Electro Cap Warning

[Phil Allison]

** Hi to all my loyal fans ....

Had to perform "emergency surgery" on my PC on Friday morning
- PC is about 4 years old & uses a " Gigabyte" mother board with
Athlon 1.8G CPU. Runs XP.

It simply froze & refused to complete boot up and presented a
totally black screen when switched off & re-tried.

Same scenario was repeated exactly, after 20 minutes of being off.

Suspecting a " heat "issue - I got out the vacuum and gave the insides
a good clean, its was pretty bad around the CPU heatsink & fan.

Tried it again - same scenario.

Damn !!

Then, I noticed some VERY hot mosfets ( finger burning temp) in the
CPU regulators and some rather bulged and wonky looking electros next
to them - one 1000uF, 6.3 volt Sanyo and two 1200uF, 6.3 volt "GSC ".

Extracted some similar spec electros from another (unused) motherboard
and replaced the dud ones in my PC - the new caps tested extremely
low ESR, about 30 - 40 milliohms !!

Voila - the PC works fine again and the previously hot mosfets now run
only luke warm. Feeling very pleased

Checked out the three faulty electros and found they were all open circuit,
the best one had an ESR of about 10 kohms !!!

How the heck could it function AT ALL with O/C caps like that ??


Moral:

Check out all those hard working regulator electros from time to time and
replace the lot at the first sign of cap bulging or hot mosfets.





........ Phil

 

[Dan N]

On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 22:07:00 +1000, Phil Allison wrote:

Extracted some similar spec electros from another (unused) motherboard
and replaced the dud ones in my PC - the new caps tested extremely
low ESR, about 30 - 40 milliohms !!

How did you test the ESR?

Dan

 

[Phil Allison]

"Dan N"
Phil Allison wrote:

Extracted some similar spec electros from another (unused) motherboard
and replaced the dud ones in my PC - the new caps tested extremely
low ESR, about 30 - 40 milliohms !!

How did you test the ESR?

Dan

** Silly question !!!

Bob " Mr ESR Meter " Parker will be along to put you straight, any mo.




....... Phil

 

[Bob Parker]

On 8/04/2007 22:07 Phil Allison wrote:

** Hi to all my loyal fans ....

Had to perform "emergency surgery" on my PC on Friday morning
- PC is about 4 years old & uses a " Gigabyte" mother board with
Athlon 1.8G CPU. Runs XP.

It simply froze & refused to complete boot up and presented a
totally black screen when switched off & re-tried.

Same scenario was repeated exactly, after 20 minutes of being off.

Suspecting a " heat "issue - I got out the vacuum and gave the insides
a good clean, its was pretty bad around the CPU heatsink & fan.

Tried it again - same scenario.

Damn !!

Then, I noticed some VERY hot mosfets ( finger burning temp) in the
CPU regulators and some rather bulged and wonky looking electros next
to them - one 1000uF, 6.3 volt Sanyo and two 1200uF, 6.3 volt "GSC ".

Extracted some similar spec electros from another (unused) motherboard
and replaced the dud ones in my PC - the new caps tested extremely
low ESR, about 30 - 40 milliohms !!

Voila - the PC works fine again and the previously hot mosfets now run
only luke warm. Feeling very pleased

Checked out the three faulty electros and found they were all open circuit,
the best one had an ESR of about 10 kohms !!!

How the heck could it function AT ALL with O/C caps like that ??


Moral:

Check out all those hard working regulator electros from time to time and
replace the lot at the first sign of cap bulging or hot mosfets.


....... Phil

My Gigabyte motherboard's the same age as yours. Late last year it
started crashing on startup, and yes, some of the 'GSC' electros had
bulging/split/leaking tops.
The main culprits around the CPU voltage regulator were a pair of
'GSC' 3300uF 6.3V ones, with ESR readings of 0.7 and 0.8 ohms. Replaced
them with WES's 105C low ESR 10V ones, along with four swollen 1500uF
16V, and it's been fine ever since.
I understand that GSC caps were one of the brands involved in the
defective electrolyte fiasco.

