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Corporate Espionage Leads To Faulty Motherboards
Champs writes "If you've gotten the feeling that they really don't make 'em like they used to, you might be right. This article at IEEE Spectrum tells the story of large batches of faulty capacitors sourced from Taiwan causing motherboards to eventually fail, with an interesting twist on the reason why these capacitors failed."
This story has already been posted. This story has already been posted. This story has already been posted.
One of these days/I'm going to cut you into little pieces.
.. like, two days ago, and last month too??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
... who were using the planned obsolecence features.
-Rusty
You never know...
This is getting really old
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Leaky electrolytic capacitors?
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.
Could it be that this isn't the whole story? perhaps the blaming on motherboards failing is coming from the manufacturers
Making improper motherboards with bad/cheaper processes, and then blaming some far-down-the-line capacitor maker who can't easily be traced. What then?
It's not unknown for things to be the opposite of what they seem.
I don't know who to believe any more. I would suspect however it's more than likely with cheaper and cheaper processes and manufacturing that the normal-spec caps can't handle shoddy workmanship
Then they fail.
Are we blaming the right people?
ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG I'm still getting Slashdot's History Pages.
:P
I'm stuck in Cache HELL!
Can someone tell me how to get the latest stories?
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering American Buttering American Buttering
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
So far, the only motherboard maker to admit to the problem is ABIT Computer Corp. (Taipei), and the only major PC maker to acknowledge being affected is IBM Corp. But the problem is likely to be more widespread. 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.
Nice of ABIT and IBM to come clean. And here I thought I was an idiot newbie for paying more and buying Intel mobo's to build my boxes. Or is it just a matter of time? Aaugh!
I'm not really a web designer, I just play one on the Internet.
I deleted all of my temp internet files and this story still showed up! Where did I go wrong?
maybe if the motherboards didnt have pentiums on them...;)
...if a duplicate post is a 'dupe', does that mean a triplicate post is 'tripe'?
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
I have never posted "dupe" before, but this is the _third_ time in recent history that I've seen this story.
Don't you people ever check the current articles?
Seriously...
hey, everyone! i don't think this is public yet, but there are some faulty capacitors going around!!!!! send this message to ten of your friends and post it everywhere or else nobody will know!!!!!!
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Fool me once, shame on me. ....
We should have learned our lesson about corporate espionage the first time. But now that history has repeated itself, within only a few days, I guess we didn't learn our lesson the first time here on Slashdot.
How many times will we have to have faulty motherboards and other consumer electronic items before we learn our lessons abotu corporate espionage?
Are we learning yet?
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
Wouldn't it be cool if the editors of slashdot ran a professional, spellchecked site? With policies that are more than whims? I know they're just a bunch of geek morons in Michigan, but a boy can dream, can't he?
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
Gary Headlee is the guy mentioned in the article who has more information on the list of boards affected:
Motherboard Cap Replacement
Multiple chinese natives are busted for spying in the Silicon Valley.
Cisco is dealing with a Chinese company that flat out stole it's software.
Software piracy is rampant in the third world.
And yet, our corporations in their all knowingness replace american workers with foreigners who quickly secret out trade secrets.
And yet, our corporations in their all knowingness move important operations offshore - operations with american credit information, customer information, and YOUR information.
This is going to blow up in our faces - but it won't be the government's problem, it won't be the company's problem - it will be your problem when your identity is stolen from your very own bank records and you need to clean up the mess.
It will be your problem when you try to get service from a company for a product you purchased (whether real or a "financial instrument.")
Already I have heard of Indian programmers causing people trouble when they loose a contract - mailing virus's and shit to the company's email server or attempting to cause damage.
Lets face it, there is a whole different set of morals over there - a whole different idea of what is right to do, and what is wrong to do. Are they poor because of the political and social decisions they make? Or because "America, the man, is keepin us down!" Or maybe because they have no concept of capitalism, no concept of win-win, no concept of value.
American business is going to learn this the hardway.
A whole bold new marketplace? No. Steal our ideas, steal our technologies, and build up products to sell at home. And they will tariff or ignore our products (aka see how they hate MS because it is not-built-there, among more valid reasons.)
