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14 years later, and the capacitor plague claims another victim.

GrugMan

Does a cap that lasted 14 years even count as a plague death anymore, or is it just a capacitor that reached EOL?

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that board can still be repaired though

if it was useful give it a like :) btw if your into linux pay a visit here

 

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Just now, aisle9 said:

Does a cap that lasted 14 years even count as a plague death anymore, or is it just a capacitor that reached EOL?

no its plague death

there is an old crt tv in my house that is from 1980s and all of the caps there are still working in fact everything works

if it was useful give it a like :) btw if your into linux pay a visit here

 

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Considering the cost of computer components even from that era, it's really stupid that board manufacturers used those shoddy capacitors. The cost difference must have only been a few hundredths of a cent between the two.

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29 minutes ago, mahyar said:

no its plague death

there is an old crt tv in my house that is from 1980s and all of the caps there are still working in fact everything works

14 years is still a long time... devices that were primarily affected by the plague in the 90s and early 2000s barely made it to 3 years before the caps started to leak their goodness out.

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Are modern electronics using Solid State Capacitors now? I'm thinking that due that Fiasco, every Manufacturer has already switched by now.

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3 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

Are modern electronics using Solid State Capacitors now? I'm thinking that due that Fiasco, every Manufacturer has already switched by now.

You'll periodically find stuff rocking electrolytics, especially on the cheaper end. 

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All power supplies use electrolytics, 

solid state caps of that size do not exist.

I have yet to see an all solid power supply ever...

 

 

14 years for electrolytics is pretty good, and for sure not out of the ordinary for electrolytics.

 

I have been known to build a thing or two, I use electrolytics in them all as needed.

it’s just the way it is...

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Capacitor fix is the easiest ever and it costs peanuts. I had my monitor from ages ago start to leak goo from its capacitors. It was also acting funny like not wanting to turn on and was very glitchy with that. Bought 2 replacement caps of same voltage and very similar capacitance for like few €, removed old one by just gently pulling it off the legs (so I didn't have to solder on the PCB direcly). Soldered new one on the contacts of the old one that I shortened a bit (pay attention to polarity which is marked with white half circle on PCB and white stripe on the side of capacitor which need to be aligned together). Monitor was working perfectly afterwards.

 

Fixing those 3 capacitors should set you back like 5-10€ and some soldering job and it would most likely work just fine. Soldering small SMD capacitors is another thing and I don't do those because it's just too demanding for a fat clumsy solder that I have. And they generally don't crap out and give visual cues that they are on way out unless they have scorched black/white surroundings...

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@GrugMan, welcome to forums. Please note in future that this is place for discussion. So please don't use it as you would use a social media platform like Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. All threads should have more content/context than just single line of text and image.

 

Willing to leave this open because there's is actual discussion.

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9 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Capacitor fix is the easiest ever and it costs peanuts. I had my monitor from ages ago start to leak goo from its capacitors. It was also acting funny like not wanting to turn on and was very glitchy with that. Bought 2 replacement caps of same voltage and very similar capacitance for like few €, removed old one by just gently pulling it off the legs (so I didn't have to solder on the PCB direcly). Soldered new one on the contacts of the old one that I shortened a bit (pay attention to polarity which is marked with white half circle on PCB and white stripe on the side of capacitor which need to be aligned together). Monitor was working perfectly afterwards.

 

Fixing those 3 capacitors should set you back like 5-10€ and some soldering job and it would most likely work just fine. Soldering small SMD capacitors is another thing and I don't do those because it's just too demanding for a fat clumsy solder that I have. And they generally don't crap out and give visual cues that they are on way out unless they have scorched black/white surroundings...

I've never picked up a soldering iron before, but I have some scrap electronics that I could practice on. Could I manage to do this job after practicing a bit with an iron?

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It's not necessarily capacitor plague, those seem to be Panasonic capacitors, not sure about the series, seems like FM series, which were not manufactured with bad electrolyte, never had those issues. 

