Bad Capacitors Plague the Electronic Industry

By Ron Hu
If your computer or monitor dies before its time, you'd probably write it off as bad luck, being on the wrong side of the failure curve. You might even be happy in a perverse way that now you have the justification to buy new equipment. You would have little reason to suspect that the failure you have witnessed might have been a part of a widely felt problem in the electronics industry! This problem has been aptly dubbed the "capacitor plague." It has been responsible for LCD monitors going mysteriously dark, computers showing bizarre and unexplainable symptoms or crashing with the blue screen of death, and in some cases, dying literally with a loud bang, all well before their expected useful lifetime. And if you should dig into the stories on the internet regarding the capacitor plague, you will find tales of judgement errors, industrial espionage, corruption, corporate mismanagement etc. that have become all too familiar in the business world. Look for some links at the end of this article if these sorts of stories interest you. The capacitor plague story revolves around the capacitor, an inexpensive yet essential electronic component used in practically every electronic device. A capacitor stores electrical charge, an essential function in power supply circuitry to provide steady electrical power to electronic components. Most types of capacitors have dielectric materials (which separate the charged plates) that are made out of solid materials such as polyester, mica, ceramic etc. These types of capacitors usually have low capacitance and are not used in power supplies for holding charge. Another type of capacitor has liquid electrolyte forming the dielectric. Because of the very thin chemical dielectric they form, these capacitors can have very high capacitance, a desirable feature in power supply's power filtering and conditioning. The liquid electrolyte used in the electrolytic capacitors is a tricky chemical concoction. Too much of one chemical or too little of another and you'll either have a dud or one that explodes due to out gassing! It takes capacitor manufacturers countless trial and error experimentation and testing to come up with their proprietary formula, and they guard their chemical formula as fiercely as Coca-Cola guards their soft drink recipe. There were two notable incidents of bad capacitors plaguing the electronics industry. In the first case, an incomplete chemical formula 1 2 was used , and in the second case, the electrolytes were apparently over-filled . However, the results are the same - electrolytic capacitors with a very short life sometimes measured in months. Following are Q & A that address some of the common questions people may have regarding the capacitor plague. What is the extent of this problem? According to Wikipedia3, the first flawed capacitors were seen in 1999, but most of the affected capacitors causing failure of LCD monitors were made in the early to mid 2000s. Some bad capacitors were still being sold or used in equipment as of early 2007, and faults are still being reported as of 2011.

How many PCs/Monitors are affected by the "capacitor plague"? It is hard to get an accurate figure in part because many companies downplayed and/or failed to acknowledge their capacitor failures. Consumers may also be unaware this problem exists, hence never even raising this issue unless their equipment still happens to be under manufacturer warranty. According the New York Times' story4, "Dell appears to have suffered from bad capacitors, made by a company called Nichicon, far more than its rivals. Internal documents show that Dell shipped at least 11.8 million computers from May 2003 to July 2005 that were at risk of failing because of the faulty components. These were Dells OptiPlex desktop computers the companys mainstream products sold to business and government customers. Worse still, Dell's own study found that OptiPlex computers affected by the bad capacitors were expected to cause problems up to 97 percent of the time over a three-year period." According to a CNET report, defective capacitors are also found on some Apple iMac G5s, HP xw-series workstations made in 2004 and PCs with the Intel D865GBF motherboards. A quick search on the internet also showed people reporting capacitor problems with Abit, MSI, Gateway and Asus motherboards just to name a few. There is no way of listing all of the affected models as many manufacturers have not openly acknowledged the existence of this problem. While majority of capacitor failures are found on personal computers (power supplies, motherboards, video cards etc.), there is no information available on the extent of defective capacitors found on network equipment, DVD players, cameras and other consumer electronic devices. What is the normal expected life of electrolytic capacitors? The Achilles' heel of electrolytic capacitors is heat. Capacitors are subject to two main heat sources, the heat trapped inside the equipment enclosure and the heat generated internally due to dielectric losses from charging and discharging current. Heat tends to dry out the liquid electrolytic chemical in the capacitor and once the liquid electrolyte dries out, that is end of the life for the capacitor. This is why electrolytic capacitors have a specified life time unlike most other electronic components. Lives of electrolytic capacitors are rated in hours at a specific temperature. For example, a typical life rating may be 4,000 hours at 85 degrees Celsius. Very few pieces of equipment in fact operate at such a high temperature. If the same capacitor were used at a lower temperature, the rated hours may be doubled or tripled. Furthermore, capacitors normally degrade gradually as they exceed their rated life, meaning that their capacitance decreases slowly. Much electronic equipment will continue to function even with such degradation as most circuit designs have built in tolerances. That is why it is not unusual for electronic equipment to operate intermittently for decades. How do I know if my equipment failure is due to the capacitor plague? The only way of knowing for sure is to open up the equipment and look inside. If you are not comfortable opening up your equipment, then Google your equipment model number and "capacitor plague" and see if there are any hits. If you find several people who had capacitor plague problems on the same equipment model as yours, then chances are your equipment has the same problem.

