Failing RV042 routers due to bad Jackcon capacitors

[peterdori]

Hi all,
I have several RV042 (Linksys/Cisco) routers fail over the years.
They would flicker, hiss, reboot constantly or just have the diag light on.

In the beginning I thought they'd fail because of power surges (or similar external influences) had damaged something.

But I found out that from the 12 dead units, 10 have Jackcon capacitors and that they fail because of that!

Those capacitors (2x1000uF/16V and 1x 220 or 470uF/35V) have only a few uF, if at all.

Unfortunately the RV's would die right after the warranty period (which was one year at that time).

I contacted Cisco about this pattern and am curious what their response is.

I also have contacted Jackcon but their rep is just giving me a rounaround so far.

The rep claimes that they have no dealings with Cisco/Linksys, so I wonder how their junk capacitors end up in those products?

Amazing that a 50c trash capacitor can bring a $160 unit to it's knees after just one year!

So in case you end up here, this is what you need to do:

Replace the C7 and C11 and C13 Jackcon capacitors.

In fact, check if you have any Jackcon capacitors and replace them right now, as they will fail soon.

Attached some pictures

[retiredcaps]

Originally Posted by peterdori

I contacted Cisco about this pattern and am curious what their response is.

I can add some advice here.

1) Contact Cisco via TAC and open a case so you get a tracking number. 1-800-553-2447.

2) Show and tell them these findings and pictures.

3) Give them time to respond.

4) If TAC doesn't respond, ask to speak to the duty manager and ask for escalation.

5) Also ask to speak to the Product Manager for the device. Most Cisco/Linksys PMs are very responsive to these type of cases if you have hard evidence. Of course, like any big company, you may get the odd person that should have been fired years ago.

6) You can also post this at the forums at cisco.com where you will get more visibility and maybe a Cisco Engineer to respond.

[peterdori]

Thanks for the suggestions!

The latest response I got a from jackcon, from a James Shieh , "export manager in charge" confirms that contacting jackcon was a total waste of time.

After I emailed him pictures from their bad capacitors, after many emails back and forth, he has shown no willingness whatsoever to resolve this matter.

On contrary, he claims "it was a design flaw within the circuit board design which caused our capacitors to fail".

I asked him why the very same circuit boards work very well when their bad capacitors are replaced with good capacitors (from 2 different reputative manufacturers).

I could not find any rep from jackcon here in the US, he wouldn't respond to that question at all.

So please spread the word, jackcon capacitors are some the worst, and the company is a total joke!

I have prepared a letter which I will mail to some resellers I know, warning them about jackcon and substantiating my findings with excerpts of my emails with jackcon and some pictures, plus the production year and failure date of the routers.

I emailed my findings to Cisco, after all, more than 10 units which have failed shortly after 1 year, had those junk jackcon capacitors.

Does anybody know jackcon resellers I could warn too?

Thanks!

[goodpsusearch]

I think they know what they are doing when they decide to put those caps in their machines...

[japlytic]

Which factory makes this model?
Cisco appears to have little or no control over what brand of electrolytic capacitors they use...

[severach]

It's less than what factory. Some Taiwan design house makes the unit, has several factories make it, and puts Linksys branding all over it. Chances are they make the packaging and documentation too, pack it in crates, and ship it to warehouses worldwide. Linksys has little to do with any of it other than approving the finished product and collecting the money.

Replacing the capacitors will waste a lot less time than begging for support.

[retiredcaps]

Originally Posted by japlytic

Cisco appears to have little or no control over what brand of electrolytic capacitors they use...

Cisco, like many other companies, have more than one source for commodity type components like capacitors. So Jackcon could be one brand that is being used.

[retiredcaps]

Originally Posted by severach

Linksys has little to do with any of it other than approving the finished product and collecting the money.

Linksys has complete control over design and technical specifications. They may outsource the making of the product, packaging, etc, but they control the engineering specifications.

Cisco/Linksys wants to control the engineering specifications so it fits in the quad play for their carrier customers. While this product may not be a CPE, a variation of this might be.

