Article on Leaky Motherboard Capacitors

[PowerEngineer]

It probably isn't news to anyone here that there's been trouble with electrolytic capacitors on some motherboards recently. Here's an IEEE article that describes the nature of the problem and what caused it.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Thanx for the link, that was a much more in-depth article than the one I read awhile back that appeared in financial news.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

^

 

[Easy1]

Interesting. Thanks.

Kudos to Abit and IBM for their integrity. From the article:
"While Taiwanese passives makers are trying to shore up relations with their customers, some of the computer firms affected are doing the same. ABIT says it will replace or fix defective boards its customers send it. IBM says it alerted those customers it believes are most likely to be affected and is handling repairs under warranty."

Boo, hiss to others. Also from the article:
Other manufacturers have been less helpful. As Gary Headlee's capacitor replacement side business grew, he began receiving damaged boards built by other companies besides ABIT. But when he posted the list of other boards on his Web site, he received letters from lawyers representing two manufacturers, prompting him to pull the posting.

 

[RobsTV]

That's not the way Abit handled my KT7.
Like most Abit boards, the caps blew out on mine, and the board died.
It was more than 13 months old, and out of warranty.
They offered to repair it for a flat fee of $25 + shipping both ways.
Screw that for a board 3 generations old.
Instead of giving them more money, I could have bought the next Abit revision, KT7A, for less than $50 at Newegg (refurb/delivered).
But instead, luckily followed other posters advice here and elsewhere, and moved over to Epox.

Now after getting 8kta3pro, then the 8kha+, and now the 8k5a2, I have had zero issues, and like most overclock the hell out of them all!
Just like Abit's caps, they blew it.

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: RobsTV

Just like Abit's caps, they blew it.

Now there's a brilliant conclusion.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: jaeger66

Originally posted by: RobsTV

Just like Abit's caps, they blew it.

Now there's a brilliant conclusion.

He's only speaking for himself, and yes it is an emotionally based reaction and not an intellectual one, but I can empathize with him because ever since I had a couple MSI K7T series boards take a dirt nap on my bro and me I've been gun shy and in fact haven't used one for a build since despite numerous users posts about their satisfaction with MSI boards. I almost built a clients budget boxes based on the K7N2G-L but our Anandtech board reviewer Evan mentioned that MSI had sent dead boards twice in succession and that did little to help me shake my misgivings about their products I'm afraid. I've had an MSI G3 ti200 for a good while now and it's a great card and solid overclocker but the boards I'm still leary of, irrational?illogical? Yeah probably, but I can't say when my personal ban on MSI boards will end........

 

[jaeger66]

I just hate it when people bitch about stupid things. He's whining because Abit wouldn't take back an out-of-warranty board with a defect that wasn't even their fault to begin with.

 

[RobsTV]

deleted

 

[KF]

>Like most Abit boards, the caps blew out on mine, and the board died

I got my KT7 sometime before September of 2000. I'm still waiting for it to blow. Maybe in a couple more years it will.

 

[ChefJoe]

I had a 1.something year old Abit BE6-II 2.0 board have the whole bank of caps go bad. I think it was searching for info on the problem that first brought me to anandtech forums. They were very good about sending an RMA form (word.doc file type) for me to fill out, send it here, they'll fix it. I ended up buying a TUSL2-C to tide me over in the meantime though... it took a couple of months before the board got back to me. No extra fees, just what it cost for me to ship it to them. I emailed their rma department.