Bob

 

[Bob Parker]

On 8/04/2007 23:38 Phil Allison wrote:

"Dan N"
Phil Allison wrote:
Extracted some similar spec electros from another (unused) motherboard
and replaced the dud ones in my PC - the new caps tested extremely
low ESR, about 30 - 40 milliohms !!
How did you test the ESR?

Dan



** Silly question !!!

Bob " Mr ESR Meter " Parker will be along to put you straight, any mo.

...... Phil

Phil used his DSE K-7204 ESR meter to measure them. I used mine to
check my motherboard caps too.

Bob

 

[Tim Polmear]

On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 23:57:42 +1000, Bob Parker
<bobp.deletethis@bluebottle.com> wrote:

On 8/04/2007 22:07 Phil Allison wrote:
** Hi to all my loyal fans ....

Had to perform "emergency surgery" on my PC on Friday morning
- PC is about 4 years old & uses a " Gigabyte" mother board with
Athlon 1.8G CPU. Runs XP.

It simply froze & refused to complete boot up and presented a
totally black screen when switched off & re-tried.

Same scenario was repeated exactly, after 20 minutes of being off.

Suspecting a " heat "issue - I got out the vacuum and gave the insides
a good clean, its was pretty bad around the CPU heatsink & fan.

Tried it again - same scenario.

Damn !!

Then, I noticed some VERY hot mosfets ( finger burning temp) in the
CPU regulators and some rather bulged and wonky looking electros next
to them - one 1000uF, 6.3 volt Sanyo and two 1200uF, 6.3 volt "GSC ".

Extracted some similar spec electros from another (unused) motherboard
and replaced the dud ones in my PC - the new caps tested extremely
low ESR, about 30 - 40 milliohms !!

Voila - the PC works fine again and the previously hot mosfets now run
only luke warm. Feeling very pleased

Checked out the three faulty electros and found they were all open circuit,
the best one had an ESR of about 10 kohms !!!

How the heck could it function AT ALL with O/C caps like that ??


Moral:

Check out all those hard working regulator electros from time to time and
replace the lot at the first sign of cap bulging or hot mosfets.


....... Phil

My Gigabyte motherboard's the same age as yours. Late last year it
started crashing on startup, and yes, some of the 'GSC' electros had
bulging/split/leaking tops.
The main culprits around the CPU voltage regulator were a pair of
'GSC' 3300uF 6.3V ones, with ESR readings of 0.7 and 0.8 ohms. Replaced
them with WES's 105C low ESR 10V ones, along with four swollen 1500uF
16V, and it's been fine ever since.
I understand that GSC caps were one of the brands involved in the
defective electrolyte fiasco.

Bob

Oh

I was wondering what all the fuss about 'long life solid capacitors'
was all about. I thought "What a load of crap as if your motherboard
capacitors ever go faulty"

I guess I was wrong :S


____________________________________________________
"I like to be organised. A place for everything. And everything all over the place."

 

[Bob Parker]

On 9/04/2007 02:18 Tim Polmear wrote:

Oh

I was wondering what all the fuss about 'long life solid capacitors'
was all about. I thought "What a load of crap as if your motherboard
capacitors ever go faulty"

I guess I was wrong :S

A few years ago, millions of electrolytic caps were made in Asia
with defective electrolyte. Many of them went into motherboards which
started failing after a period ranging from a few months to a few years.
It's such a major problem that there are discussion forums about it
on the subject, e.g. http://www.badcaps.net

 

[Frank]

have a read of this
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/bch20030207018535.htm



Phil Allison <philallison@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:57s46lF2ej024U1@mid.individual.net...

** Hi to all my loyal fans ....

Had to perform "emergency surgery" on my PC on Friday morning
- PC is about 4 years old & uses a " Gigabyte" mother board with
Athlon 1.8G CPU. Runs XP.

It simply froze & refused to complete boot up and presented a
totally black screen when switched off & re-tried.

Same scenario was repeated exactly, after 20 minutes of being off.

Suspecting a " heat "issue - I got out the vacuum and gave the insides
a good clean, its was pretty bad around the CPU heatsink & fan.

