This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

[Topcat]

I received 3 VP6's this week that were completely trashed. I get emails and contacts all the time from customers who say "It would only crash once in a while", or "I didn't think the problem was that serious"... ARGGGG.... This VP6 is a prime reason why the minute you suspect or discover bad caps, replace them!! Don't wait!! Bad caps will not cure themselves!!











Sadly, this and the other 2 VP6's I received like it were destroyed. I didn't even bother to recap them , because the VRM FET's and the AGP power FET's were all shorted, and the torroid coil by the AGP was burnt beyond recognition. With damage like that, the voltage regulators are always fried, and many times the northbridge is also fried. In this particular VP6's case, it also BBQ'd 2GB of really nice Micron ECC PC133. You will note from the pictures the melted labels. This shouldn't have happened!! The only thing I pulled out of that board that was good was the CPU's, and I'm surprised they survived.

If you question your caps, take an expensive lesson from the owner of this board! REPLACE THEM ASAP!!!

[ShawninTennessee]

Wow Top,
Thats about enough to make a man cry there!!!! :roll:

[willawake]

break out the marshmellows baby........anyway, that is a perfect example for a class lawsuit. When you are dealing with fire hazards that is a major issue. Imagine a server cabinet burning down over the weekend from a bad PSU. It would not be pretty.

[MD Willington]

You should add my ECS board with IED FET's...Pow Pow...

MD

[Rainbow]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

Something like this K7S6A? It's not my board - owner http://daso.wz.cz

[kc8adu]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

i have seen lots of those type vrm's melt down like that.
and it always kills the cpu.
esp. amd chips.

[MD Willington]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

Similar...but the FETs did not desolder themselves

[PeteS in CA]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

The desoldered devices on which you can recognize the mfr's logo - possibly Shindengen - and most of the mfr's P/N, S?S2525L, are dual rectifiers. The devices that are "extra well done" are the MOSFETs. I'll bet the smell was delightful ...

[Rainbow]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

I've repaired some boards with this problem (some K7S5As and M805LRs) but they weren't as bad as this one. The MOSFETs were always bad, the rectifiers were always OK. Some of the base driving transistors were bad, some were OK - the older boards have two separate SMD driving transistors for each MOSFET, K7S6A has only two for all MOSFETs (at least they're in TO92 so can be replaced more easily). And of course bulged caps - always G-Luxon.

[japlytic]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

This situation is really serious. I guess I would see my lawyer if this happened to me (if it ever does!)

[wetback]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

I got that beat... I had a cap pop on a Soyo board, they claimed I samaged the board because there were componates missing (they f'ing BURNED OFF!!)

[kc8adu]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

looks like you let all the smoke out of that one!
looks like you are leading in the who owns the worst burnup game!
and welcome!

[Shroomie]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

Oh...my...

Yes, I think you win indeed! Welcome.

[Rainbow]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

And this can happen with your graphics card when a PSU dies because of single one bad cap:

The card is, of course, completely fried (shorted GPU).

[Rainbow]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

[Fizzycapola]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

Man it's crazy the time bomb in your computer bad capacitors are.

I was reading article just now, some slightly bulging capacitors were removed and their values read they were rated 2200uF, but their real capacitance was as low as 78uF.

Also bad capacitors have high leakage current (as I understand this is something that should seriously be avoided). Which is one of the main causes workload on regulators which then short circuit and fuse circuit inside, which eventually causes unfiltered voltage direct from PSU into components, you don't need to imagine what happens when 1.7v chips get 5v instead.

[kc8adu]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

had a customer in the store with an emachines with the imfamous craptastic bestec psu that was reading 14v on +5stby.
the mouse melted down and it and the mousepad was stuck to her table.
burned up the southbridge on the mobo and trashed the cpu and ram.

[bgavin]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

Is the Bestec worth recapping? I have several in the bin... just curious.

[chipper]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

yeahhhhhhhh, I would say those caps were white on top for a year or more before that happened. Sometimes when the caps are going they might even blow a fuse in the PSU , where it's soldered onto the board.

Once the fuse has been taken out of the PSU , the fixer puts in the wrong rated fuse , and about 2 days later , this happens. All in the name of ignoring and wanting to run the system no matter what.

[chipper]

Re: This is Why You NEVER Ignore Bad Capacitors!

It really depends on what will be run on old PSU's , 250watt PSU's were installed on PII systems and mobo's , so they aren't for PIII's or P4's at all. If it runs HOT , it's NOT !