Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Flying Fox, Thresher
Wirko wrote:Most electrolytic capacitors don't spit the acid around, not even when they reach the end of life. Those with plague do that.
ludi wrote:Electrolytic capacitors have a finite lifetime. In some cases if a unit is operated near its full voltage and maximum operating temperature, the rating is as low as 1000-2000 hours. It then increases exponentially as the operating conditions are improved.
Note where those are sitting: next to voltage regulator ICs that are probably heating the board from below, and next to a heatsink that is probably warming the air nearby. That may be a normal EoL failure.
LoneWolf15 wrote:I'm not betting on the above board being high quality, since higher quality boards even at 2007 used solid caps for the voltage regulation. Around that time, I was using an Intel BadAxe 2 enthusiast board, and while it had some electrolytic capacitors, none were for VRMS. And those would probably be the capacitors to withstand the highest temperatures.
LoneWolf15 wrote:A less expensive board may source poorer-quality capacitors
TheRazorsEdge wrote:Around 2005, Intel was shipping hot-running Netburst CPUs (Prescott and Pentium D) with rather high power consumption. These would have strained capacitors and contributed to premature death because heat is very, very bad for electrolytic caps--and no one was using solid caps back then due to price.
This period coincided with intense competition between motherboard manufacturers, and there are a lot of brands from that time which no longer exist. Seriously, half of the mainboard manufacturers went bankrupt or merged, including my two favorites. Capacitors are a frequent target for cost-cutting. Cheap caps are a terrible idea in anything that is intended to run for years. But, hey, market pressure.
So caps fail with time, and they always will. But, yeah, there was a perfect storm in the early-mid 2000s that caused an epidemic.
LoneWolf15 wrote:The right picture has silk-screening that ends in AM2, which could mean a Socket AM2 board (Athlon 64, Athlon 64X2). The budget AM2 boards I know of from that time (Foxconn made ones in red, I remember those, and a few others like MSI did as well on the lower end) had less expensive caps, and this wouldn't surprise me at all. And Ludi is totally correct in that that's probably one of the warmer areas of the system board too.
capbam wrote:Worked at a university in 2002-2012 and I replaced an entire fleet of Optiplex GX270 mobo's
highlandr wrote:capbam wrote:Worked at a university in 2002-2012 and I replaced an entire fleet of Optiplex GX270 mobo's
Dell never admitted it, but there were rumors that over 70% of GX270 boards failed. We lucked out by having 260s and 280s - the 260s still failed, but only in the <25% numbers, not the catastrophic numbers of the 270s.
</dodged that bullet>
TheRazorsEdge wrote:LoneWolf15 wrote:The right picture has silk-screening that ends in AM2, which could mean a Socket AM2 board (Athlon 64, Athlon 64X2). The budget AM2 boards I know of from that time (Foxconn made ones in red, I remember those, and a few others like MSI did as well on the lower end) had less expensive caps, and this wouldn't surprise me at all. And Ludi is totally correct in that that's probably one of the warmer areas of the system board too.
Around the same time, we moved from down-facing CPU fans to rear-facing fans. This applies more to enthusiasts than OEMs though. This probably contributed to a lot of dead caps too, due to reduced airflow.
OP's image obviously has a down-facing fan, but he didn't experience the premature failure associated with the "epidemic" of the early-mid 2000s... assuming this failure was recent.
meerkt wrote:Chipset fans, yuck.
And the CPU socket on that K7N2 looks uncomfortably close to the edge.
(Well, I don't know if it really matters, but it looks wrong. )
Captain Ned wrote:Zalnan ZN47 or something like that.
just brew it! wrote:My SOP in those days was to replace the chipset fans with passive coolers. Sometimes you had to get a little creative since a passive cooler large enough to keep the chipset cool would result in mechanical clearance issues with other components. In a couple of cases I had to cut some of the fins down to fit around the video card...
just brew it! wrote:Captain Ned wrote:Zalnan ZN47 or something like that.
https://www.amazon.com/Zalman-ZM-NB47J- ... B000292DNQ