Tried it again - same scenario.

Damn !!

Then, I noticed some VERY hot mosfets ( finger burning temp) in the
CPU regulators and some rather bulged and wonky looking electros next
to them - one 1000uF, 6.3 volt Sanyo and two 1200uF, 6.3 volt "GSC ".

Extracted some similar spec electros from another (unused) motherboard
and replaced the dud ones in my PC - the new caps tested extremely
low ESR, about 30 - 40 milliohms !!

Voila - the PC works fine again and the previously hot mosfets now run
only luke warm. Feeling very pleased

Checked out the three faulty electros and found they were all open circuit,
the best one had an ESR of about 10 kohms !!!

How the heck could it function AT ALL with O/C caps like that ??


Moral:

Check out all those hard working regulator electros from time to time and
replace the lot at the first sign of cap bulging or hot mosfets.





........ Phil

 

[kreed]

On Apr 9, 7:31 pm, "Frank" <e...@home.com> wrote:

have a read of thishttp://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/bch20030207018535.htm

Phil Allison <philalli...@tpg.com.au> wrote in message

news:57s46lF2ej024U1@mid.individual.net...

** Hi to all my loyal fans ....

Had to perform "emergency surgery" on my PC on Friday morning
- PC is about 4 years old & uses a " Gigabyte" mother board with
Athlon 1.8G CPU. Runs XP.

It simply froze & refused to complete boot up and presented a
totally black screen when switched off & re-tried.

Same scenario was repeated exactly, after 20 minutes of being off.

Suspecting a " heat "issue - I got out the vacuum and gave the insides
a good clean, its was pretty bad around the CPU heatsink & fan.

Tried it again - same scenario.

Damn !!

Then, I noticed some VERY hot mosfets ( finger burning temp) in the
CPU regulators and some rather bulged and wonky looking electros next
to them - one 1000uF, 6.3 volt Sanyo and two 1200uF, 6.3 volt "GSC ".

Extracted some similar spec electros from another (unused) motherboard
and replaced the dud ones in my PC - the new caps tested extremely
low ESR, about 30 - 40 milliohms !!

Voila - the PC works fine again and the previously hot mosfets now run
only luke warm. Feeling very pleased

Checked out the three faulty electros and found they were all open circuit,
the best one had an ESR of about 10 kohms !!!

How the heck could it function AT ALL with O/C caps like that ??

Moral:

Check out all those hard working regulator electros from time to time and
replace the lot at the first sign of cap bulging or hot mosfets.

....... Phil

You are right about that.

I also have a Soltek and a Gigabyte board here in my junk box from
that era (about 2001-3). Both had faulty (swelled and starting to
leak) caps on the board that sound exactly like what you have
discovered.

At the time they failed (2005?), I looked into replacing the caps, but
considering the high price for these special low ESR electros from
Farnell at the time, and the large numbers of them used on these 2
boards, not to mention that the motherboards weren't working, and
might have other faults too, I replaced the motherboards with new
ones. (This also gave other benefits like no 32/128gig hard drive size
limit, etc).

Last year, I saw similar problems on a friend's Aopen board. Replacing
the caps with ones from another dead motherboard (that didnt have
leaky caps) fixed it perfectly.



As for the thing still working, I am surprised what motherboards seem
able to cop, and keep on working. Last year one of my workmates
fuckwit relatives brought to him a home assembled PC claiming the
"power button wont work, have to switch off at the mains all the
time". To his amazement, the motherboard was screwed directly to the
metal chassis, with no spacers. Im absolutely astounded that the
thing even powered up and wonder why it didnt simply act as a huge
short circuit !

 

[Phil Allison]

"kreed"

Phil Allison

How the heck could it function AT ALL with O/C caps like that ??

Moral:

Check out all those hard working regulator electros from time to time and
replace the lot at the first sign of cap bulging or hot mosfets.



You are right about that.

I also have a Soltek and a Gigabyte board here in my junk box from
that era (about 2001-3). Both had faulty (swelled and starting to
leak) caps on the board that sound exactly like what you have
discovered.