If you do decide to open up your equipment, the failing capacitors are usually found in the power supply section of your equipment. In personal computers, keep in mind that part of the power supply circuitry also exists on the motherboard. Luckily, bad capacitors tend to identify themselves by blowing their tops or leaking at their bottoms! Most electrolytic capacitors have "vents" stamped in the top of the can. These vents are intentional structural weakness incorporated on the top of the can to allow any built-up internal pressure to split open the vents rather than exploding uncontrollably. Simply look for capacitors with bulging vents or vented tops. If the tops have actually vented, you may also see some crusty brown substance, which is the electrolyte.

A capacitor blown up due to overheating from abnormal DC current conduction. This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. http://matarese.com/photo/428-leaking-electrolytic-capacitor/

The other structural weakness is the bottom seal on the capacitor. Sometimes built-up internal pressure will overcome the bottom seal before venting at the top. Simply look for capacitors that leaked some crusty brown substance (electrolyte) onto the printed circuit board. Another tell-tell sign is capacitors that are sitting crooked on the PC board because the bottom rubber seal has been pushed out partially but is not yet leaking.

Photo of a ABIT VP6 motherboard with a blown capacitor (due to "capacitor plague"), alongside several other capacitors that are bulging or leaking. This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Vp6_blown_capacitor.jpg

Is it worth repairing a computer with the capacitor plague problem? If you are handy with a soldering iron and know something about electronics, then you can order new capacitors and replace them yourself. It is always a good practice to locate and replace ALL of the same brand of electrolytic capacitors as the failed capacitor(s) in your equipment. This is a preventive measure you should do even if other capacitors do not show any sign of venting, plus the fact new capacitors only cost a few dollars. If you are not electronically inclined, you need to decide whether the equipment is worth repairing. For computers, keep in mind that while the purchase price continues to decline, the total cost of ownership has not declined because we depend on our computers ever more. Even beyond the purchase price of a new computer, there may be additional hidden costs such as optional upgrades in RAM and a larger hard drive that you may decide to "throw in" when purchasing new equipment. Also, your original Windows OS may not be transferable due to Microsoft's restrictive licensing on hardware changes. Aside from these hard costs, there is the time necessary to install all your programs, configure all your settings, and transfer all of your data and so on. This could literally take you a whole week! All of these may be compelling reasons to have your computer fixed if its failure was due to capacitor plague. For LCD monitors, call up your local repair center and ask for a repair estimate. They will usually quote a flat rate based on the size of the monitor. Because there is no "valuable data" issue with a monitor, you can simply compare the cost of repair to that of a new LCD monitor and decide which way to go. In summary, there are lots of resources available on the internet regarding diagnoses and replacement of defective capacitors. If you are looking for more in-depth information, check out the Capacitor Lab website at http://www.capacitorlab.com/ ___________________________

Disclaimer: This information is provided without any warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose. You agree to use this information at your own risk.
Ron Hu, 2011 References 1. http://old.passivecomponentmagazine.com/files/archives/2002/PCI_02_06Nov-Dec.pdf 2. http://news.cnet.com/PCs-plagued-by-bad-capacitors/2100-1041_3-5942647.html?tag=mncol 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague 4. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/technology/29dell.html Stories behind the capacitor plague: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/leaking-capacitors-muck-up-motherboards

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/dell-tried-to-hide-bad-capacitors-problem