List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

[willawake]

Here i will maintain a list of bad cap manufacturers and other related FAQs. Any post here will be deleted. Please post any update in "bad cap manufacturers - please post yours here". or start another thread.

[willawake]

With respect to the manufacturers and the legalities of posting this list, it is compiled from actual bad experience with the brands listed from many technicians and users. Specifically the data is collected with actual experiences of the users of this forum and not from various unreliable sources. It should not be relied on 100% that these brands would continue to be bad, perhaps a manufacturer will change practices at a later date. However if your board or device is unstable, bluescreening, shutting down frequently or having difficulty to start then it is a consideration that if your board has these brands of caps then the problem might be BADCAPS.

[willawake]

Links to the badcaps manufacturers sites :

Arcon ??
Canicon - http://www.canicon.com.tw/
Capxon - http://www.capxon.com.tw/
Chhsi - http://www.chhsi.com.tw (inactive site)
Choyo
CTC
DST
Fuh Yin - http://www.fuhyin.com.tw/
Fuhjyyu - http://www.fuhjyyu.com.tw/
Fujitsu (FPCAP) - http://edevice.fujitsu.com/fmd/en/products/fpcap/ (mixed results. can fail or be ok)
Gloria - http://www.gloria-cap.com.tw/ (inactive site)
G-Luxon - http://group.luxon.com.tw/
GL ??
Gsc - http://www.gsc-cap.com.tw/
Hec
Hermei - http://www.hermei.com.tw
I.Q.
Jackcon - http://www.jackcon.com.tw/
JDEC
Jee
Jpcon - http://www.jpcon.com/
Jun Fu - http://www.jun-fu.com/
Lelon - http://www.lelon.com.tw/
Licon
Nkcon
Nrsy - These are phony Nippon caps so no site.
Ost - http://www.ost.com.tw
Partsnic - http://www.partsnic.com/
Pce-tur
Raycon
Rubysun (Shenzen Eagle New Technology Electrical Industry Co. Ltd.) - now a pornsite-removed
Rulycon - These are phony Rubycon caps so no site.
Skywell - http://www.skywellnet.com/
Stone - http://www.ystone.com.tw/ (not sure if this is the right one)
Supacon
Su'scon - http://www.su-scon.com.tw/
Taicon - http://www.taicon.com.tw/ (2 reports of fails only but not very commmon to see these caps on motherboards)
Tayeh
Teapo - http://www.teapo.com.tw/
Tocon - http://www.tocon.com.tw/
Wendell - http://www.wendell.com.tw/
Yec - http://www.yec.com.tw http://www.ylcorp.com.tw/ (neither working)

[willawake]

Bad Capacitor Manufacturers FAQ

What is the legend behind the badcaps? Well, the rather dubious story behind this problem is that a scientist working for the Japanese company Rubycon left the company and began working for Luminous Town Electric in China. He developed a copy of the Rubycon P-50 water based electrolyte which is what they use in the Low-ESR caps that are present on all motherboards. Unfortunately his staff left and stole his electrolyte formula. They started producing tons of the electrolyte and supplied many Taiwanese capacitor manufacturers. Unfortunately the formula was incomplete and did not contain the additives that prevent electrolysis from occurring inside the capacitors and releasing hydrogen gas which bursts the capacitor at the vents at the top or at the bottom of the capacitor can.

Should we believe this legend? It is a plausible explanation for the problems which we have been having. However there are also other issues concerning inferior manufacture of capacitors. You have to consider what a capacitor is. It is not an incredibly complicated thing to construct, you could source from third parties the Aluminium Foils, Electrolyte, Leads, Bungs, Aluminium Cans, Sleeves and buy some machines to put it all together. You would not have the same knowledge as the majors who spend huge amounts on research and development however. You would also be relying on other peoples' quality control and choices of raw materials. Then each step of the production process and quality control that you could eliminate would cut costs and by selecting cheaper suppliers of components you could achieve a product which is priced well to compete with other capacitor manufacturers. Of course the product would not be of comparable quality to that of the majors and that is why they are much more expensive.

Personally I think it is unlikely for this legend of espionage to be still affecting us today. It is more likely that cost cutting, inferior materials and construction are causing us problems. It is more likely that capacitor manufacturers leave out or put less additives to the electrolyte to cut costs.

How can I check that my capacitors are going to fail? you should check the list of bad capacitor manufacturers and that will give you an indication of whether your motherboard is a candidate for failure. We are talking about the larger caps which are 1000uf and above, not the minor caps. It is not a definite that your motherboard is going to fail, you could be lucky. I have motherboards with PII 300Mhz slot 1 chips still running fine after many years with caps from the bad guys on them. I have others which were not so lucky. So basically if the caps have not failed we can only classify the motherboard as a candidate for failure. Personally I would not be running any mission critical systems like servers on boards which are candidates for failure.

What can you do? You could immediately recap the motherboard with good quality caps, some people do that. However at least you should be sure to take the motherboard out of service when the problem appears. You should be especially looking for problems with starting the computer from cold, however this can also indicate bad caps in the PSU. Also regular crashing/restarting, blue screens, data corruption, memory test utility errors are an indication. The crashing may continue for quite a while until the capacitors actually vent. If you are experiencing unexplained instability in a previously stable computer then you should take a look at the caps periodically and take it out of service when the first bulging or leaking brown/orange/white appears at the top of the capacitor cans. Do not continue to run your computer at that stage, you should immediately take it out of service because one of the caps could eventually short and permanently damage your ram/cpu/cards.