At the time they failed (2005?), I looked into replacing the caps, but
considering the high price for these special low ESR electros from
Farnell at the time, and the large numbers of them used on these 2
boards, not to mention that the motherboards weren't working, and
might have other faults too, I replaced the motherboards with new
ones. (This also gave other benefits like no 32/128gig hard drive size
limit, etc).

Last year, I saw similar problems on a friend's Aopen board. Replacing
the caps with ones from another dead motherboard (that didnt have
leaky caps) fixed it perfectly.

** Yep - there were lots of other " GSC " electros on the same
motherboard.

All of them looked just fine & tested perfect on Bob's ** fabulous** ESR
meter.

All of them had no heat sources nearby....

Hardly a coincidence after circa 15,000 hrs operation

As for the thing still working, I am surprised what motherboards seem
able to cop, and keep on working. Last year one of my workmates
fuckwit relatives brought to him a home assembled PC claiming the
"power button wont work, have to switch off at the mains all the
time". To his amazement, the motherboard was screwed directly to the
metal chassis, with no spacers. Im absolutely astounded that the
thing even powered up and wonder why it didnt simply act as a huge
short circuit !

** Mug's luck.

See it all the bloody time !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Makes me wanna puke ......




........ Phil ;-)

 

[Frank]

reply on top dickhead so we can read it





kreed <kenreed1999@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1176119403.607659.140100@b75g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
On Apr 9, 7:31 pm, "Frank" <e...@home.com> wrote:

have a read of
thishttp://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/bch20030207018535.htm

Phil Allison <philalli...@tpg.com.au> wrote in message

news:57s46lF2ej024U1@mid.individual.net...

** Hi to all my loyal fans ....

Had to perform "emergency surgery" on my PC on Friday morning
- PC is about 4 years old & uses a " Gigabyte" mother board with
Athlon 1.8G CPU. Runs XP.

It simply froze & refused to complete boot up and presented a
totally black screen when switched off & re-tried.

Same scenario was repeated exactly, after 20 minutes of being off.

Suspecting a " heat "issue - I got out the vacuum and gave the insides
a good clean, its was pretty bad around the CPU heatsink & fan.

Tried it again - same scenario.

Damn !!

Then, I noticed some VERY hot mosfets ( finger burning temp) in the
CPU regulators and some rather bulged and wonky looking electros next
to them - one 1000uF, 6.3 volt Sanyo and two 1200uF, 6.3 volt "GSC ".

Extracted some similar spec electros from another (unused) motherboard
and replaced the dud ones in my PC - the new caps tested extremely
low ESR, about 30 - 40 milliohms !!

Voila - the PC works fine again and the previously hot mosfets now run
only luke warm. Feeling very pleased

Checked out the three faulty electros and found they were all open
circuit,
the best one had an ESR of about 10 kohms !!!

How the heck could it function AT ALL with O/C caps like that ??

Moral:

Check out all those hard working regulator electros from time to time and
replace the lot at the first sign of cap bulging or hot mosfets.

....... Phil

You are right about that.

I also have a Soltek and a Gigabyte board here in my junk box from
that era (about 2001-3). Both had faulty (swelled and starting to
leak) caps on the board that sound exactly like what you have
discovered.

At the time they failed (2005?), I looked into replacing the caps, but
considering the high price for these special low ESR electros from
Farnell at the time, and the large numbers of them used on these 2
boards, not to mention that the motherboards weren't working, and
might have other faults too, I replaced the motherboards with new
ones. (This also gave other benefits like no 32/128gig hard drive size
limit, etc).

Last year, I saw similar problems on a friend's Aopen board. Replacing
the caps with ones from another dead motherboard (that didnt have
leaky caps) fixed it perfectly.



As for the thing still working, I am surprised what motherboards seem
able to cop, and keep on working. Last year one of my workmates
fuckwit relatives brought to him a home assembled PC claiming the
"power button wont work, have to switch off at the mains all the
time". To his amazement, the motherboard was screwed directly to the
metal chassis, with no spacers. Im absolutely astounded that the
thing even powered up and wonder why it didnt simply act as a huge
short circuit !