I am sick of this. Evertime there is a dupe(a mistake! sometimes people make these) there is always the obligatory barrage of "DUPE" messages and never any discussion of the issue.
Get over it and find something constructive to do!
That's the the first time I remember hearing about it.
Anywho I have a MSI KT7 Ultra MB that's buring out power supplies. I've put it in my collection of old computer crap but I'm wondering if i'm a victim. However I dont see any problems with the capacitors and just chalk it up to a bad voltage regulator on the board.
This is the third time you've posted this
Quick - someone submit it again. see if we can't get to 4...
Slashdot has gone bureaucratic on us and is filing stories in trip li cate.
I can only imagine the physical distress you're caused by having to skip over an article that you've already seen before. As it turns out, many folks have other things to do with their time than stare at (insert fav browser here) and click refresh checking out new /. stories all day.
As for the editors, shame on them for not catching a duplicate in the many thousands of stories they sift through every day in order to provide you with some reading material at no charge to you whatsoever.
Does the expression "you get what you pay for" mean anything to you?
Seriously...
I and countless others are getting fed up with all the "this is a dupe" reporters out there.
I have two questions for you. Are you paying money for slashdot? Are you submitting plenty of original articles to slashdot yourself? If the answer's no and no (and it probably is since you have all the time in the world to go looking for the old links to the reposted stories), then either shut the fsck up or go start your own forum.
There are three kinds of intelligence. The first is those who just sort of go along ignoring everything. The second are those who criticize everything. But the third, and best, are those who create something at the risk of being criticized...like the people who run slashdot.
That makes them smarter then you so, again, if you notice a dupe...fine...notice it and then shut the fsck up and go masturbate over some pr0n or something.
This may have resulted in the duplicate post. Slashdot engineers are investigating. . .
You are not the customer.
I wonder if they intentionally sold the 'stolen' faulty capacitor formula to the Taiwanese
I think I figured out the trolls' new game:
1)submit stories that have already been posted, so that they will be accepted and re-posted.
2)Sit back and watch all the "dupe" posts and laugh.
3) Profit?
Otherwise, this is truly pathetic.
So I can understand how an editor might easily overlook a duplicate story, but a triplicate -- and so closely following the last instance -- suggests a lack of effort.
Could the editors employ some tools to help them watch for such slip-ups? Just logging the URL's previous stories have linked to, and warning if it sees them again would eliminate a number of the simple cases like this one (though there will be a number of false positives for links just pointing at a domain like cnet.com). But it's still a start, and could easily be refined to grow in accuracy over time.
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 = 166.6 days. No wonder "Made in Taiwan" has such negative connotations.
Okay, what do you get when you cross a mountain climber with a flu virus?
[Answer one level below]
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
AAaahh... You must be a /. editor.
Okay, you can't do it.
Although a flu virus *is* a vector, a mountain climber is a scalar.
[You have to know vector math to understand this one].
For a bonus question for you calculus folks:
The integral of [Cabin*dCabin] = Noah's Ark. Why?
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Pete and repeat went up the hill...
A paying slashdot customer took a gun and went after the editors... which do you think came down?
DISCLAIMER I don't think that violence is the answer to anything and I do not advocate the use of force to lower oil prices save our selves from possible violence down the road or to reduce the number of duplicates on slashdot
followed by exclusive, you-heard-it-here-first scoop at 1230.
About a month ago, my ABIT KT7-RAID board decided to blow some caps. Nice loud popping sound and instant power cut.
I looked around to try and replace it seeing the machine has been rock stable, and still my most used computer of the bunch. Quess what, the board is so far out of date, being only a few years old, that the CPU and memory used on it will not function in the current motherboards on the market. So a board upgrade is out of the question.
Hence the limited life span of a computer and components.
What to do? I checked e-Bay but the KT7-RAID boards were going for $50+ a piece. Instead I opted to get some replacement caps and try fixing the board myself. Total cost of parts ~$1.50! I got them from an electronics supplier online. The 'Shack' does not carry the correct size and ratings. I already have the soldering irons and tools to do this work from some minor case modding, so no extra layout of funds there.
About an hour of work, since I was going slow and taking my time. One recommendation, if you try doing it yourself, that bulb solder remover from the 'Shack' is crap. Get the spring loaded one.
