Bad Caps

[m25man]

Already well posted elsewhere by others,

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/hardware/30495-impressive.html#post287804

 

Bad Capacitor syndrome has been affecting a large number of Lenovo systems we installed about 18 months ago.

We have seen the failure of an entire batch of some 12 systems all purchased at the same time over the last few weeks one after the other.

 

Lenovo have been very good at coming out the next day to replace the Mobo's but the engineers have been doing Mobo swaps for months 50 at a time in some places they told us!

 

Our's have all gone in the same way, first signs are a wavy lines appearing across the screens then random rebooting or getting stuck in a boot loop.

Normally just as the Video Res is being changed at Boot up is when the systems will reset.

 

The Caps on the Mobo get red hot and are "Bulging" or even leaking.

 

We know that Dell had a big problem with these Caps and I have a friend reporting similar issues with Viglen Mobo's and PSU's at the moment.

Laptops are also affected but many are often rejected returned by the Vendors as "Spillage" damage demanding a Mobo replacement outside of warranty (Be aware Toshiba Owners).

 

It's not just computers that are affected, these caps are in almost everything manufactured in China over the last 3 years, I have even had 3 Manrose Bathroom Fan Controllers fail with the same problem!

 

Some manufacturers are even advertising new kit with "Solid Capacitors" to staisfy the concerns of IT managers worldwide.

 

Do not be ripped off by these Vendors, you are entitled to a repair or replacement (in many cases even outside of warranty) as this is a manufacturing defect caused by defective components.

 

I all fairness Lenovo have given in everytime with the minimum of pressure on out of warranty capacitor claims.

 

Stand firm and demand action and you will get it!

[Batman]

Five years ago I would say that was more true, but it's not always down to defective components, excessive heat can cause caps to fail a lot earlier so your suites need to be well ventilated. I've seen boards with blown caps of the Rubycon/Nichicon varieties which are supposed to be two of the best makes.

 

That said, it's still the manufacturer's responsibility to design cases with good airflow so if it's heat that caused it they'll still have a job getting out of it

[KK20]

Bit of a grave dig but it may help some people.

 

We have some lenovos that started to behave oddly - maybe 6 months ago. Since they are well out of warranty (at least 2.5 years old) I did a bit of looking around. There are only a few caps (4) on the boards that had blown on ours so I simply bought some caps (1000uF 25v about £30 for a big bag of them from Farnell) and soldered them on. These were worth salvaging IMHO as they were all reasonable dual cores.

 

The trick is to use pliers to PULL the old caps off. The old capacitor legs shear internally and you can solder onto those "stumps" thus avoiding messy SMT soldering - also some caps are most certainly multilayer soldered so you cannot simply desolder and remove. The most difficult one was inbetween the PCI slots. No issues at all since.

Edited June 21, 2011 by KK20

[m25man]

I've still got several of these ticking time bombs so many thanks for what was a mind numbing totally simple solution!

Much rep...

[laserblazer]

Just had the mobo replaced on a Viglen Genie that's just coming up to 3 years old.

[KK20]

It must be said that dell replaced GX270s and 280s well after their warranties expired. I found IBM to be shockingly poor when I first called them.