 

[Frank]

dickhead top post to save us time







Phil Allison <philallison@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:57urbaF2e246nU1@mid.individual.net...

"kreed"

Phil Allison

How the heck could it function AT ALL with O/C caps like that ??

Moral:

Check out all those hard working regulator electros from time to time and
replace the lot at the first sign of cap bulging or hot mosfets.



You are right about that.

I also have a Soltek and a Gigabyte board here in my junk box from
that era (about 2001-3). Both had faulty (swelled and starting to
leak) caps on the board that sound exactly like what you have
discovered.

At the time they failed (2005?), I looked into replacing the caps, but
considering the high price for these special low ESR electros from
Farnell at the time, and the large numbers of them used on these 2
boards, not to mention that the motherboards weren't working, and
might have other faults too, I replaced the motherboards with new
ones. (This also gave other benefits like no 32/128gig hard drive size
limit, etc).

Last year, I saw similar problems on a friend's Aopen board. Replacing
the caps with ones from another dead motherboard (that didnt have
leaky caps) fixed it perfectly.

** Yep - there were lots of other " GSC " electros on the same
motherboard.

All of them looked just fine & tested perfect on Bob's ** fabulous** ESR
meter.

All of them had no heat sources nearby....

Hardly a coincidence after circa 15,000 hrs operation

As for the thing still working, I am surprised what motherboards seem
able to cop, and keep on working. Last year one of my workmates
fuckwit relatives brought to him a home assembled PC claiming the
"power button wont work, have to switch off at the mains all the
time". To his amazement, the motherboard was screwed directly to the
metal chassis, with no spacers. Im absolutely astounded that the
thing even powered up and wonder why it didnt simply act as a huge
short circuit !

** Mug's luck.

See it all the bloody time !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Makes me wanna puke ......




........ Phil ;-)

 

[Frank]

Frank <erty@home.com> wrote in message news:461a07d9@clear.net.nz...
have a read of this
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/bch20030207018535.htm



Phil Allison <philallison@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:57s46lF2ej024U1@mid.individual.net...

** Hi to all my loyal fans ....

Had to perform "emergency surgery" on my PC on Friday morning
- PC is about 4 years old & uses a " Gigabyte" mother board with
Athlon 1.8G CPU. Runs XP.

It simply froze & refused to complete boot up and presented a
totally black screen when switched off & re-tried.

Same scenario was repeated exactly, after 20 minutes of being off.

Suspecting a " heat "issue - I got out the vacuum and gave the insides
a good clean, its was pretty bad around the CPU heatsink & fan.

Tried it again - same scenario.

Damn !!

Then, I noticed some VERY hot mosfets ( finger burning temp) in the
CPU regulators and some rather bulged and wonky looking electros next
to them - one 1000uF, 6.3 volt Sanyo and two 1200uF, 6.3 volt "GSC ".

Extracted some similar spec electros from another (unused) motherboard
and replaced the dud ones in my PC - the new caps tested extremely
low ESR, about 30 - 40 milliohms !!

Voila - the PC works fine again and the previously hot mosfets now run
only luke warm. Feeling very pleased

Checked out the three faulty electros and found they were all open circuit,
the best one had an ESR of about 10 kohms !!!

How the heck could it function AT ALL with O/C caps like that ??


Moral:

Check out all those hard working regulator electros from time to time and
replace the lot at the first sign of cap bulging or hot mosfets.





........ Phil

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On 9 Apr 2007 04:50:03 -0700, "kreed" <kenreed1999@gmail.com> put
finger to keyboard and composed:

As for the thing still working, I am surprised what motherboards seem
able to cop, and keep on working. Last year one of my workmates
fuckwit relatives brought to him a home assembled PC claiming the
"power button wont work, have to switch off at the mains all the
time". To his amazement, the motherboard was screwed directly to the
metal chassis, with no spacers. Im absolutely astounded that the
thing even powered up and wonder why it didnt simply act as a huge
short circuit !