Now the board is rock stable, and I just saved myself at least $48.
Disclaimer: I am not responsible in any way if you try to do the same and screw it up!
Okay, let's see what happened. Pharoah had a dream and couldn't remember it. So Joseph reminded him, and told him how there would be 7 years of good articles, and then 7 years without good articles in Slashdot.
So Pharoah asked "What should we do?" And Joseph said, "Let's save up the seven years of good articles, and then repost them during the seven years of bad articles."
Thus it was said, thus it was done, and thus we got seven years of bad articles.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Which motherboard makers threatened Mr. Headlee? And, on what grounds?
Mr. Headlee, if you are listening, post the manufacturers here so that we can all avoid their products, thereby letting them know it is a bad thing to hide behind lawyers.
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.
It's a tough job just keeping the Big Picture going, so weird effects show up in the small things. That's why television is all repeats, and why Slashdot has dups. Oh yeah, and Anonymous Coward really is this one guy.
Have a nice day, again!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The editors are stuck with the same crappy search tool we users are stuck with. Sure they check for prior postings, but the search tool is broken (almost as bad as SF.net) and never returs decent results.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sounds like that's not the only thing he's too lazy to do...
fslg503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8
It is easy enough to check this before you buy. Go up to the display case at your local computer parts retailer and ask to see XYZ motherboard that you are thinking of buying. Jot down all the markings on the electrolytic caps. Now go home and look up the datasheet for those caps. A good computer grade capacitor will have longevity of 2000 to 3000 hours or more at maximum ripple current and a temperature of 105 or 125C. Reputable brands are Panasonic HA or NHG, Rubycon, etc.
Forget case mods, maybe we need to start modding our mainboards with better caps.
When your motherboard blows up, this article is current.
Seriously.
For those who can't do the math, this is 166.66 days of normal continous operation, less than six months. If these caps are really rated for 6 months of use, then early failure is the least of our problems.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
From the Book of
And Saint Hemos displayed the posting on paper, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy Holy Posting that, with it, Thou mayest blow Thine readers to boredom in Thy mercy.'
And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu--
Hmm... Skipping a bit...
And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou choose random Story. Then, shalt thou post it three times. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt post, and the number of the posting shall be three. Four times shalt thou not post, nor either post thou two times, excepting that thou then proceed to post thrice. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, post thou thy Holy Posting towards thy readers, who, being naughty in My sight, shall comment on it.'
Amen.
Congratulations,
getSexySig();
... corporate espionage also leads to duped stories.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
This all ties back to a desperate need for innovation and leadership in the industry. Instead of looking for a way to creat the next Y2K-type boom, look for sustainable growth via innovation. It's more than clear no one cares about clock speed, and barring gamers, people care even less about video cards (take a look at where PC games rank in sales by walking into any recently remodeled Electronic's Boutique, PC games now take up less than 1/5th of the inventory). Wintel and their parnters should stop laying of the people who innovate, stop relying on market research and actually build something new. You need only look to Apple and the success they had with iMac and iPod to see that people don't mind paying for qualit when a product satisfies their needs.
... Cowboy McNeal!
Did you have a good sleep, last few days? Read your breaking news just now.
It's a helluvolotf great story and an important lesson for us pirates. Never ever pirate! All your caps will start leaking like hell and turn brownish like - whatwoosdat?
Eh, anyway, what we learned in school: repetition is everything. You simply cannot overdo repeating the multiplication tables.
You simply cannot overdo repeating that *you must not pirate*. Espionage is worse. Full stop.
Thanks, Comboy Neal for the enlightenment.
Better: do it again, oh yeah, please, over two days, we're getting old and forgetful. The Register is a shit, they only bring their stories once and a day later: forgotten. Yeah, keep us updated. A good Alzheimer enjoys a great story by any day.
Yes, I'm well aware of /.'s subscription service. I'm also aware that it's only $5 USD for 1000 pages. I would submit that this still falls under the aforementioned "you get what you pay for" scenario, given the relatively small percentage of duplicate articles versus original ones.