How long will it take for the capacitors to fail? That is something which depends on many variables. Bad voltage supply to the caps from a low quality, underpowered PSU without a UPS connected could decrease their life. Heat is another important factor, if you live in a hot climate your caps will not last so long. Also if your computer case is not adequately cooled, of small size or the heatsinks are covered with dirt then again the caps will have a shorter life. Extreme heat can even cause good capacitors to fail early. Furthermore the position of the CPU heatsink is also an issue, if it is hot and is so large that it is leaning against capacitors then those will blow first. Voltage requirements are also an issue, your faster cpu and motherboard chipset, your larger fans connected to the motherboard headers are all drawing more voltage than an inferior system and putting a strain on your capacitors. Overclocking is of course putting an extra strain on the capacitors and power supply.

So think about cooling, having a large case with some good fans will prolong the life of all your system, not only the capacitors. Think about which components are causing the most heat. I have seen quiet Zalman power supplies with a quiet but poor fan making excessive heat. I have also seen lower end graphics cards without a fan on the heatsink making a huge amount of heat in the case. Correcting these excessive heat producing components by changing the fan of the PSU to a more efficient one, modding the graphics card to a larger heatsink and fan made a huge difference in the computer case, as did putting two exhaust fans from papst which blow a good amount of air and do not raise the noise level too much.

So really nobody can say when your capacitors will fail if they are of bad manufacture. It could take months, a year or even 3 years if you are not stressing them. On the other hand capacitors from one of the trusted brands namely Rubycon, Sanyo, Nichicon, Panasonic are expected to last the useful life of the motherboard unless your case is extremely hot.

[axlmastr]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers - update

Happy late birthday Willawake!
Willawake could you please add CapXon (black color/white text) found in a re-badged Deer "Athlon Approved" PSU marked E.M.I. on the manufacturer decal. The PCB was screened with DEER while the decal said otherwise. Found this in an Amptron barebones. Caps on the MB were domed at the proc. I will post info when I identify the model- you know how Amptrons are without original documentation.

Also, correction for the listing of Jun-Foo has been verified as Jun Fu (color resembles the ink from old mimeograph copies- blue/purple with white text).

Please add Fuhjyyu (black color/white text) found in same PSU as Jun Fu. No manufacture's label and came in a new "white box" case.

Thanks

[Fomhoire]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

CapXon, Lelon and Elna on a power supply board for a JVC DVD/VHS player.

[linuxguru]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

CapXon and Elna are reputed brands - the CapXon could have failed due to overloading of the PSU or operation outside its rated specs. I have several 15+ year old AT PSUs with functional CapXons.

[Chris1992]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

Elna are good but CapXon are IIRC known crap since the badcaps scandal in 2001.

[japlytic]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

When searching for "DM" ZL series, I stumbled across the "HEC" brand at http://17.elco.net.ru/supplier/17/70...76/details.htm , which was by Dongguan City Dongyangguang Electronic Co Ltd.

Also found Licon capacitors were by Fujicon - http://98.elco.net.ru/supplier/98/88...30/details.htm

[japlytic]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

Nover?

Seen a case with them on https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=103

www.nover.com

[-HoNY-]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

Hi, where i found specifikation od Chhsi "HK" series?

I have some never used MSI boards for OEM market (MS-6168, MS-6140)with iZX/iLX chipset. Caps is´t inflated. MS-6140 is unstable. 4pcs of MS-6168 after 1 week using has don´t woring

(sorry for using uncorrect thred and my worst english level)

[tazwegion]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

I once had a pair of MS-6161 s370 motherboards, they died in a similar fashion, from memory they had JPcon capacitors all over them, they too were out of OEM built systems

[tazwegion]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

On Topic - I found at least one failed TAYEH rated @ 470uF 16v 105c on an EPOX EP-MVP3C2 (SS7), while it didn't bulge it certainly leaked

[Rainbow]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

Tayeh is known crap.

[kc8adu]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

Tayeh is known crap.

so are chssi.
o p should just replace them with something from the good list.
i have seen crapcaps bad after several years on the shelf unused.i bought a ga-6vtxd new from a mom&pop store.
it was new but had been on the shelf several years till they put it in the $5 box.
the g-luxon caps were leaking and STINKING right out of the box!

[Rainbow]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

Chhsi can also fail without bulging.

[japlytic]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

Found the "JEE" manufacturer: Well Jieh International Group http://www.made-in-china.com/showroo...ght-5m-m-.html

[Rainbow]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

Found new crap brand - Fujicon - on QDI KinetiZ 7E board:
(the orange color is mostly from bad light but the first one has orange stuff on top too)

[Fatal0E]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

I am curious about some brown caps witha 4 way vent top marked TK. I will try to get pictures tomorrow. They are on a brand new Asus M2N-SLI.

[kc8adu]

Re: List of Bad Cap Manufacturers

found some d.s on a sbc i installed new last year in a anilam cnc box.
was getting reboots and lockups.
the d.s caps look fine but were at 10 ohms esr.may as well be open.