I presume there were no plug-in cards? What about the rear keyboard,
USB, mouse, graphics sockets? How did they fit?

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

 

[kreed]

On Apr 10, 10:24 am, Franc Zabkar <fzab...@iinternode.on.net> wrote:

On 9 Apr 2007 04:50:03 -0700, "kreed" <kenreed1...@gmail.com> put
finger to keyboard and composed:

As for the thing still working, I am surprised what motherboards seem
able to cop, and keep on working. Last year one of my workmates
fuckwit relatives brought to him a home assembled PC claiming the
"power button wont work, have to switch off at the mains all the
time". To his amazement, the motherboard was screwed directly to the
metal chassis, with no spacers. Im absolutely astounded that the
thing even powered up and wonder why it didnt simply act as a huge
short circuit !

I presume there were no plug-in cards? What about the rear keyboard,
USB, mouse, graphics sockets? How did they fit?

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

I didn't see it, it was brought to my workmate's house, by the
relative and he told us about it the following day. I assume that
they didnt use the clip-in rectangular surround in the back of the
case that usually comes with a new motherboard, or maybe left that end
of the board up in the air (that would explain the thing not shorting
I guess) I didn't think to ask at the time.

 

[Two Bob]

reply on top dickhead so we can read it

Reply in context dickhead so it makes sense

kreed <kenreed1999@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1176119403.607659.140100@b75g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
On Apr 9, 7:31 pm, "Frank" <e...@home.com> wrote:
have a read of
thishttp://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/bch20030207018535.htm

Phil Allison <philalli...@tpg.com.au> wrote in message

news:57s46lF2ej024U1@mid.individual.net...

** Hi to all my loyal fans ....

Had to perform "emergency surgery" on my PC on Friday morning
- PC is about 4 years old & uses a " Gigabyte" mother board with
Athlon 1.8G CPU. Runs XP.

It simply froze & refused to complete boot up and presented a
totally black screen when switched off & re-tried.

Same scenario was repeated exactly, after 20 minutes of being off.

Suspecting a " heat "issue - I got out the vacuum and gave the
insides
a good clean, its was pretty bad around the CPU heatsink & fan.

Tried it again - same scenario.

Damn !!

Then, I noticed some VERY hot mosfets ( finger burning temp) in the
CPU regulators and some rather bulged and wonky looking electros next
to them - one 1000uF, 6.3 volt Sanyo and two 1200uF, 6.3 volt "GSC ".

Extracted some similar spec electros from another (unused) motherboard
and replaced the dud ones in my PC - the new caps tested extremely
low ESR, about 30 - 40 milliohms !!

Voila - the PC works fine again and the previously hot mosfets now run
only luke warm. Feeling very pleased

Checked out the three faulty electros and found they were all open
circuit,
the best one had an ESR of about 10 kohms !!!

How the heck could it function AT ALL with O/C caps like that ??

Moral:

Check out all those hard working regulator electros from time to time and
replace the lot at the first sign of cap bulging or hot mosfets.

....... Phil



You are right about that.

I also have a Soltek and a Gigabyte board here in my junk box from
that era (about 2001-3). Both had faulty (swelled and starting to
leak) caps on the board that sound exactly like what you have
discovered.

At the time they failed (2005?), I looked into replacing the caps, but
considering the high price for these special low ESR electros from
Farnell at the time, and the large numbers of them used on these 2
boards, not to mention that the motherboards weren't working, and
might have other faults too, I replaced the motherboards with new
ones. (This also gave other benefits like no 32/128gig hard drive size
limit, etc).

Last year, I saw similar problems on a friend's Aopen board. Replacing
the caps with ones from another dead motherboard (that didnt have
leaky caps) fixed it perfectly.



As for the thing still working, I am surprised what motherboards seem
able to cop, and keep on working. Last year one of my workmates
fuckwit relatives brought to him a home assembled PC claiming the
"power button wont work, have to switch off at the mains all the
time". To his amazement, the motherboard was screwed directly to the
metal chassis, with no spacers. Im absolutely astounded that the
thing even powered up and wonder why it didnt simply act as a huge
short circuit !