8RDA+ with failing caps

Lee M. wrote:
> Just bought my kid's 8RDA+ and I see several of the caps are bulging with
> some brownish crud on them. He hadn't said he had any problems, just wanted
> a faster system. Once the caps start bulging, is there any timetable before
> I might start seeing problems? My 6 yr old 8KHA+ does not have bulging
> caps. The 8RDA+ will be in a backup computer, not my main machine. I will
> probably only see 3-4 hrs a week of on time.

Sigh... I loved my 8RDA+. One day I opened it up to maybe add a hard
drive, whatever, and I saw all those bulging brown caps. I RMA'd the
board and got a replacement from Epox. Even though it had new caps, it
lived a very short life before it developed probs that were unresolvable
despite careful troubleshooting. It ended up going in the trash. I'm
not saying that all refurbs are bad by any means, and who knows how long
I had before my bulging cap 8RDA+ would have shown probs. But in
retrospect, I should have kept it till it acted up. As a former
computer/net pro, I know better than to try to fix what ain't broke.
Live & learn, eh?

Regards,

Margaret
 >> Stay informed about: 8RDA+ with failing caps 

dave wrote:
> Nope, no timetable. I have two 8RDA+ systems and both have had the
> bulging, spewing, bad caps problem. One began to not boot and I
> replaced the caps to repair it. The other to this day is working fine
> with bad caps. My theory is much of it depends on the quality of the
> power supply. In other words, even if a motherboard has bad caps it may
> still function fine if the power supply has very well regulated outputs.
>
> DaveL

But the caps are used in places not directly connected to the PSU.
The caps on the output side of Vcore, are operating at the Vcore
voltage, in the neighborhood of 1.5V or so. So if those caps
malfunction, even the most manly power supply will not help them.

In some places on the motherboard, caps are used in a group. Each
cap carries some of the ripple current, which is the function of
a bypass cap. When one cap begins to bulge and no longer functions
correctly, the load is transferred to the good ones. Which can
accelerate their demise. So you may see some "correlation" in the
failure of caps, especially if they are carrying a heavy load.

And the caps can be replaced, but a repair person will likely
ask more for the work, than the replacement cost of the motherboard.
When cheap motherboards for other sockets are available at $50, you
cannot get much repair work done for $50. Only a dedicated hobbyist,
willing to do the work for free, plus someone paying for a handful
of caps, will be able to compete at the $50 level, and the
hobbyist will go hungry if he/she does too many of them.

I don't know anything about the person running this site. I got here
by entering the URL of another site that used to do repairs. At least
there is some info here, on how to do the repairs yourself, if you
are so inclined.

http://www.badcaps.net/tips/rem/

There is much lore in the selection of capacitors, and it is
surprisingly difficult to get your hands on some good ones. For
example, I can search down the part numbers of good ones, on
a capacitor manufacturer's web site, but not be able to find
them anywhere for sale. (Digikey, Mouser, and Newark are potential
places to get them.)

One other thing - the rating printed on the plastic sleeve (the
capacitance), is seldom the most important parameter. There are
other parameters, which are listed in the catalog for such parts,
that is part of the selection process. So when someone says
"use a bigger one with more microfarads", that is seldom correct
advice, at least on a motherboard. If selecting capacitors for
yourself, without help from sites like badcaps.net, you can get
some advice by downloading the datasheet for the switching regulator
chip, as they usually explain some of the tradeoffs between
the parameters like ESL, ESR, ripple current etc.

Paul

>
>
> "Lee M." <lmacmil.RemoveThis@forget_it.com> wrote in message
> news:f9ydnQmgeu3WZ1jYnZ2dnUVZ_vShnZ2d@comcast.com...
>> Just bought my kid's 8RDA+ and I see several of the caps are bulging
>> with some brownish crud on them. He hadn't said he had any problems,
>> just wanted a faster system. Once the caps start bulging, is there
>> any timetable before I might start seeing problems? My 6 yr old 8KHA+
>> does not have bulging caps. The 8RDA+ will be in a backup computer,
>> not my main machine. I will probably only see 3-4 hrs a week of on time.
>>
>>
>>
>
 >> Stay informed about: 8RDA+ with failing caps 

Rubycon 105 deg. C low ESR & Panasonic FC type's or better...
avoid as already stated in using standard type's, Panasonic does make
125 deg. C type's all the better if you can get them. The must have
the same value in uF, the voltage can be higher but obviously they
must be the same size.

Rubycon caps seem to be pretty standard and are available from RS
components for certain, along with Panasonic.

Davy
 >> Stay informed about: 8RDA+ with failing caps 

If you case temp goes over 100c, the least thing you'll have to worry about
is the caps. Say goodbye to your hard drive.