[peterdori]

Having been in the production chain myself, I agree that Cisco/Linksys has total control over design and specs etc.

And I am also sure that they (or their outsourced production facility) did do some research about the manufacturers of the parts they are using. We did.

And jackcon has been bad for ages from what I could research.

So that really leaves the suprising and shocking idea which goodpsusearch gave:

Originally Posted by goodpsusearch

I think they know what they are doing when they decide to put those caps in their machines...

So that means that Cisco/Linksys was deliberately using bad products from a known bad company? (known as bad in 2005 already)

Wow.

[peterdori]

I got a response where Cisco says that they have amended the problem (whatever that means) and therefore also have upped the warranty to 3 years, but I still got no reply about jackcon / jokecon capacitors in partuicular.

Originally Posted by severach

...Replacing the capacitors will waste a lot less time than begging for support.

I never ever begged for support from jackcon.
On contrary, I demanded clarification and answers from them.

I was so suprised to find out about this link of bad jackcon caps and this particular failure.

Since I found this out, I have replaced most of those bad jackcon capacitors with a batch I bought a while ago.

I have never focused on this capcitor issue, again, I thought it is due to some power surges or electrostatic discharge or whatnot, that these units fail so predictably.

But now it is totally clear:

jackcon capacitors equals 100% failure

[kc8adu]

some members were sent replacement caps by jackcon.
like any of us would put them in anything important!
i think i still have a bag of them here somewhere.
dont forget there is a lot of counterfiet cisco gear out there too.made in the same factory but with inferior componants.sold via the black market.
http://www.coastnetwork.com/counterfeitcisco.html

[retiredcaps]

Originally Posted by kc8adu

s
dont forget there is a lot of counterfiet cisco gear out there too.made in the same factory but with inferior componants.sold via the black market.

I ran into firsthand many years ago. It took me 4 months to troubleshoot a customer's network before I discovered counterfeit GBICs that was causing the network to fail.

[david123]

Hi, I just wanted to thank Peterdori for his post. I have a RV042 which was very reliable until last week when the diag light came on. I found this post and replaced the C7, C11 and C13 capacitors. Now the router is working normally. This saved me time and a lot of money. Many thanks

[jc292]

Just want to echo david123's thanks to the OP. I replaced the three electrolytic caps mentioned in this post (the only 3 in the device) and didn't even use low ESR caps. It still brought it back to life! Awesome. And the hissing from the device has stopped.

[mfaraday]

Kudos to Peterdori for this post. I have been using an RV042 as my home router for several years. I recently came home to a brick with its diag light on, and it was making a slight hissing sound. Luckily I had a second RV042 shelved in the garage, so after getting the second one configured I started searching for failure info and discovered this post. I haven't re-capped the dead box yet, but I'm hoping that will be the key to reviving it. Thanks again.

[kaboom]

Originally Posted by goodpsusearch

I think they know what they are doing when they decide to put those caps in their machines...

They certainly do.

Originally Posted by jc292

Just want to echo david123's thanks to the OP. I replaced the three electrolytic caps mentioned in this post (the only 3 in the device) and didn't even use low ESR caps. It still brought it back to life! Awesome. And the hissing from the device has stopped.

That's how bad those trash caps are! They end up so far from spec, even GP caps are light years better.

There is no consistency whatsoever in that labeling. What was it, four different counterfeiting runs???

They almost look like nasty little Hermeis or Wendells. Wendell caps, a 'la Soyo...

[lti]

Jackcon caps suck. Even Rulycon caps last longer. All of Jackcon's caps suck, not just the low ESR series. The pictures show two of Jackcon's printing styles. I have seen one more printing style, which can be seen in my post in the "hall of shame" thread.

All of the Jackcon caps I have seen were in devices powered by linear power supplies. I have only seen two good Jackcons, and one of those failed a couple months later. One of those devices also had Rulycon and a bunch of no-name caps, and only one of them (which was running at its rated voltage) had failed.

[kc8adu]

just fixed a switcher wallwart that had junkcon caps.
it was 6 mo old by the datecode.caps had hatched.