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**willawake** · 03-27-2006, 05:31 AM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

its just bad assembly. i recall the caps are placed by hand on the boards. i have seen it before on other boards. i guess they can be occasionaly moved out of position before the solder process.

should not have passed quality control

and no i would not call jamicons good caps

**Topcat** · 03-27-2006, 05:53 AM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

I've seen a lot of IBM motherboards with the caps offset from the PCB. The only reason I can see for that is the board is predrilled for 5mm lead spacing with the intentions of using 10mm diameter caps, and somewhere along the lines they decided to go with 3.5mm lead spacing 8mm diameter caps. If you cram a 3.5mm lead spaced cap flush into a 5mm gap, it can force the leads apart and break the seal on the capacitor causing them to leak and dry out. So they offset them by leaving some extra lead to avoid this problem.

No, I also do not consider Jamicon's good caps.

**Rainbow** · 03-27-2006, 09:57 AM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

Jamicons used to be good but I've seen some bad here at badcaps.

**Neo2_000** · 03-27-2006, 12:18 PM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

The camera never lies and now I have the proof.

Taken from a working albeit wobbly PSU returned to service after repair.

These are the only Jamicons I have ever encountered though so I have not seen enough to form any sweeping evaluations.

Attached Files

**RJARRRPCGP** · 03-27-2006, 04:02 PM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

Originally posted by Topcat

I've seen a lot of IBM motherboards with the caps offset from the PCB. The only reason I can see for that is the board is predrilled for 5mm lead spacing with the intentions of using 10mm diameter caps, and somewhere along the lines they decided to go with 3.5mm lead spacing 8mm diameter caps. If you cram a 3.5mm lead spaced cap flush into a 5mm gap, it can force the leads apart and break the seal on the capacitor causing them to leak and dry out. So they offset them by leaving some extra lead to avoid this problem.

No, I also do not consider Jamicon's good caps.

I have too, with Rubycon caps, too!

**trodas** · 08-14-2006, 02:15 PM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

Time for a little update on this thread.

willawake - some boards tend to have caps soldered with a bit more space, like the Sapphire Grouper, where cap's easily move when you touch them, however no visible wires like this...
And my opinion on Jamicon are exactly like yours. I once tried to boost my Vcore caps on DFI LP B board with Jamicons and the board died 20min after power on on me. And I did not make it work yet... So when I saw Jamicons, I was not pleased. Also the frount pannel if full of them...

Topcat - your explaination for these abnormaly long legs looks about right. Definitively a bigger cap belong there for sure.

As you can see, Jamicons are everywhere...

Now why I updated the thread.

Well, to begin with, some weeks ago I started to play Mafia - a originaly Czech game of the 1930 NewYork organized crime. You simply work your way up in the organization at prohibition times, drive old cars, steal, murder and finally seek salvation from the hands of cops... During play it sometimes in these briefing scenes starting to lost some samples. I thought that the Czech programmers engine simply could have some quirks with 64MB of sample buffer on X-Fi Fatal1ty. At the end it start happening even more often and become irritating, however as I finished the game, the problems are gone, so...

So then I started play Prey

And when shortly in game in one spot appears more sounds at once, the whole computer freeze. I remember the Jamicons and quickly pull the X-Fi out and replaced the big Jamicon (originally a 220uF 16V) with Panny FM 470uF 16V as well, as two 100uF Jamicons with 120uF Panny FM ones. And then all these I bridged from back by 5,6uF Tayo Yuden SMD ceramics.

The results.

I finished whole Prey in few days of hard gaming w/o crash. I went back to Mafia and - whoa, samples aren't lost anymore again. My apology, Czech programmers. I did not trusted in yours skils...

Conclusions.