DaveL


"Davy" <no DeleteThis @spam.invalid> wrote in message
news:12squoq8trfjqcf@news.supernews.com...
> Rubycon 105 deg. C low ESR & Panasonic FC type's or better...
> avoid as already stated in using standard type's, Panasonic does make
> 125 deg. C type's all the better if you can get them. The must have
> the same value in uF, the voltage can be higher but obviously they
> must be the same size.
>
> Rubycon caps seem to be pretty standard and are available from RS
> components for certain, along with Panasonic.
>
> Davy
>
 >> Stay informed about: 8RDA+ with failing caps 

Interesting that the caps on my 5 or 6 yr old 8KHA+ (ver 2.0) are all fine
and many of the 2 year newer 8RDA+ caps are bursting at the seems.

"dave" <nospam> wrote in message
news:O4idnc86qrBWOVLYnZ2dnUVZ_vyunZ2d@comcast.com...
> If you case temp goes over 100c, the least thing you'll have to worry
> about is the caps. Say goodbye to your hard drive.
>
> DaveL
>
>
> "Davy" <no DeleteThis @spam.invalid> wrote in message
> news:12squoq8trfjqcf@news.supernews.com...
>> Rubycon 105 deg. C low ESR & Panasonic FC type's or better...
>> avoid as already stated in using standard type's, Panasonic does make
>> 125 deg. C type's all the better if you can get them. The must have
>> the same value in uF, the voltage can be higher but obviously they
>> must be the same size.
>>
>> Rubycon caps seem to be pretty standard and are available from RS
>> components for certain, along with Panasonic.
>>
>> Davy
>>
>
 >> Stay informed about: 8RDA+ with failing caps 

I have the same board as you and I had the bulging caps. They caused
instability on my system. Eventually my machine would not boot. I
called Epox got an RMA number and they fixed my board or sent me
another with good caps. Now my rig runs better than it did when new.



On Sun, 4 Feb 2007 10:23:00 -0500, "Lee M." <lmacmil.RemoveThis@forget_it.com>
wrote:

>Just bought my kid's 8RDA+ and I see several of the caps are bulging with
>some brownish crud on them. He hadn't said he had any problems, just wanted
>a faster system. Once the caps start bulging, is there any timetable before
>I might start seeing problems? My 6 yr old 8KHA+ does not have bulging
>caps. The 8RDA+ will be in a backup computer, not my main machine. I will
>probably only see 3-4 hrs a week of on time.
>
>


Regards

Mike



Go Blackhawks!
 >> Stay informed about: 8RDA+ with failing caps 

> [quote="Lee M."]Interesting that the caps on my 5 or 6 yr
old 8KHA+ (ver 2.0) are all fine
> and many of the 2 year newer 8RDA+ caps are bursting at the seems.
>

Are they those Green GSC ones.... ?

Dunno if you seen this (a snippet from an earler post in 'News n'
Stuff)
Taiwan made capacitors, apparently some industrial espoinage had been
going on and during the process someone was given the wrong formula
for the electrolyte, to cut a long story short this is a water based
stuff which produces hydrogen and blows the vents on the capacitor
spewing corrosive gunge which can eat away the copper tracks on the
mobo.

This applies to all brands of capacitors made in Taiwan, in my case
the green GSC types, this is not saying that all GSC capacitors are
bad. (I had a bad cap in my Gigabyte mobo hence the article..... the
later versions of the mobo uses different ones.)

The link below will explain all
http://www.niccomp.com/taiwanlowesr.htm

More interesting reading -:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,939887,00.asp
http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm

Davy
 >> Stay informed about: 8RDA+ with failing caps 

The caps that went bad in my two 8RDA+ boards were the green GSCs. The
black ones were fine so I did not change them.

DaveL


"Davy" <no DeleteThis @spam.invalid> wrote in message
news:12titt159erlg69@news.supernews.com...
>> [quote="Lee M."]Interesting that the caps on my 5 or 6 yr
> old 8KHA+ (ver 2.0) are all fine
>> and many of the 2 year newer 8RDA+ caps are bursting at the seems.
>>
>
> Are they those Green GSC ones.... ?
>
> Dunno if you seen this (a snippet from an earler post in 'News n'
> Stuff)
> Taiwan made capacitors, apparently some industrial espoinage had been
> going on and during the process someone was given the wrong formula
> for the electrolyte, to cut a long story short this is a water based
> stuff which produces hydrogen and blows the vents on the capacitor
> spewing corrosive gunge which can eat away the copper tracks on the
> mobo.
>
> This applies to all brands of capacitors made in Taiwan, in my case
> the green GSC types, this is not saying that all GSC capacitors are
> bad. (I had a bad cap in my Gigabyte mobo hence the article..... the
> later versions of the mobo uses different ones.)
>
> The link below will explain all
> http://www.niccomp.com/taiwanlowesr.htm
>
> More interesting reading -:
> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,939887,00.asp
> http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm
>
> Davy
>
 >> Stay informed about: 8RDA+ with failing caps