Capacitor plague

[clive r]

Does everyone know about this?

A few years back someone stole the formula for the electrolyte used in a certain type of capacitor but forgot to include one of the ingredients. Taiwanese factories have since turned out millions of these faulty components, which inevitably fail rapidly in use. They turn up in all sorts of gear, but motherboards are the most common.

I'm asking because I've had memory problems with one of my boards on and off for a while and put it down to the ram itself. I just took the board out of the case, and sure enough there were several bulging capacitors, and one leaking near the ram sockets. The joke is that one of the selling points of this board was the quality of the caps in the audio stage. Shame about the others.

I recently opened a psu for a friend to clean it and found a similar situation.

I'm actually quite attached to this board (tube audio) and was going to use it for a media system. Anyone know of a good (cheap) motherboard repairer in the UK?

 

[dave87]

I didn't know about the stolen formula, but I do know that its affected Dell Optiplex's more than anyother, and they have been rapidly RMAing affected boards (between this & the batteries they aren't going to last long) as it has become apparent in the last 6 or so months, one of the common problems, was like yours, RAM issues

Dave

 

[clive r]

I suspect this is also why cheapo power supplies often suffer a premature death.

The full article's here if anyone's interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

 

[NickS]

And Antecs, which are not cheapo.

 

[PV5150]

Affirmative, it was a major issue for sure. You'll find everything you need to know here. The gentleman who runs the site also sells replacement kits if you're handy with a soldering iron.

Bad Caps website

 

[clive r]

Thanks. It looks like Farnell stock the parts.

Has anyone tried soldering a motherboard?

I'm ok putting new caps into my audio gear, but this 6 layer board thing is a bit intimidating.

 

[Cod Ball]

ahhhh, at work I've seen many pc's with that problem...but alot of the time it means a new mobo because the customer leaves it too long.