It looks more like just capacitors being degraded due to heat (being so close to the heatsink of the cpu) and maybe due to less than ideal input voltage from an aging power supply.... and dell or whoever made this board getting cheap and not installing enough capacitors to handle the currents (you can see footprints for more capacitors, they just didn't populate those to save half a dollar)

 

If those 1000uF capacitors on the 12v line are KZG series, they must be replaced as well ... that's one of the series with problem electrolyte (not due to capacitor plague, united chemi con didn't steal a faulty electrolyte formula, it's just a ultra low esr formula that's not very stable and can degrade over time much faster than other less performance capacitor series.

 

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1 hour ago, GrugMan said:

I've never picked up a soldering iron before, but I have some scrap electronics that I could practice on. Could I manage to do this job after practicing a bit with an iron?

It's actually easier than it looks for as long as you're working with big components like capacitors.

 

If you have soldering iron at hand, best way to practice is just using some wires and maybe some nails. And just solder them together and observe how it behaves. You can even simulate capacitor by hammering 2 nails through a piece of wood or cork and then try to solder it to another identical piece, just trying to solder both nails together. So you have similar shape and task like with real capacitor. If you have some PCB from some dead device that you can practice on, even better. Desolder capacitors from that and solder them back. You can either just practice or even harvest working capacitors as spare parts.

 

Just pay attention to 4 things when working with capacitors:

- watch for polarity! White line on side of capacitor needs to be aligned with white half circle on the circuitry underneath capacitor

- voltage (V) needs to be equal, but can also be tiny bit higher if you can't find identical ones

- capacitance (μF) needs to be equal, but can also be tiny bit higher if you can't find identical ones

- solder quickly and blow at it afterwards to quickly solidify flux and prevent capacitors from heating up by solder iron (they don't like high heat)

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1 hour ago, mariushm said:

It's not necessarily capacitor plague, those seem to be Panasonic capacitors, not sure about the series, seems like FM series, which were not manufactured with bad electrolyte, never had those issues. 

Yeah I had bulging caps around the CPU in the mid 00s that were known bad and Asus recapped with Panasonic FL I think it was, no issue after that.

 

As you've said though, the extra heat in that location can rapidly exacerbate issues.

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I've got many old things, but all their caps are alive and well.

No capacitor death - I think I won.

elephants

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31 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

It's actually easier than it looks for as long as you're working with big components like capacitors.

 

If you have soldering iron at hand, best way to practice is just using some wires and maybe some nails. And just solder them together and observe how it behaves. You can even simulate capacitor by hammering 2 nails through a piece of wood or cork and then try to solder it to another identical piece, just trying to solder both nails together. So you have similar shape and task like with real capacitor. If you have some PCB from some dead device that you can practice on, even better. Desolder capacitors from that and solder them back. You can either just practice or even harvest working capacitors as spare parts.

 

Just pay attention to 4 things when working with capacitors:

- watch for polarity! White line on side of capacitor needs to be aligned with white half circle on the circuitry underneath capacitor

- voltage (V) needs to be equal, but can also be tiny bit higher if you can't find identical ones

- capacitance (μF) needs to be equal, but can also be tiny bit higher if you can't find identical ones

- solder quickly and blow at it afterwards to quickly solidify flux and prevent capacitors from heating up by solder iron (they don't like high heat)

Thank you for the advice! It's a bit more expensive for me to buy the soldering iron than to buy a new mobo, but this way I won't be stuck with a worthless mobo when I want to upgrade, and instead have a skill that will help me a lot more.

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Something to note about caps is they have both a voltage and temperature rating. And while you might not see 85c temps in your case, if the cap is being used in a switch mode power supply or otherwise being exposed to high frequencies, it will have high internal temps. They get cooked from the inside. Having work in consumer electronic repair, I can say it is very common to use standard temp range caps in high frequency designs when extended range caps should be used. The result is bad/bulging or leaking caps. They may even look ok and test ok on a basic fluke. but need to be tested at the frequencies they are used at.

