What do defective capacitors look like?

[peter]

I read about bad capacitors in Dell optiplex machine. I also read about bad
low-ESR aluminum capacitors made in Taiwan.

Are they one and the same or two different problems?

Does anyone have photos of either or both type of problem capacitors?

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

I read about bad capacitors in Dell optiplex machine. I also read about bad
low-ESR aluminum capacitors made in Taiwan.

Are they one and the same or two different problems?

Does anyone have photos of either or both type of problem capacitors?

Like aging people, they bulge up and may leak from their bungs. There
are a few brands of these caps, which you can find by googling.
Typically something like 1000uF to 1500uF 6.3VDC. No idea if the Dell
mombos were involved.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Tim Shoppa]

Spehro responded:
There are a few brands of these caps,
which you can find by googling.

There are also some counterfeits running around out there too. i.e.
caps with bad electrolyte which have been labeled as a "good" brand
(e.g. Nichicon, Rubycon etc). This happened when warehouses of "bad
electrolyte" capacitors had to be sold somewhere, somehow...

I doubt any of these ever made it into the Dell supply stream.

Tim.

 

[Anthony Fremont]

There are also some counterfeits running around out there too. i.e.
caps with bad electrolyte which have been labeled as a "good" brand
(e.g. Nichicon, Rubycon etc). This happened when warehouses of "bad
electrolyte" capacitors had to be sold somewhere, somehow...

I doubt any of these ever made it into the Dell supply stream.

I just saw this happen to an Epox motherboard that was only about two
years old. Until then I thought the bad caps were all gone a few years
ago. I have seen reputable brand boards with bulging/leaking caps, so
even the big boys got screwed back then. Epox is not what I'd call one
of those reputable brands, but that's just my opinion. I've seen Asus
and Gigabyte suffer from this for sure, I think MSI as well but I'm not
sure on that.

 

[Joerg]

Hello Peter,

I read about bad capacitors in Dell optiplex machine. I also read about bad
low-ESR aluminum capacitors made in Taiwan.

I read this in our morning paper today, regarding them taking a charge
for possible costs associated with replacing the motherboards. No idea
where they got the caps from though.

Does anyone have photos of either or both type of problem capacitors?

Probably they are on the web somewhere. As Spehro said one clue is
bulging, usually of the top. Another is oozing. Look around, they will
unlikely all begin to croak at the same time. So if you see some caps
looking nice and then some others of same size and brand beginning to
bulge, you'll know that trouble is coming.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Clint Sharp]

I read about bad capacitors in Dell optiplex machine. I also read about bad
low-ESR aluminum capacitors made in Taiwan.

Are they one and the same or two different problems?

I suspect the Dell failures are caused by inadequate cooling and cheap
parts, it's a standing joke at the place I work. The Dell engineer
doesn't seem to find it funny though, mind you he hears it at least once
a week (we save up the machines for him)

 

[Graham W]

I read about bad capacitors in Dell optiplex machine. I also read
about bad low-ESR aluminum capacitors made in Taiwan.

Are they one and the same or two different problems?

Does anyone have photos of either or both type of problem capacitors?

Have a look at http://badcaps.com/ for all the info you could want!

 

[JW]

I read about bad capacitors in Dell optiplex machine. I also read about bad
low-ESR aluminum capacitors made in Taiwan.

Are they one and the same or two different problems?

Two different. Read on - reposted from yesterday.

Here's a more complete listing of manufacturers who have had/are having
quality issues with electrolytic capacitors.

http://www.answers.com/topic/capacitor-plague

In case this site gets nuked, here are the listed manufacturers:

Commonly failed capacitor brands

* Tayeh (A brand that does not appear to exist, indicating the actual
manufacturers were wary of putting their name on their product; and
probably a fake of "Ta-Keh", a genuine maker of high-end capacitors for
audio equipment, used by Denon)
* Chhsi
* Teapo (Teapo has denied these claims, and evidence suggests their
new capacitors are sound, however their older ones appear to suffer from
the same problems other brands do)
* I.Q.
* Rulycon (A clone of "Rubycon", a well-known manufacturer of
high-quality capacitors, right down to the exact style of the cases and
the fonts used for lettering)
* JPCON
* Jackcon (The only capacitor manufacturer to own up to their mistake;
they are also the only one to issue free replacement capacitors to people
who had theirs fail. Their new products appear to be of greater quality.)
* JDEC
* CTC
* (G) Luxon (also G-Luxon)
* Gloria
* Raycon
* Hermei
* Choyo
* GSC
* Nrsy (only with X-shaped vents. The new NRSY capacitors have K vents
and are a genuine, high-quality Nippon-made part.)
* Fuhjyyu (found in Antec power supplies to this day)

As of May 2005, some evidence
(http://www.ait.iastate.edu/sales/showitem.php?id=41) shows that the
failing Nichicon capacitors on the iMac, Intel, and Dell boards are due to
a different problem (specifically, overfilling the capacitors with
electrolyte) than the one discussed on this page (faulty electrolyte
formula). However, the symptoms (both the effects on the system and the
physical appearance of the capacitors) are the same as the other failing
capacitors, as is how to identify them, and the required repair.

