Article on motherboard capacitor failures and repair suggestions.

[Homer J Simpson]

http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_30328/article.html

 

[Tom Dempster]

Good article.
I have seen this exact issue in all of the popular motherboards; Intel,
ASUS, MSI and many others; all the brands that 'puter geeks rave about.
Think your board is immune? Better have a look.
Anyone know of a board manufacturer who waives warranty expiration for this
issue?

 

[Ken Layton]

Another good site about this widespread problem is www.badcaps.net

 

[CJT]

Good article.
I have seen this exact issue in all of the popular motherboards; Intel,
ASUS, MSI and many others; all the brands that 'puter geeks rave about.
Think your board is immune? Better have a look.

It's not just motherboards, either. Televisions, etc. are also
affected.

Anyone know of a board manufacturer who waives warranty expiration for this
issue?

No, but FWIW the good folks at Epox replaced my caps for a nominal cost.
It's not all good news, though -- the replacement caps have since
failed, too. When that happened (recently) I replaced them myself with
what will hopefully prove to be better quality parts.

 

[quietguy]

Apple will do I hear

David

 

[Bob Parker]

Apple will do I hear

David

G'day David,
What a coincidence. My Gigabyte GA-8IE motherboard has just turned 4
years old. I've examined the electrolytics every time I've had the PC
cover off, and they've always been OK.
The other day I checked again... at least 3 electrolytics now have
swollen tops and two have split, releasing that yellow gunk. I'm about
to rip the main board out and try replacing them.
I never thought the problem would take so long to appear, but there
you go.
The electros in my earlier video card took "only" a couple of years
to fail in the same way.



Bob

 

[Bob F]

Good article.
I have seen this exact issue in all of the popular motherboards; Intel,
ASUS, MSI and many others; all the brands that 'puter geeks rave about.
Think your board is immune? Better have a look.
Anyone know of a board manufacturer who waives warranty expiration for this
issue?

Abit replaced 2 way-out-of-warrantee motherboards for me for free.

Bob

 

[T Shadow]

Abit replaced 2 way-out-of-warrantee motherboards for me for free.

Bob

My brother, who was a GM warranty adjuster, told me it doesn't matter when
the breakdown occurs. What matters is whether the defect existed during the
warranty. Most people have heard of silent recalls and extended warranties
when a product has problems. This way they avoid having a real recall.
Not giving legal advice, just suggesting people should check into it if the
money involved makes it worth while to them. I don't have a board that was
mfg during that time period or that's had a problem.
I got a monitor replaced about 8 months past warranty. Also talked my friend
into taking his out of warranty Honda lawn mower back to Sears and he got an
engine that didn't have a rod sticking out of the crankcase for the effort
YMMV.

 

[quietguy]

Hi Bob

For all the important stuff I use an older Apple Mac, and so far (7years) so
good. But I also have a later model Windows box (Intel Pentium 2.8 meg?) with a
Gigabyte GA81G1000 mainboard. Looks like I'd better take the cover off and have
a look - it's always doing something weird but naturally I just assumed it was
all to do with that crappy Windows XP.

Oh well, I'd better warm up the soldering iron just in case Windows is only half
as bad as I thought

cheers

David

 

[Bob Parker]

Hi Bob

For all the important stuff I use an older Apple Mac, and so far (7years) so
good. But I also have a later model Windows box (Intel Pentium 2.8 meg?) with a
Gigabyte GA81G1000 mainboard. Looks like I'd better take the cover off and have
a look - it's always doing something weird but naturally I just assumed it was
all to do with that crappy Windows XP.

Oh well, I'd better warm up the soldering iron just in case Windows is only half
as bad as I thought

cheers

David

Mine sometimes crashed on startup. Windoze always said it was caused
by a driver but didn't know which driver it was. Only time will tell if
it was related to the electrolytics which have highest ESR when cold.
I measured the ESR of the two 3300uF 6.3V ones which had ruptured at
0.8 and 0.7 ohms, when they should be around ~0.01-0.02 ohms. Luckily
I've got a Dick Smith Electronics ESR meter. ;-)

Rgds
Bob

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Mine sometimes crashed on startup. Windoze always said it was caused
by a driver but didn't know which driver it was. Only time will tell if
it was related to the electrolytics which have highest ESR when cold.
I measured the ESR of the two 3300uF 6.3V ones which had ruptured at
0.8 and 0.7 ohms, when they should be around ~0.01-0.02 ohms. Luckily
I've got a Dick Smith Electronics ESR meter. ;-)

Rgds
Bob

It thought you were still using the prototype you conned from that
nice guy that designed it? ;-)


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Bob Parker]

It thought you were still using the prototype you conned from that
nice guy that designed it? ;-)

I have a real DSE MK2 ESR meter where I work (which I built to
evaluate the kit), and the notorious beat-up prototype at home. Yeah, I
know it was wicked of me to con it out of the designer. ;-)

 

[Ken G.]

Did this affect laptops too ? I have a Dell that will not compleatly
finish loading windows XP .

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

I have a real DSE MK2 ESR meter where I work (which I built to
evaluate the kit), and the notorious beat-up prototype at home. Yeah, I
know it was wicked of me to con it out of the designer. ;-)

Cheer up! At least Phil didn't get it! ;-)


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Did this affect laptops too ? I have a Dell that will not compleatly
finish loading windows XP .

It affects all kinds of motherboards. laptops have lots of
ventilation problems, as well.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Eeyore]

http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_30328/article.html

I have to recap a couple of Abit KT7A-RAID mobos, probably this week. I gather
it's well known to be a casualty of this malarky.

Graham

 

[Wayne Tiffany]

I had to do my MB a few years back - replaced 15 caps, 12 of which were
visibly bad. Still running fine.

WT

 

[John Hudak]

It's not just motherboards, either. Televisions, etc. are also
affected.


No, but FWIW the good folks at Epox replaced my caps for a nominal cost.
It's not all good news, though -- the replacement caps have since
failed, too. When that happened (recently) I replaced them myself with
what will hopefully prove to be better quality parts.

Exactly right. I just repaired an Onkyo receive+dvd player that had
this exact problem with the large (10,000uf/70VDC) caps in the PS. As
it turns out, the PS design is so tight that it appears when the disk
platter motor would rotate and the disks would load onto the spindle,
the current draw was enough to lower the voltage on the control chips
for the dvd optics, which would inturn cause a 'disk err' on the drive.
I know these units are known for flakey OPUs, but in this particular
case, a marginal PS appears to have contributed to the problem. Now the
disk err message occurs in about 1/10 loads and not 8/10 loads.
In any case, its worth checking.
John

 

[Sam]

My company has processed approx 200 warranty claims for blown caps for
Dell Optiplex GX-270 Desktop PC's and a couple Optiplex GX-260's. They
all started failing last year and continue today. Dell has extended
our warranty for all of the several hundred Optiplex GX-270 Desktop
PC's we have.

Other than the visual inspection ...the system starts to slow way down
and will randomly shut down and will display a message stating tha the
System was shut down due to a thermal event.


Sam in Raleigh.