Buying a 260$ pricetag sound card in 21st century don't guarantee you that you get any decent quality.
Using Jamicons in computers aren't recommended. Not only they killed my DFI LP B mobo, they are also responsible for my problems with X-Fi. Perhaps they are good for audio, but if they could become useless in just 5 months, I would consider adding them into the Bad Caps (tm) list.
Problems I had in past with Creative cards, as well as others, could be attributed to using of inferior caps on high-priced products.

So, if anyone consider buying Creative product, then he have to replace the caps with better ones. As for the rest of the Jamicons, I think I buy a Panasonic FC replacements. So far, these crazy Hi-Fists seems to rate them very good.

Any better suggestions?

None of the other caps looking like that supporting the voltage to either ram, or the main chip, so FC is enought there, I believe. After all, FC could do a good job in all cases and certainly won't give up on me in just five months...!

**gonzo0815** · 08-14-2006, 06:51 PM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

I don`t consider Jamicon as an badcap in generall. I have seen those in some fully automated coffemashines, where they are fore filtering the line ripple. Ok not very stressfull, but the temp is around 50 to 70°C. And upt to now, they are all fine.
But the qulity and the knowledge level is far lower than anything same or above UCC. And if their low esr variant are ok i duno. But at least they are stating the endurance IMHO corekt at their page. Not very exiting. In many FSP PSU there are some Jamicons too, wich have not failed on me yet.

Any way, i think Creative should have used Oscons at that high priced card of course.
But i don`t buy Creative things due to their ugly and inferior driver setups. A whole mess IMHO, any 5$ audio card has better ones.

**Sudum Gumudu** · 08-15-2006, 01:04 AM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

It's appalling to see Creative use such sub-standard components in a $250+ piece of kit. I was going to get an X-Fi. Now I'm not so sure anymore.

**whiz** · 08-18-2006, 05:14 PM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

I hope i didn't misunderstood...your board is new! why you replaced the
caps by yourself?!

The problem you describe i'm not sure it was from the caps...although i understand that it was corrected...

**trodas** · 08-19-2006, 03:02 AM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

gonzo0815 - given my experince I must consider Jamicon's as bad. One dead mobo and about 1 month of lifetime before problems started in X-Fi? I shall consider that good caps?
BTW, Creative forum are full of guys complaining about similar problems I had, that surfaced about month after buy, when they can't simply return to the shop the card, and must RMA it, witch took a hell of the time...

And your example is interesting, but seems that todays Jamicons are far far worser. 1 month is far worser that any GSC/Teapo crap.

And there is no point of arguing about Creative and their drivers, because X-Fi Fatal1ty is the only card that offer 64MB of sample buffer, speed and Ultra audio settings in BF2, so, not really a choice. I hope sooner or later the drivers aren't as upgrade but as new ones always, not need for first install the bad ones from CD then then update once, twice...

Sudum Gumudu - buy it. It is a great card. But get ready to replace the caps with Panny FM for the important ones and Panny FC for the rest. You gonna need it...

whiz - yes, board is brand new, 5 months old. Why by myself? What I should do? I know what was wrong, I has the caps and it working now. So, why not?
Remember, I'm from Europe and X-Fi's rare there. SO I get it from USA. RMA cards overseas if unbeliably expensive AND I got twice burned that companies such as BFG, promising lifetime warranty simply choosen to ignore my RMD request, so...

And if the exchange of caps fix the problem, then where was - according to you - the problem there, if not in caps?

After all, I did not having a problems anymore

I finished Prey w/o a crash, immediatelly after I exchanged the caps, so...
Also Mafia aren't losing the samples anymore. Weird, huh?
And pause bug is also gone, and I battled it for years on SBLive 5.1, Audigy, Audigy2ZS and then X-Fi - and w/o sucess. I bet that Creative simply undershoot the caps and used Jamicons even in places, where they should not be used...

Your explaination?