(I've actually seen a Dell P4 motherboard that had failing Nichicon
parts!)

 

[Clint Sharp]

The caps are rated for much higher temps than what's inside of a Dell
PC. The higher temp should have very little to do with the failure
rate. They're "just bad caps."

Umm, well we see loads of SX270s and I'm inclined to agree with you
about the 'bad caps' bit but temperature is a massive factor in
decreasing the life span of electrolytic capacitors, bad caps or not,
I'd be surprised if it wasn't also a factor here.
BTW, the SX270 runs hot when it's in it's proper stand, if any of the
vents get covered for more than a couple of minutes the heat is *very*
uncomfortable on your hand, verging on painful if the vents have been
covered for more than a few minutes (I know the vents shouldn't be
covered etc... Users will be users)

The problem is not limited to the SX270 Dell machine either, we've
started seeing numbers of GX280 SFF machines with exactly the same
problem.

 

[Watson A.Name - \Watt Sun, the Dark Remover\]

I read about bad capacitors in Dell optiplex machine. I also read about bad
low-ESR aluminum capacitors made in Taiwan.

Are they one and the same or two different problems?

Does anyone have photos of either or both type of problem capacitors?

I recently read an article about these, complete with a URL to the
pictures of them. You can do a google news search for the articles and
pics. The pic showed a Nichicon 1500 uF (not hF) at 6.3V capacitor,
gold letters on black case. The top was bulging, it had not yet failed.

 

[Watson A.Name - \Watt Sun, the Dark Remover\]

Like aging people, they bulge up and may leak from their bungs. There
are a few brands of these caps, which you can find by googling.
Typically something like 1000uF to 1500uF 6.3VDC. No idea if the Dell
mombos were involved.

IIRC, it was the Dell Optiplex GX270s. Some Slashdot threads said that
some companies had many hundreds of these deployed across the country
and they were failing like crazy. And they're PO'd because Dell won't
own up to the problem and blah-blah-blah. Also Abit MoBo's and some
other MoBo makers. :-/

You can go to www.badcaps.com or www.badcaps.net for even more bad news.

Last week I had a PS fail in a Dell, but the PS had to go back to Dell
(it's still under warranty), so I couldn't take a peek to see if it was
the problem. Also had a HDD fail, but it wasn't a Maxtor, it was a WD
HD200.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

http://www.speff.com

 

[Watson A.Name - \Watt Sun, the Dark Remover\]

There are also some counterfeits running around out there too. i.e.
caps with bad electrolyte which have been labeled as a "good" brand
(e.g. Nichicon, Rubycon etc). This happened when warehouses of "bad
electrolyte" capacitors had to be sold somewhere, somehow...

I doubt any of these ever made it into the Dell supply stream.

Tim.

You're wrong. Check out all these articles.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Dell+bad+caps&btnG=Search

 

[Watson A.Name - \Watt Sun, the Dark Remover\]

I suspect the Dell failures are caused by inadequate cooling and cheap
parts, it's a standing joke at the place I work. The Dell engineer
doesn't seem to find it funny though, mind you he hears it at least once
a week (we save up the machines for him)

The caps are rated for much higher temps than what's inside of a Dell
PC. The higher temp should have very little to do with the failure
rate. They're "just bad caps."

 

[I like me!]

The caps are rated for much higher temps than what's inside of a Dell
PC. The higher temp should have very little to do with the failure
rate. They're "just bad caps."

Capacitors are rated for a certain lifetime. When it has a lifetime at
50 degrees C of for example 100.000 hours, it may well be 10.000 hours
at 80 degrees C and 1.000 at 100 degrees.

Chinese manufacterers try to get as much out of the components as
possible, European ones try to let the electronics live long. It is a
different approach.

And when then capacitors are bad, the Chinese stuff gets into problems
first.

Pieter

 

[Rikard Bosnjakovic]

Does anyone have photos of either or both type of problem capacitors?

No idea bout the Dell-problem, but here are some pics:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/200302/capblown_6.jpg
http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/200302/capblown_3.jpg
http://www.seanadams.com/deadairport/small_blown_caps.jpeg
http://www.maxrouter.com/images/MK4-maoinb-elkos-478.JPG
http://www.seanadams.com/deadairport/big_blown_caps.jpeg
http://www.memi.com/niko/studio/Miscellaneous/PCs/slides/Epox EP-8KTA+ Blown Capacitors.jpg