System downtime wednesday for maintainance.

[Bill Hacker]

Peter Avalos wrote:

On Thu, Aug 17, 2006 at 04:41:00PM +0800, W B Hacker wrote:

Have you noticed any electrolytic capacitors - probably in VR section - 
with slightly bulged tops?  Some of those have taken a *long* time to work 
thru the system and fail - long after the 'big wave' has largely passed 
from memory.

Or maybe it's a new round of bad electrolyte....

Bill


I had a similar problem a few weeks ago.  I referenced this site:
http://www.badcaps.net/
--Peter
That site does note that the problem has not gone away.

But part of it may not be bad electrolyte.  Simply that designers and component 
logisticians are not as conservative as to de-rating electrolytic caps subject 
to high ripple and high temperature as they once were. And/or that makers are 
too confident in their ratings..

*ALL* electrolytic caps have a finite life, though most will outlast the MB they 
are installed in for obsolesence reasons. IF it is run cool and under 'consumer' 
workload....

Unlike the plain-Jane borax and water B+ filter caps in my 1938 
Sparks-Withington all-band receiver .. When upgrading from a 5Y3 to a 5U4 then 
to a 5R4 rectifier tube still left the plates glowing a dull red and added the 
smell of transformer windings melting their varnish, it was time to 'recap'...

;-)

When the original 180 MHz PentiumPro was still a 'hot' item, I had a pair of HK$ 
10,000+ per-each dual PPro PCMCIA SBC's fry their entire VR sections...

:-(

Bill