Sounds like he's worried that the Foreigners
will demonstrate the same business ethics as such
well-known American companies as Microsoft,
Scientology, Enron, AT&T, Verisign, MCI (I think
their US), PG&E, and suchlike.
So how'd this troll get modded up, anyhow?
#include printf("[Yeemp: deekoo~tentacle.net]\n");
1. Cut +5, interesting, funny, and insightful replies from last time.
2. Paste into comments box.
3. ??????
4. Karma!
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
I must have missed it before, but I'm glad I read the article now. Perhaps this is what is wrong with my web server. It has experienced debilitating hardware problems twice now. It has an ABIT KT7E that was purchased in Sep 2001.
Me: Computer! Activate nostalgia mode!
Computer: Yes Master
Computer: Going back 5 years, Sir Slashdot in 1998
Me: Well done. What is this? Star Wars as a religion back in 1998? But....but I have only been on Slashdot since 2000 and have already seen that article shown several times!
Computer: It's called "Temporal Amnesic Disorder", Sir
Me:Interesting...
I've seen this comment on another story, too
Calling Slashdot Editors idiotic morons is an insult to idiotic morons everywhere.
Too lazy to make a department? Maybe it shoulda been "Department of Redundancy Department"
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
This story has already been posted. This story has already been posted. This story has already been posted.
I tried to post this paragraph three times in a row but it failed the lamness filter
Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.
I have two Epox Athlon 750 boards that I bought at the same time about 3 years ago. About a year ago I opened the case on one of them and found two of the capacitor tin cans on the floor of the case. I put it back together and it ran fine until I turned it off about three months ago and let it set for about a month before turning it back on. It won't even post. No beeps, no lights. Five of the caps have brown junk on the tops, along with the two without covers, and they are all lableled TAYEH 2200uf. I replaced the board,
The other one has been running fine for the whole time. Probably time to replace it anyway...
Does the income I've derived from working with Unix belong to SCO?
has anybody heard any rumours about faulty motherboards recently? i knew /. going corporate was going to be a bad thing...
It's not much of a stretch to turn "quad" into "crap", either, if you do it phonetically.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Obviously not because if the editors did actually read the site, they would know these stories have already crossed the front page.
I suggest a two-pronged attack to solve this problem. The first is a sloppy pattern search to see if something with a similar headline and/or story copy has already been posted. The second? Editors have to read a certain number of stories on the site or their editorship is revoked automatically until they read enough stories again (Say, 33%.)
Of course this will never be implemented but it would probably work...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
1. Steal info from employer (but you screwed up anyway... idiot!)
2. Sell your company's IP... idiot! When would you like to go to prison?
3. Some company BUYS some schmuck's garbage IP... idiots!
4. Said idiots at that idiotic company don't test the idiot's garbage plans well... idiots!
5. Sell pathetic, untested crap to big motherboard manufacturers, guaranteeing you will lose business... idiots!
6. Motherboard manufacturers don't test and audit these new products... idiots!
7. More idiots try to cover up how much of idiots they are - yeah, like it won't get uncovered... idiots!
The only people that aren't idiots right now is IBM and any big manufacturer buying these boards. They can't test every little thing... but jesus what a series of idiocy
Berto
It's called "Read one, get one free!"
[if y'don't get it, look up the passage. And yes, archaeologists have indeed found the grain storage complex in question]
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Worse, they were already running short of new ideas, the new/hot game there when I left was an imported Pole Position (racing game) from Japan.
It wasn't any surprise to me that they were losing money. It was cool to have worked for the engineer who did Missile Command.
Tech Public Policy stuff
I didn't know above website existed, but after this story....
Heck, I don't care if this has been brought up before. I am just pissed that my ECS K7S5A died on me Dec 22, 2002, just two days after the 1-year warranty ended. Then the bastard grinches where I bought it would not honour the warranty. The six capacitors by the ATX power connector and near the CPU socket were blown, and the rectifiers had their solder turn BLUE. THe damned board had been kinda flaky ever since I bought it, but I was in a rush when I did. Never again. HSHS
He Schutze, He Scores!
We had to replace already the Lelon capacitors mentioned in that story in more than half a dozen SunRay1 clients, which had failed exactly in the way described (details and photo).
Nice to hear the newly emerging espionage-twist of that story ...