 

I also have seen countless boards where caps rated for 6v are used on a 5v line. That is not enough head room. And over time they will die. These factors will shorten the life a cap. Then there is the quality of the cap. A well made cap in a proper design for it's specs will last a very long time. But a cheap cap will dry out faster no matter how will the circuit is designed.

 

Oh, and when I say high frequency, I'm not talking about the Ghz you see in a modern computer, Even 100Khz can cook a cap.

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85 degree Celsius rated capacitors will typically not be suitable to be used in switching power supplies or circuits that deal with high switching frequencies (dc-dc converters, VRMs). (There's a small exception for the primary high voltage capacitor in computer power supplies, as that cap deals with 50-60 Hz mains frequency and it's big it's typically ok to be used since it won't get hot and stressed so much,) 

 

You may see them on motherboards used where the frequencies are low (for example, around the onboard audio circuit or the onboard network card) and that's perfectly fine to be used there. 

Basically, pretty much all 85c rated capacitors will use electrolyte formulas that don't do well at high switching frequencies, while a lot of 105c (or higher) rated capacitors will have decent electrolyte formulas making them suitable to be used where there's higher switching frequencies.

For circuits that deal with high switching frequencies (40kHz - 250 Khz typically for VRMs and DC-DC converters) you need capacitors that have VERY LOW ESR (should be as low or a bit lower than original capacitors used) and high current ripple (almost as equal or a bit higher than original capacitors)

 

You do have to be careful of the specs because there are some low esr series that may be good enough for some circuits but not good enough for others. For example, Panasonic FC series is considered "low esr" series and would be acceptable to use with some dc-dc converter chips, and has especially good reputation with audio circuits  but it wouldn't be suitable as output capacitors on the motherboard VRM as their ESR is not low enough and the current ripple is not high enough. 

Doesn't make them bad capacitors, it's just a good tool for the right job thing.

Same for Nichicon PW for example, solid series of capacitors, it's considered low impedance/low esr and it's used in power supplies and motor drivers and other things, but it doesn't have good enough specs to be used in a motherboard VRM circuit. 

 

Above 2-300 kHz switching frequencies, electrolytic capacitors don't work so well, you typically move to polymer (solid) capacitors and/or ceramic capacitors at that point, or you must use them in combination with types of capacitors that work better at those higher frequencies. 

 

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On 2/14/2021 at 1:32 AM, atxcyclist said:

Considering the cost of computer components even from that era, it's really stupid that board manufacturers used those shoddy capacitors. The cost difference must have only been a few hundredths of a cent between the two.

What really pissed me off, was at the time My office had purchased a pair of 5,000$ IBM servers that used counterfeit caps, and naturally they failed in short order because IBM sucks. They sent out warranty replacement boards...with the same caps...

 

Never again IBM.

 

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I get cost cutting, on budget systems, but on high end (at the time) servers? Unacceptable.

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Luckily they're easy to swap out and solder.

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5 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

What really pissed me off, was at the time My office had purchased a pair of 5,000$ IBM servers that used counterfeit caps, and naturally they failed in short order because IBM sucks. They sent out warranty replacement boards...with the same caps...

 

Never again IBM.

 

___

I get cost cutting, on budget systems, but on high end (at the time) servers? Unacceptable.

Well that is absolutely shitty. My office is pretty low-budget, and we had some older Compaq desktops we used for a while until they got unstable. All the caps had split and it was a miracle the things still worked; Low-end chips using little power must have saved us, haha. I made sure anything we bought or I put together was enthusiast-grade parts since then with solid power-delivery caps at the least. My current H97 board in my workstation will probably last another decade at least.

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As to the debate of old caps vs low quality caps - old caps tend to dry out, not usually burst and leak. That leakage is pretty significant, so I'm more inclined to think the electrolytes weren't top quality, but were still plentiful in those caps.

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