**whiz** · 08-19-2006, 07:39 AM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

Trodas you are right...i didn't knew you bought your card from USA...(Here in Greece we have X-Fi Fatal1ty...

for the specific problem you describe...before starting to recap i would
check my board with the classic method...(to another PC, re-install drivers, etc)

I understand that either way you would have changed those Jamicons but now new caps took credit for the well being of your card and you can't be 100% it was cap problem...
As i said before...the point is that you card is corrected...but in general i think you must follow a procedure to diagnose a problem!

**Per Hansson** · 08-19-2006, 02:59 PM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

Interesting find, would be nice to know the ESR of the old caps...

**japlytic** · 08-20-2006, 07:50 PM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

Typically, I would expect high-end components on this high-end sound card. But not in this case...

Elna, Panasonic, Rubycon and Nichicon make audio grade capacitors.

**Tom41** · 08-20-2006, 11:32 PM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

On the picture, it seems that the vast majority of those Jamicon caps have no vent on the top. This means they're either solid polymer, or are too small to need vents - and therefore don't have the bulging/leaking problem.

As far as I know, the very small caps don't usually need replacing in a recap job, unless they test bad for ESR. Feel free to correct me if I've got anything wrong

**tiresias** · 08-21-2006, 09:23 AM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

Originally posted by Tom41

As far as I know, the very small caps don't usually need replacing in a recap job, unless they test bad for ESR. Feel free to correct me if I've got anything wrong

Well, if I understand correctly, the smallest caps, by virtue of the circuits they tend to be used in, are much less likely to fail than your classic, say, 6.3v 3300uF.

Still, the lack of visible vents on top of the smaller cans does not mean that they are immune to bulgy/leaky failure.

**trodas** · 08-24-2006, 07:46 AM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

whiz - well, at the time I can't but it there - and they are started selling some crippled out versions, like only 32MB ram, etc. Remember, now it is 6 months ago

And if you know, what Jamicons could do, you don't need to do anything else to see the problem. BTW, I did fresh reinstall, yet problem persisted and getting only worse over time. Win2k SP2, WinXP SP1.0a and so on... It is entierly in hardware and not in software.
Therefore I could say for 100% sure that it was the caps. I followed my procedure and I knew what is wrong and I was right. End of story. Now just recap the rest to be sure - Jamicons gotta go out of my machine

Per Hansson - sponsor me with good measuring equipment. But they ended up in trash the same second I desoldered them fom X-Fi...

japlytic - I could easily source only Panny FC and that is where I go. Better suggestions?

List of need caps for X-Fi recap is:
-------------
1x 220uF 16V - P12376-ND (470uF 16)
2x 100uF 16V - P12922-ND (120uF 16V)
3x 47uF 16V - P11196-ND
28x 22uF 16V - PCE3102CT-ND (four of them are for 25V, I did not care)
10x 10uF 16V - PCE3101CT-ND
7x 4.7uF 50V - P10315-ND

Tom41 - I can assure you, that none of these caps are solid polymer, nor that they aren't prone to failure. And I replace even smaller caps, if they are known inferior brand. And Jamicons showed me enought of them, so, off they go!

tiresias - exactly. In my audio case, they probably will never fail, but I simply cannot trust Jamicons anymore + the Panny FC might even give me better sound

**Fizzycapola** · 01-28-2007, 05:33 PM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

Interesting post, I have some Audigy 2 cards myself, they have Elgen caps the rest Jamicons. I could maybe recap one entirely as one is not used just kept as backup.

I'd be interested if the performance of these soundcards can be improved also. It seems it's possible because motherboards with the same chipsets can give different performance. I wonder what components affect these differences.

**Maxxarcade** · 03-15-2007, 08:26 PM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

Just had a look, and the Audigy card in the system I'm using for MIDI synth is peppered with G-Luxons. LOTS of them. I paid over $200 for the darn thing when I bought it

**gdement** · 03-15-2007, 09:27 PM

Re: X-Fi Fatal1ty full of Jamicons

Sad. My old ISA Sound Blaster Pro and AWE32 cards have Rubycons as I recall. Standards have declined.

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