Re: 1960s-1982 smelly caps - polychlorinated biphenyls?

Thank you guys for your hints!

@BigTroll:
Yes, I know the fishy smell of Apple mobo caps that emanates when decapping But this is a different smell.

@eccerr0r:
Interesting that Nippon Chemicon seems to be one of the rare few companies that have come clear with the dark secret of PCBs.
Ethylene glycol could be possible, due to its properties; will have to get some to compare to the caps smell.
Its low melting point of -12 degs C leading to condensation in the near vicinity...

There were a lot of smelly caps in the 1960s to 1982.
These have, respective have developed a very annoying fruity smell over the years.
My personal guess is that the bungs get stiff over time, allowing the PCB contents to gas out.

Notorious are the Sprague Atom, Mallory and some Japanese brands.
These were used mainly for linear power supplies.
I have either removed quite a lot of these from old HP, Tektronix and Japanese products like VTRs and amplifiers manufactured from the 1960s to about 1982, or outright threw away that equipment because I find...

Re: unknown (solid?) caps on MSI "military class" graphics card?



Do they get hot at all?
Not all RAMs actually get hot.

To me this pad looks more like a spacer.
If it is actually intended to cool hot RAM chips, i think it could be an epic failure.

But that depends on perspective.
Maybe the calculations/experiments showed that the onset of stress damage (thermal, expansion, die, balls and bonds cracking etc) shortly after end of warranty period makes sure that demand for new boards will be present then?...

Re: New Members - please post your introductions here

my name is Stefan. I found this awesome forum via [URL="https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=37757&hilit=psu+maintenance&start=320#p471978"]a Vogons thread[/URL].
And now I am reading a lot, learning many things about computer power supplies that were esoteric to me long time.

As I am doing maintenance for my both retro PC power supplies, I am very interested to learn more about their safety, as I do not want to blow up that old hardware which got very hard to obtain.
...