[rescue] LCD monitor diagnosis

[Don Y]

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 11:03:33PM -0400, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>> Good PCs aren't unreliable. They might be ugly, but there is no reason for
>> them to be unreliable.
> 
> I kept silent on this thread before, but I want to point out why som many
> capacitors failed. A Tiawanese company stole the formula for electrolyte,
> the liquid inside the capactiors from a Japanese company. 
> 
> The Japanese knew they were being ripped off, so they let them steal
> the formula. The formula that was stolen worked perfectly fine, EXCEPT
> it was unstable and would decompose over time.
> 
> That way the capacitors would work fine as they were made, test well
> and then six months to a year later, fail. The failures were mundane,
> most just stopped working and then would leak, but some due to poor design,
> instead of leaking, popped. 
> 
> A well designed capacitor's case will open and electrolyte will leak out
> if there is too much voltage or it's the  wrong polarity. Poorly designed
> capacitors will "explode".
> 
> The Tiawanese capacitors passed all of their tests well and were priced a
> few cents below the Japanese ones, which in the zillion unit quantities
> they are bought in, means a lot of money. 
> 
> Anything made using capacitors from that company will fail, if they have
> not by now.

Yes, this story has been circulating for quite a while.
Though I'll wait before casting judgement as to whether it
is in fact TRUE or just another bit of "urban legend".

Equally likely that manufacturer just produced a bad batch
of caps that made their way into a large board producer's
inventory (since bad MB's have been found in a variety
of "manufacturer's" PC's.

--don