The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

[ben7]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

^ Yeah, they look like rocket-ships! :P

[Rulycat]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

They make KZG look like top of the range!

[Pentium4]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Wow that is amazing! I didn't know caps could even do that by themselves here are some Skywell SHIT series from an Nvidia FX 5200. Bought in July, 2004 failed in January, 2007. There was a ton of dried electrolyte on the tops of the caps but it fell off

[ben7]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Wow that is amazing! I didn't know caps could even do that by themselves here are some Skywell SHIT series from an Nvidia FX 5200. Bought in July, 2004 failed in January, 2007. There was a ton of dried electrolyte on the tops of the caps but it fell off

I'm surprised that small un-vented one hasn't exploded yet :P

[Pentium4]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

I'm surprised that small un-vented one hasn't exploded yet :P

Me too! That one is 510uF 4V, seems like a strange value for a lytic but then again I don't pay much attention to caps on video cards

[Shocker]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

The SEL series is polymer. That's why it hasn't popped.

[Pentium4]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

The SEL series is polymer. That's why it hasn't popped.

Oh okay. Should it still be replaced?

[Shocker]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Replace it if you want to be safe.

[Badboy666]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Maybe someone can help since you know so much about capacitors.
I have a Magnavox 47MF437B LCD TV and one night watching tv I heard
snap or a sound like a small firecracker, than my tv went black.
Someone told me it was the caps so I took off the back and looked at all and I mean all of the caps and found nothing wrong with them. What else would make that kind of sound and cause the problem with my tv ? Any Help ?

[ben7]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Maybe someone can help since you know so much about capacitors.
I have a Magnavox 47MF437B LCD TV and one night watching tv I heard
snap or a sound like a small firecracker, than my tv went black.
Someone told me it was the caps so I took off the back and looked at all and I mean all of the caps and found nothing wrong with them. What else would make that kind of sound and cause the problem with my tv ? Any Help ?

Please, make a thread in the repairing TV's section. This is only for photos of badcaps!

Not only capacitors can explode, a mosfet might have exploded.

-Ben

[mariushm]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Someone posted these on reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/techsupportg...smelled_funny/

[PeteS in CA]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Holey Carp! What happened? Did the mobo develop an internal short on a high current voltage plane?!

[Pentium4]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Look at those tough Panny's. Right in the center of the fire of hell and not venting

[momaka]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Someone posted these on reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/techsupportg...smelled_funny/

^ WHAT THE F@#$!!!

What happened? Did the mobo develop an internal short on a high current voltage plane?!

Must have... then again, why would there be a high current voltage plane in that area of the board? The highest current is around the CPU and sometimes around NB. Other parts of the board are usually low power and all linear regulated. Also, I've tried shorting high-current planes on motherboards before - they all spark and then the motherboards shut down. Haven't found any buck regulators that don't have OCP.

This is coming out of an ASUS motherboard, though, so I'm not too surprised. I have an AsRock that has bad PCB discoloration under the RAM linear regulators. The MOSFETs in that circuit get so hot that you cannot touch them and so do the caps around them. ECS may be crappy, but at least I haven't seen them do things like that - not as often as ASUS and AsRock anyways. ASUS

Look at those tough Panny's. Right in the center of the fire of hell and not venting

Panny's are indeed the toughest caps I've seen. I used to rework Xbox 360s, and one particular one I reworked at least 8 times (removing/reballing GPU). The Panny's never even bulged a little, despite being heated so many times on the rework machine. The Rubycons and Nichicons usually start to bulge a little after 3-4 heat cycles (though it is a recoverable bulge - i.e. not due to the electrolyte failing but only due to excessive pressure buildup from the heat... after they cool you can press their top down and it will stay that way and cap appears fine on ESR meter even after months).
Also, in HP DC5000 SFF computers, Panny's are the only caps I've never seen bulged by the CPU. The Rubycon MCZ usually do. Pannasonic

[ben7]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

You know, if it was a high current plane then the power supply would have blown up, or shutdown. However, it only takes a few watts to make an electrical fire! I bet something shorted and it was connected through a long, somewhat thin trace which heated up and caught the board on fire, but that is just a guess. It would take a minute or two for a semiconductor burnout to actually make the motherboard smoke though.

[tom66]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

My guess would be a protection PTC for one of the outputs, like USB or Firewire. They do like to burn when they fail.

[momaka]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

My guess would be a protection PTC for one of the outputs, like USB or Firewire. They do like to burn when they fail.

Yes, but not this badly!

I don't think we are seeing the full story here. There must have been something else in the case below the motherboard that continued to burn after whichever component set off the initial fire. PC boards are usually UL 94 compliant and V-0 rated (meaning that the board should extinguish itself in 10 seconds or less once the heat/fire source is removed).

For the board to burn like that by itself, it will take it a lot more than a few watts. My only guess to all of this is if an internal trace in the PCB from the 12V rail shorted to ground and if the trace itself wasn't thick enough to trip OCP AND if the PSU had a single 12V rail with lots of Amps available.

Regardless, I still dislike ASUS/AsRock .

[pdavid]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

My newest favourite capacitor brand:

These were in a junk M-tech "450W" psu. The unit's standby circuit is horribly shorted. These are all the caps from the secondary! 2200uF 16V, 1000uF and 2200uF 5V. All dry or shorted, but no visual indication.

[ben7]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

My newest favourite capacitor brand:

These were in a junk M-tech "450W" psu. The unit's standby circuit is horribly shorted. These are all the caps from the secondary! 2200uF 16V, 1000uF and 2200uF 5V. All dry or shorted, but no visual indication.

I have seen those before too.

Then use thick aluminum though, good for exploding! :P

[jm20101]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Picture 1&2: Bad JENPO Caps from a Chieftec/High power HPC-340-201 PSU
Picture 3: Bad JAMICON cap from a bestec PSU
Picture 4: Bad HEC cap from a FARES 400W PSU