Large-Scale Faulty Capacitors

**The_Silent_One_1** · December 1st, 2004, 01:16 PM

Faulty Low-ESR Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors

Has anyone here seen concrete examples of this "phenomenon"?

This site claims that there was a fairly large scale supply problem with Many Major manufacturers unknowingly getting defective capacitors.

http://www.logic1.ca/Tips.htm

**meatwad** · December 1st, 2004, 01:22 PM

Originally Posted by The_Silent_One_1

Faulty Low-ESR Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors

Has anyone here seen concrete examples of this "phenomenon"?

This site claims that there was a fairly large scale supply problem with Many Major manufacturers unknowingly getting defective capacitors.

http://www.logic1.ca/Tips.htm

Yeah, if memory serves, we had a rash of A-Bit motherboards going bad because of faulty caps.

**RejectionMan** · December 1st, 2004, 02:21 PM

old news.

were probaly seeing hte effects of it now as this equipment nears the life expextancey of these parts.
Havent been buying tiwanees caps for 1 1/2 years now. (or products that use them) drives sales men nuts: Prove the origin of all capacitators in this unit or I wont buy it. realy limits my component choices, but I have peace of mind that it will work for a long time and be reliable.

**Shard92** · December 1st, 2004, 03:33 PM

Lots of examples yes!!!! If I remember A-bit was the only company to admit there was a problem and offer to replace the boards.....

**Platypus** · December 2nd, 2004, 06:15 AM

Not large numbers, but recently did a batch of MSI boards for a local computer store.

**Damned Angel** · December 2nd, 2004, 09:53 AM

still dealing with them. Just got 6 ecs board in all with faulty caps. SO far I have seen it on all the boards we sell; ASUS, Abit, MSI, ECS, Gigabyte, and Tyan

**FireAm94** · December 2nd, 2004, 03:59 PM

I first heard of it about 2 years ago. To give you an idea of the timeline...it was when A7V133 mainboards were still being produced. We had faulty boards from Gigabyte, Asus, Abit etc.

Joe

**Radical Dreamer** · December 2nd, 2004, 10:14 PM

Originally Posted by Shard92

Lots of examples yes!!!! If I remember A-bit was the only company to admit there was a problem and offer to replace the boards.....

Actually, shuttle did as well, we RMA'd about 45 of them. AV11 I believe

**JeffO93** · December 8th, 2004, 02:57 PM

I just mailed a Gateway Profile4 (bought Spring of 2003) back for service that had two blown capacitors (near the CPU heatsink). First ones I'd ever seen.
I saw my first photos of this about a year ago, so I new what to look for. It was obvious: charred crust on top of each, and crust underneath one also. That latter one almost came off the motherboard.

@FireAm94 please don't scare me. I just rebuilt my ASUS A7V KT133 computer with WinXP and it's humming like never before. All I need now is for it to give up its ghost!

I think I'll do a pre-emptive examination to see if anything is starting to fry.

**Shard92** · December 8th, 2004, 03:04 PM

most of the caps involved in this ( if not all ) had a "+" on the top. I don't remember ever seeing ones of other configurations have this problem.

**The_Silent_One_1** · December 8th, 2004, 03:14 PM

Originally Posted by Shard92

most of the caps involved in this ( if not all ) had a "+" on the top. I don't remember ever seeing ones of other configurations have this problem.

Ironically Enough, There was a Gigabyte board in my office that had some "weird" problems trying to fresh install O.S.'s that I finally decided to examine and low and behold, about a dozen capacitors had little "rust spots" on the top of them.

Does anybody know how easy it is to replace those?

**Shard92** · December 8th, 2004, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by The_Silent_One_1

Ironically Enough, There was a Gigabyte board in my office that had some "weird" problems trying to fresh install O.S.'s that I finally decided to examine and low and behold, about a dozen capacitors had little "rust spots" on the top of them.

Does anybody know how easy it is to replace those?

far more difficult than replacing the motherboard. Have you had much experience with soldering? One problem ( and feel to correct me if I'm wrong ) is motherboards are multilayer so it's difficult getting it to make connections on all layers.. Might be fun to try if you have some experience in that area AND the motherboard was used for non-critical home use, but I wouldn't recommend it for the inexperienced or for a business machine...

**The_Silent_One_1** · December 8th, 2004, 03:32 PM

Originally Posted by Shard92

far more difficult than replacing the motherboard. Have you had much experience with soldering? One problem ( and feel to correct me if I'm wrong ) is motherboards are multilayer so it's difficult getting it to make connections on all layers.. Might be fun to try if you have some experience in that area AND the motherboard was used for non-critical home use, but I wouldn't recommend it for the inexperienced or for a business machine...

It's currently in my hard drive tower. Because of the inability to install an os on it, I've relegated it to running hard drives for disgnostics or Secure Wiping. So, it'd be no great loss if it ceased working at all afterwards.

**JeffO93** · December 9th, 2004, 12:09 AM

The trick to soldering replacement capacitors on a motherboard, if there's room, is to not try to desolder the old capacitors. Instead, destroy them with pliers so that the old wires still poke up. Then solder the new caps to the old wires. Looks ugly, but it works.

I wouldn't be inclined to do this. If some caps are bad, others might be also. Most motherboards have caps too close together andyway and this would be a very difficult job.

**thorian** · December 9th, 2004, 01:05 PM

Yep the bad caps have a +

Gateways - any with a jabil motherboard they have the + caps 3 next to the processor pop at least gateway extended the warrenty out to 3 years on the workstations affected. every single gateway we have that is more then 1 yr old and has a 1 ghz or faster processor has had the motherboard replaced. 200+ the old select 350 - 600 MHZ boxes are still rock solid and they are older then dirt.

SoYo dragons 12 diffrent caps all over the board

There was a maximum PC article about this issue a while ago ill have to dig through and see if I cant find it.