[ale] Motherboard capacitors bursting

[Vincent Fox]

The Abit BX-133 board was famous for this. They used cheap
electrolytic capacitors and a marginal design. I had probably
six of these boards flake out on me. They don't usually fail in
a complete and obvious way they just start locking up or rebooting
occasionally when the 1st capacitor fails. As the load is taken up
by remaining capacitors in the string, they are under more stress
and then another one fails, and it becomes a bit less stable.
Continuing until 3 or 4 have blown at which point it becomes
obvious you have a hardware problem since it will no longer boot.

Have a PC that seems to be flaking out? Open it up and look for
capacitors with bulgy tops.

No single manufacturer seems to be guilty of this. I have had
one electronics type tell me that electrolytic capacitors all have
a finite lifetime anyhow but they are far cheaper so everyone uses
them. So don't expect any board to last 100 years in operation just
some will last longer than others.

> > Anyway, I seemed to remember someone on this list bemoaning poor quality
> > components in computers, and now I can testify to it.