--- Brian Chase <vaxzilla_at_jarai.org> wrote:
> Someone passed this along to me today. It's a current news item, but I
> though it at least tangentially relevant to classiccmp folks. You'll
> get a bang out of this one--quite literally:
>
> -> In September 2002, reports started to surface in the United States
> -> among brand name computer manufacturers that there were problems
> -> with low-ESR aluminum capacitors produced in Taiwan...
I have seen a couple of motherboards that were probably victims of
this phenomemon. I picked up a couple of mini-ATX boxen from a local
video store that flirted with being a gamer center. 80% of the caps
on the motherboard had popped. There were no other obvious signs of
damage as one might expect from a simple overvoltage problem (no
odor, no damaged traces, no heat damage, etc.).
The boards were of sufficiently low quality that it wasn't worth
the effort to secure replacement caps at retail prices. Some of
them obviously didn't matter as to the exact capacitance (decoupling
caps), others, in the onboard voltage regulator area, probably did
matter.
Interesting to learn of a cause some months later, though.
-ethan
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Received on Mon Nov 04 2002 - 19:41:01 GMT