On a scale of 1 - 10. Minus 6? I had 1. I really never did anything with it, was kind of new/ob. I just noticed capacitors falling off one day. I may need to replace a socket 462 motherboard.
What's been your experiemce?
Their 90s boards were pretty solid (I have a P5HX-A) but at some point PC Chips bought them and changed their name to ECS
So then ECS stands for Every Capacitor eScapes?
As you mention capacitors on a 462 board - presume you have heard of the capacitor plague, but if not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague.
ratfink wrote on 2023-10-02, 21:22:As you mention capacitors on a 462 board - presume you have heard of the capacitor plague, but if not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague.
The "capacitor plague" theory is a bit facile. In reality, there were several factors that lead to premature issues with capacitors back then, namely:
1) Computers went from requiring less than 100 watts to over 200 watts in a very short time, thus stressing old PSUs, which were never vetted against their advertised ratings
2) The plethora of inexpensive Taiwanese PSUs sold by mom and pop shop computer outfits were almost completely "hollowed out" by that time (for lack of a better term), and were already built to the lowest price point possible
3) When the newer, higher-wattage systems with hungry CPUs met these PSUs, the capacitors in the PSUs bulged or dried out, and placed their onus of ripple suppression on the motherboard VRM
4) Motherboard manufacturers also used inexpensive Taiwanese capacitors since 486 times and earlier, and these capacitor brands were only marginal in their quality in the first place, and had no hope of doing their job in the aforementioned scenario
5) At the same time, newer, hungrier VRMs called for capacitors with a much lower ESR rating. Only the big Japanese brands were able to produce these parts initially
6) Among the producers, two of them -- Nippon Chemicon and Nichicon -- produced bad quality parts, namely (but not exclusively) the KZG series for NCC, and the HM series for Nichicon
7) NCC never fixed the electrolyte issue with their parts, and sold their junk to manufacturers well into the late 2000s in the name of planned obsolescence. Nichicon fixed their parts by 2006 and motherboards with post-2006 Nichicon HM/HN/HZ series capacitors should be considered reliable
So it's not a simple issue of corporate espionage as the article supposes. It was a convergence of many issues which caused premature capacitor failure for the better part of the late 90s and 2000s.
(Decommissioned:)
All worthwhile respomses. But none of that speaks to why ECS mobos often experienced awol capacitors. Probably owing to the use of environmentally friendly unleaded solder. I guess. The ECS mobo that I own, socket 478, well what's left of it, had large electrolytics falling off, and it was never even used. It may not have been stored very well. But others have had similar experiences with ECS.
mockingbird wrote on 2023-10-02, 23:11:The "capacitor plague" was a convergence of many issues which caused premature capacitor failure for the better part of the late 90s and 2000s.
Fair enough if wikipedia is not giving the full story - is that edit a reasonable summary?
Anyway, the OP's issue seems to be about capacitors literally falling off, possibly due to non-lead solder. Wasn't such solder another scourge, leading to the premature failure of GPUs (like nvidia 6 and 7 series eg 6600gt, 6800 ultra, 7950 gx2 )?
