PCs Plagued by Bad Capacitors

Hawaiian Rules writes "CNET has a story detailing a new threat to Dell PCs, Apple iMacs and other computers with Intel boards. This has been documented on BadCaps.net for some time, but the article also discusses what to do if you suspect you've got a case of the bad caps."

Comments

More than just Intel boards

[starbuck8968]

I've had a couple AMD boards go bad because of leaky capacitors.

Re:More than just Intel boards

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for HP's customer support. If you tell the customers about internally known issues, you can get fired for it. The reason? The customers may go to the press and say that HP knows about a problem but isn't doing anything about it (like a recall of all units for instance). HP looks bad if you say you took "5 calls just like this one" today. HP looks good if you instantly order a repair on a seemingly unknown problem. The exception is for class issues, i.e. issues that are known to the public due to media exposure. It's part of the agent training to pretend we're oblivious to all problems, yet magically know how to solve them anyway.

Re:If you don't wanna get ripped off.

[ebrandsberg]

Actually, I would go against this--something totally new and expensive will probably make use of better quality components. It is after they have been in the market for a while that they go cheap as they sell in mass and drive price down. Ever notice how old CD's lived forever, but new CD's scratch if you breath on them? I had one of the original 42 inch plasma screens, and it was built like a brick, I don't think I trust the new ones, they are lighter, thinner, and IMHO, built to be cheap, not last forever.

Re:If you don't wanna get ripped off.

[earnest murderer]

The capacitor issue is more widespread. The problem isn't that they are low quality, it's that a particular MFR was using a stolen and bad formula for fluid for a long while before they began to fail. These capacitors are in everything, cheap stuff, spendy stuff and everything in between. Badcaps.net explains in detail...

On the theme of new and expensive, I'm a little suprised that motherboard MFR's that make high end boards for enthusiasts (you know the ones, with ugly flourecent plastic bits and silver paint and whatnot) haven't used any SMC caps for these boards. You only see them on prototypes. I'd think if there was a market for a motherboard with yellow PCI slots and a purple PCB that this would be a much more attractive option.

On the other hand, I suppose it costs nothing to make lime green and orange connectors, but actually making something nice would cost a few dollars.