Large-Scale Faulty Capacitors

I've succsessfully replaced capacitors in many different brands - mostly ABit, MSI, Soyo, PCChips/ECS, IBM, last MB was from AOpen... I suspect most of those failures were rather caused by cheap PSUs, though... As a rule - if you see MB with popped capacitors, you'll see the same defective capacitors inside the power supply ... Open the PSU's case and check it out... Just only replacing motherboard will not solve the problem - you'll have to replace the PSU as well...

It is not a big problem to re-solder capacitors - just only some soldering skills are needed for that...

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Originally Posted by Ruslan

I've succsessfully replaced capacitors in many different brands - mostly ABit, MSI, Soyo, PCChips/ECS, IBM, last MB was from AOpen... I suspect most of those failures were rather caused by cheap PSUs, though... As a rule - if you see MB with popped capacitors, you'll see the same defective capacitors inside the power supply ... Open the PSU's case and check it out... Just only replacing motherboard will not solve the problem - you'll have to replace the PSU as well...

It is not a big problem to re-solder capacitors - just only some soldering skills are needed for that...

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Wow! That supports the theory that I've held for some time that You are better off to use a brand-name Power Supply.

Can anyone else corroborate this occurence?

Yes, name-brand is much better than cheap. Someone told me that a cheap 430watt power supply is only as good as a 300watt high-quality PSU. I think that isn't a totally accurate statement because a bad power supply is worse than that, and I've had cheap power supplies that were excellent. The thing is, with expensive PSU's they have better quality control. You pay extra for the reduction of failure. With a cheap PSU, you could get anything from great to disaster.
Someone else, though, told me that when you buy a cheap PSU, it helps to buy one with maximum watt rating. If you have a 500watt PSU and only load it with 350watts, even a cheap PSU is less likely to fail.
The only problem with this is that sometimes even the name-brands have short runs of very bad production before they catch the problem.

What fun. On top of all the other things that can break with software, you have a minefield of hardware issues to worry about.

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Originally Posted by JeffO93

Yes, name-brand is much better than cheap. Someone told me that a cheap 430watt power supply is only as good as a 300watt high-quality PSU. I think that isn't a totally accurate statement because a bad power supply is worse than that, and I've had cheap power supplies that were excellent. The thing is, with expensive PSU's they have better quality control. You pay extra for the reduction of failure. With a cheap PSU, you could get anything from great to disaster.
Someone else, though, told me that when you buy a cheap PSU, it helps to buy one with maximum watt rating. If you have a 500watt PSU and only load it with 350watts, even a cheap PSU is less likely to fail.
The only problem with this is that sometimes even the name-brands have short runs of very bad production before they catch the problem.

What fun. On top of all the other things that can break with software, you have a minefield of hardware issues to worry about.

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Yeah, I just blew out an Enermax 470 Watt Noisetaker ATX 1.3 Power Supply that was 3 months old. I traded in the warranty replacement on a 550 Watt Antec True-Power P.S.

Thorian, the capacitors in question are electrolitic capacitors, and they are polariized... they have a positive and a negative terminal. All of the caps I've seen have the negative terminal marked with a minus(-), the positive terminal is unmarked. Are you saying that the manufacturer was so inept as to mark his caps with a (+) instead??? As well as being substandard, they are readily identifiable by sight????

I've had a few mainboards with the domed caps come through here, but I've just tossed them. Next time, I'll look more closely.... very interesting!!

Just saw this.
Intel CPUs put pressure on capacitors, claim
Mobo makers considering switch
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20309

The original problem was much different however. They were pretty much garunteed to fail....AMD or Intel. You would think QC would actually care about these products....but apparently not.

Joe

Was just gonna post that bit of news here techs, maybe ppl will think u were me, and I get credit! j/k

I've never seen bad caps, heard a lot, read alot, chatted alot, but never seen. I'm just hoping it never happens to me, No Soldering Skills here ;)

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Originally Posted by dfritz

Thorian, the capacitors in question are electrolitic capacitors, and they are polariized... they have a positive and a negative terminal. All of the caps I've seen have the negative terminal marked with a minus(-), the positive terminal is unmarked. Are you saying that the manufacturer was so inept as to mark his caps with a (+) instead??? As well as being substandard, they are readily identifiable by sight????

I've had a few mainboards with the domed caps come through here, but I've just tossed them. Next time, I'll look more closely.... very interesting!!

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They are not a mismarked pole. the top that domes out the ones I have seen that have failed are stamped with a + (divided into 4ths) the boards that we were recieving for warrenty repair had a mercedies emblem (divided into thirds) stamped on the top. ( those were the gateways) the Soyo Dragons we replaced also had caps that the domed top was stamped with a + where as the caps that had a 1/2 hexagon pattern were fine.

Could be anicdotal evidence but I found it odd that the bad caps all had a + on the top (part that bulged out, not the terminals)

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Originally Posted by thorian

They are not a mismarked pole. the top that domes out the ones I have seen that have failed are stamped with a + (divided into 4ths) the boards that we were recieving for warrenty repair had a mercedies emblem (divided into thirds) stamped on the top. ( those were the gateways) the Soyo Dragons we replaced also had caps that the domed top was stamped with a + where as the caps that had a 1/2 hexagon pattern were fine.

Could be anicdotal evidence but I found it odd that the bad caps all had a + on the top (part that bulged out, not the terminals)

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Yeah I don't know if it was a cooincidence or not but all the ones I've seen are like that as well.....

I've never seen any caps soldered in wrong polarity so far... ;)
I think the issue is rather connected (as we already know it) with stolen formula... Another possible causes, IMHO, are:

1. Low-quality cheap power supplies. I'm not surprised what almost in every case with bad capacitors on MB there were also some bad capacitors inside the power supply... See for yourself next time you'll have customer's bad PC with blown caps...
2. Heat (usually blown caps are located near heat-emitting devices like power transistors).

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Originally Posted by thorian

They are not a mismarked pole. the top that domes out the ones I have seen that have failed are stamped with a + (divided into 4ths) the boards that we were recieving for warrenty repair had a mercedies emblem (divided into thirds) stamped on the top. ( those were the gateways) the Soyo Dragons we replaced also had caps that the domed top was stamped with a + where as the caps that had a 1/2 hexagon pattern were fine.

Could be anicdotal evidence but I found it odd that the bad caps all had a + on the top (part that bulged out, not the terminals)

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Ohhh! I just had a look at a board. One had "k" on the top of every cap, another had "+" on the top of every cap. I have stood on my head, used mirrors and flashlights etc. to read the capacitance and voltage and polarity, but had NEVER noticed the mark on the easiest part to see was different.