On Sunday, July 14, 2013 3:56:01 AM UTC-5, Gregg Eshelman wrote: > > > Capacitor plague. <Google that > > It involves industrial espionage, a stolen yet substandard formula for > capacitor electrolyte and millions upon millions of counterfeit capacitors > flooding the electronics industry in the 1990's and early 00's. > > That's why you see some equipment that has 100% good caps after all these > years, some with 100% bad caps and some with at least one but less than all > bad. I've seen many PC motherboards where only one specific size/brand of > capacitors have gone bad. > > Nobody could tell the genuine name brand caps from the knockoffs without > closely examining them side by side, which nobody was doing while the bad > caps were going into computers. They were good enough to nearly always last > until years after the hardware was out of warranty. >
It goes beyond that. Machines made in the 1980s also have leaky capacitors. I believe the story about the stolen formula, but properly made electrolytics also leak eventually. My first problem machine was a IIci (early 1990s) which actually had failed, and leaking capacitors around 1995. That one leaked enough to damage the logic board and require bypass wires. There was an outfit refurbing IIci's with new caps advertising on the news groups back then, so the problem was common enough to warrant business attention. As to tantalums vs. electrolytics. All caps have a limited lifetime. But when the electrolytics fail, they leak corrosive goo all over the circuit board. I would much prefer tantalums, although the new solid ceramics in packaging similar to electrolytics look nice too. Of course those ceramics are still more expensive. This isn't new. I've been advertising capacitor kits on LEM Swaplist for the last five years. However, Charles is much more energetic and offers an actual repair service. Jeff Walther -- -- ----- You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to vintage-macs@googlegroups.com To leave this group, send email to vintage-macs+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Vintage Macs" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to vintage-macs+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
