes sense.
The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!
I opened up my machine sometime in December in order to inspect it for this very problem. Because I'd read in the previous slashdot article that Abit motherboards had experienced this problem, and my motherboard was (is) an Abit KT7-Raid (non -A flavor), I was particularly curious. Sure enough, two capacitors had clearly bulged open and were leaking paste, and three more were on their way towards failing. Interestingly, I hadn't had any observable symptoms whatsoever; I just checked the board on a whim.
I consulted the Abit website, and at the time they required the original 'invoice' from the motherboard if you wanted to have them repair the problem for free. If you have that paperwork, RMA'ing the board should not be too troublesome. I really didn't think I could find my old paperwork for this board. Abit offers to repair motherboards without original invoices for a charge of (as I recall) $25.00US. I think you have to pay shipping one way.
I considered using the services of the guy linked to in the previous slashdot article, but his prices were about in line with Abit's. That didn't really help any -- for the amount of money he wanted, I could just have just had Abit do it. I could also have just as easily replaced the board for $45.00 plus shipping on Ebay, but it probably would have just failed all over again.
I felt I could replace the capacitors myself, and as it turns out, I was right. Here's my advice to anyone who wants to try to do this repair themselves:
Good luck. Don't blame me if you scew something up, burn something out, or get someone killed. Send it back to the manufacturer if you're not up to the task, or don't have much experience in such matters. There is a touch to this sort of repair that comes from practice, I think, and the only way to develop it is to get your hands dirty. Or burnt. Or something. Previous to this, I had only a little experience with this sort of rework, so don't be too shy.
Besides, Natalie Portman demands a guy with trained fingers.
Maybe its just the light...?
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" - George Orwell
I was the one of the top technical people for Compaq support at one of the 5 centers from 1995 to 1996. This was during the release of Windows 95. I still have a ton of my own documentation from those days. I thought about publishing it, but it would be work to make it presentable. Sometimes I notice my writing on the Compaq and Microsoft support sites, although they are nice enough to change every letter and even the length of my name.
There are a couple of problems with your story:
1. We never worried about someone opening the case. Half the hardware repairs were customers playing Break-It-Myself, but we fixed it anyway for the goodwill. Yes, there was a limit of 2 cup-holder replacements, but if the customer was noisy enough they might get a third.
2. We would not/could not replace a capacitor. Call us with a motherboard with a burn mark (or any other easily identifiable problem), and we are going to send a replacement motherboard. Most of the A+ certified technicians that would be sent to install it don't know how to open a case, never mind use a soldering iron.
3. The serial number is on the case. You do not need anything else for warranty work.
It is rather easy to prove that support centers cannot last. As soon as someone learns enough to be useful, they find a job where they are not tied to the phone. Occasionally the economy dries up and they get some experienced people, but nobody is buying new stuff, so they get less calls and need less people. Compaq solved these issues by shutting down the centers often, and opening new ones. Just insist that you are computer literate and get transferred until you talk to a computer literate support person.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
I spent a lot of time searching for a place that would replace the capacitors on my motherboard today, and I finally gave up on generic searches and did a google search for that guy, since his name was mentioned in the article, and came up with that page.
This is one of the reasons why I am an advocate for heterogeneous systems for server farms, clusters, labs, and such. If you have a server farm, you have some sort of tolerance for loss of systems. That redundancy works if systems fail at random, but this shows that that doesn't always happen. Let's say you have 200 machines with the same motherboard with the leaky caps. They all start leaking at about the same time, so they are all starting to wear out at the same rate. Now, let's say that the power company puts too much voltage on your line for a few seconds, the heat rises in the room, what have you, and all the motherboards blow at once. Or just 80% over an hour, it doesn't really matter. In any case, you're screwed.
Now, if you had differing systems, only half the systems are affected by the design flaw. The key here is to have systems with nothing in common. Power supplys, motherboards, cases, even cables must come from different companies. For example, half my server group is x86, the other half is SPARC. One runs Solaris, one runs NT. No matter what happens, with any design flaw, only half the servers will be affected at one time.
-twb
Yea, Supermicro stuff is great. The only downside to my current board (P6DGU) is that since I am running with some fincky software (Protools LE 5.3.1) it gets a little harry reconfiguring the IRQs. Also, some of the newer features aren't on mine. But then I guess it is an older board. I just wish I could slightly upgrade the board by flashing it. I have flashed it before, but all it did was allow up to 1ghz processors.
Tibbon
tibbon.com