Does Your Motherboard Have Leaking Capacitors?

From: leslie (LESLIE_at_JRLVAX.HOUSTON.RR.COM)
Date: 09/20/04 

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 12:14:21 GMT

My letter to The Inquirer is below dashed line.

The partial list of motherboard brands that have show capacitor failures:

   http://www.motherboardrepair.com/
   MotherBoardRepair.com :: Mother Board Repair At A Component Level.

  "...This is a list of just some of the brands that have shown capacitor
   failures in large numbers:

   Abit
   A-Open
   ECS
   EPOX
   Gateway
   Hewlett Packard
   Intel
   MSI
   Shuttle
   Soyo
   Tyan
   Via

   * This is not a complete list there are many other brands that will be
   added to the list later..."

============================================================================

   http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18574
   Plague of dodgy capacitors starts to bite

  "Plague of dodgy capacitors starts to bite
   Letters All about everything

   By The Letterman: Monday 20 September 2004, 09:32

   Hi Mike,

   A friend brought her PC for me to see why it powered itself off and
   why the modem quit working.

   Then the video adaptor quit working, prompting me to take it to the
   neighborhood clone shop.

   As Dirty Harry said: "A man's got to know his limitations"

   They noticed that some of the capacitors on the Gigabyte GA-7VKML
   motherboard were leaking, as described in your article:

   Dodgy components threaten mobos, modems here.
   http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5878

   I researched the problem so that my friend would know the clone shop
   wasn't just trying to sell her a new PC:

   http://www.golightspeed.com/basic.htm
   LIGHTSPEED 2004 BASIC PC

   "Complete system only ...$288.88...with Lifetime Warranty..."

   I found several articles such as this one:

   http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/feb03/ncap.html
   Leaking Capacitors Muck up Motherboards

   This site listed the symptoms and brand names:

   http://www.motherboardrepair.com/
   MotherBoardRepair.com :: Mother Board Repair At A Component Level.

  "Most motherboard related failures are due to the "On-board" regulated
   supplies and component failure within those circuits"

   This site lists capacitor failures on almost every brand and model of
   motherboard manufactured between 1998 to around 2001.

   It says the most common symptoms of capacitor failure are: "1. Failure
   to boot; 2. Must attempt booting several times before machine will
   start; 3. Instability , especially when graphics are complex; 4.
   Machine boots with a pre-Coppermine Celeron but will not boot with a
   PIII Coppermine; 5. Bad odor wafts about the room and this time it
   wasn't you or the dog; 6. BIOS health alarm (hi-low siren) at boot but
   PC health screen shows no reason for the alarm; 7. Fans spin up, power
   indicator lights up and nothing else happens..."

   I feel sorry that my friend has to buy a new PC because the repairs to
   her PC are too expensive. My soldering techniques aren't good enough
   to replace capacitors on a motherboard.

   Too bad these companies can't be "encouraged" to do the right thing
   for their customers, the way Intel finally did for the FDIV bug ~10
   years ago.

   Similar sentiments are expressed in the IEEE article:

   "Carey Holzman, as a builder of custom PCs, has been trying to raise
   awareness about the defects since last spring. He thinks manufacturers
   should be more public about the problem and issue a recall. "Main
   board replacement is a big job. It's a huge amount of downtime for the
   user," he says. Failures can also occur after the warranty has
   expired, he points out. "The manufacturers should do the right thing."

   Jerry Leslie"

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