What brand are these Asus caps?

[KKvantas]

I got an Asus M5a97 Revision 2.0 a few weeks ago and I was curious what brand these caps are, I heard something about Asus using crappy capacitors on their motherboards.
Does anyone know what brand they are, do I need to recap them, and if I don't will they last a good amount of time?

[mariushm]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

The brand is Apaq : http://www.apaq.com.tw/eng_index.asp

They're polymer capacitors and imho they're OK... wouldn't say in the same class as Japanese polymer capacitors but they're not shit.

I would NOT replace them.

ps. That particular capacitor is probably AP-CON-AR5K series, 5000h@105c :

http://www.apaq.com.tw/eng_products_...o=201301040001

Datasheet:

[c_hegge]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

I always try to avoid boards that use them, and this is why...

It drives me up the wall that Gigabyte are now using them in all of their new budget boards.

That said, though I wouldn't worry about recapping the board just yet. They might just be OK for a while if the VRM is well designed

[KKvantas]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

I always try to avoid boards that use them, and this is why...

It drives me up the wall that Gigabyte are now using them in all of their new budget boards.

That said, though I wouldn't worry about recapping the board just yet. They might just be OK for a while if the VRM is well designed

What do you mean by "yet"? How do I know when I should replace them?
I don't know if this is what you mean by a well designed VRM but the heatsink for it looks like this:

[KKvantas]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

The brand is Apaq : http://www.apaq.com.tw/eng_index.asp

They're polymer capacitors and imho they're OK... wouldn't say in the same class as Japanese polymer capacitors but they're not shit.

I would NOT replace them.

ps. That particular capacitor is probably AP-CON-AR5K series, 5000h@105c :

http://www.apaq.com.tw/eng_products_...o=201301040001

Datasheet:

Are they on par or better than Teapo? I had a shitty power supply I got for my PC before I got smarter about computer parts (30 dollar Rosewill, Solytech OEM supposedly rated at 500 watts) with Teapo primaries and it blew up in a week, thankfully it didn't take any other components with it

[c_hegge]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

They would be better than Teapo electrolytics. What I meant was just see how it goes. It may very well do fine for the next 3-4 years. If they fail, you're gonna hear it.

[cheapie]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

Solytech [...] blew up in a week

Not surprising.



How do Samxon polymers compare to these?

[c_hegge]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

I don't have a problem at all with Samxon polies. I've never heard any reports of them failing or exploding. I'd rate them as being much better than Apaq.

[Pentium4]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

This PSU? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817182044 Not horrible, but extremely overpriced. Probably in the 300-400W range.

I think Apaq polys are mid range. I would rather have japanese lytics though, because then you can see when (or if..) they fail

[KKvantas]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

This PSU? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817182044 Not horrible, but extremely overpriced. Probably in the 300-400W range.

I think Apaq polys are mid range. I would rather have japanese lytics though, because then you can see when (or if..) they fail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817182076
This one. I didn't know anything about them at the time, there were also these green, unburst caps in them labeled "ANODIA"
I love the reviews for them, what is "it works good" even supposed to mean?

[Pentium4]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

I bet you it's the same internally as the Allied AL-D500EXP, so probably a generous 400W PSU. Anodia are probably on the primary which is fine, the rest are probably YC, they do okay for a few years unless they get really hot. Maybe the switchers blew, what are the full specs of your rig?

[mockingbird]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

I don't have a problem at all with Samxon polies. I've never heard any reports of them failing or exploding. I'd rate them as being much better than Apaq.

Never had any problems so far with them... Have sold quite a few motherboards with them. They might be on par with Japanese polys.

I will not touch boards with Apaq caps. Even if they're not in the VRM... Have had to send back an Asus P67 board all Apaq. Identical model replacement came back with all FPCap polys in both VRM high and low IIRC, and a mix of FPCap and Apaq scattered throughout the rest of the board.

Anyone have any information on Lelon OCRZ polys? Have seen them being used quite a bit lately.

[c_hegge]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

I think there was one thread here where a user reported failed Lelon polies. He didn't provide any photos, though, nor did he specify how he knew they had failed.

[KKvantas]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

Never had any problems so far with them... Have sold quite a few motherboards with them. They might be on par with Japanese polys.

I will not touch boards with Apaq caps. Even if they're not in the VRM... Have had to send back an Asus P67 board all Apaq. Identical model replacement came back with all FPCap polys in both VRM high and low IIRC, and a mix of FPCap and Apaq scattered throughout the rest of the board.

Anyone have any information on Lelon OCRZ polys? Have seen them being used quite a bit lately.

Uh, should I send my motherboard back? Will they just send it back with better capacitors?

[KKvantas]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

I bet you it's the same internally as the Allied AL-D500EXP, so probably a generous 400W PSU. Anodia are probably on the primary which is fine, the rest are probably YC, they do okay for a few years unless they get really hot. Maybe the switchers blew, what are the full specs of your rig?

Asus m5a97
8GB 1333 MHZ ram
Athlon II X3 450 overclocked to 3.5, upgrading to a FX-6300 which will stay at stock clocks
Radeon HD 6570(upgrading to 7770)
2 hard drives
3 case fans
I upgraded to a Rosewill Capstone 450W, which is actually made by Super Flower which is a good OEM as far as I know, it has Chemi-Con primaries.

[mariushm]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

Uh, should I send my motherboard back? Will they just send it back with better capacitors?

Why would you even think that?

You only have the opinion of ONE person who may have bought a motherboard that had some issues that may have been totally unrelated to the capacitors.

Polymer capacitors are not as problematic as electrolytic capacitors, just let it go and use the motherboard normally.

[KKvantas]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

Why would you even think that?

You only have the opinion of ONE person who may have bought a motherboard that had some issues that may have been totally unrelated to the capacitors.

Polymer capacitors are not as problematic as electrolytic capacitors, just let it go and use the motherboard normally.

Okay, great
I'm sorry if I sound paranoid about the quality of electronic components, I've had LOTS of problems caused by bad capacitors/shorts in the past and I get wary when I hear more than one bad thing.
Speaking of bad choices in power supplies, I almost bought this for my first build: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

My favorite review is the guy who said "Apevia is a name brand that can be trusted pretty well".

[mockingbird]

Re: What brand are these Asus caps?

Yea, don't send it back if it's working... The symptom in my case was completely dead SATA ports... And the model was a CSM so I got a pretty quick replacement (Not to mention that the Asus warranty depot is not too far from me so I didn't have to ship it)...