New Members - please post your introductions here

[GateCap]

First off, let me take this opportunity to thanks Topcat. This site is exactly what I was looking for under the circumstances and magnitude of this cap-disaster.

I live in Dallas, Texas, I am on my late 30's and studying Electric Engineering for a change. It was matter of time to take my geek level to this stage and I am proud of doing it after all this years. Alternative energy is my field of interest, but electronics in general is my scope at this moment. I also have a home recording studio and guess who have a lot of repair to do?.

I knew all this cap problems years ago related to computers (Dell most than all), but I never had a clue that this problem was affecting the whole electronic industry with all values of caps. I never had problems with computers because I am a Mac user, and so far non of the Macs that I bought had bad caps*, but I am checking constantly just in case... you never know.
*Actually had several batteries for my MacBook Pro bulging, but that's a different story.

Right now I am repairing almost all my own Post-2003's electronics. I'll post technical data on detail on this forum and believe me that I have a lot of work to be done here.

So far, my personal list of electronics with knowingly bad caps goes like this:

Behringer Eurorack UB2442FX_PRO (16 ch Mixer)
M-Audio BX5-a Powered Monitors
Behringer Tube Ultragain
Behringer Ultra Curve Pro
RCA 42" LCD

I won't list my "suspected" items because I don't want to flag things until is confirmed, but as soon they are confirmed I'll make the report and post the repairs.

I've done repairs of half of my list and I promise the posts.
My assumptions is that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and the same was told 5 years ago, but the range of consumer electronics is bigger than I ever thought.

Let me finish saying something that I don't know if was discussed, but I am concern for the new caps. What is going to stop the chinese to re-encapsulate old caps inside aluminum enclosures and make them look like the new generation?... just a thought.

We really need this watchdog community and I personally thank Topcat again for this.

Cheers all.

[Jetfixxr]

Hey Folks, Hello to all, i am Jetfixxr, Jet for short, 46, Airline maintenance supervisor, i stumbled along this site looking for a fix for my 42" LCD 2 yrs old and no picture. Very nice site and informative. I like this. Once again hello to everybody...
Jet.

[Hazze99]

Who am I? Well, I'm 47 y.o., have been repairing electronic stuff since my teens (as a hobby only - it's still a hobby only). I live in Sweden with my wife (who hates when I take home non functional equipment) + two kids.
I finally registered as a user after having read posts anonymously (and being helped a few times - btw, thnx to Topcat for this forum) for a few years.

[Per Hansson]

Originally Posted by GateCap

Let me finish saying something that I don't know if was discussed, but I am concern for the new caps. What is going to stop the chinese to re-encapsulate old caps inside aluminum enclosures and make them look like the new generation?... just a thought.

Don't worry, they are waaay ahead of you

Try searching for "eVGA" in the topic titles only, see what comes up...
That is one brand that surely don't deserve the good reputation they have!!!

[Mohillbilly]

Hi folks. I'll turn 60 this month. I started fixing TV's in the 60't at age 16. been at it off and on, last occupation was computer and monitor repair. Had a liver transplant in 2002, and some heart problems since, but am in fair shape otherwise. I live on 5 acres of brush where nearly everything here will stick, stab or bite you. I love bringing broken things back to life. Especially things that other folks have given me as "junk".

[jeffrodenkirch]

Thank you for this forum. Having started my tech career by re-capping (who uses tantalum in the audio path?) an MCI 24-in recording console (and bypassing critical electrolytics with audiophile papers) I think I have found a home. I blew up my first cap in high school when I put a filter cap in backwards in a tube amplifier power supply - couldn't get the smell out of the lab for weeks!

I also fixed my MAG 19" by reading the forums! thanks!

Jeff Rodenkirch

[BigHache]

Greetings, I wanted to drop a thank you to you guys for the forums. I had an XFX 8600 GT graphics card that after two years, three capacitors had blown simultaneously (made a really LOUD pop too).

After searching the Web I came across this site. I purchased new Rubycons and replaced all of the FZ79 capacitors on my card. I'm happy to report that the video card is back to full working condition. Thanks guys!

-Howard

[bigcape]

Hi all!

I am realy a car dealer that has turned into my own network admin over time. I have had to reconfigure my servers THREE times thanks to ........ well i don't wanna be mean.

My Exchange server board fried yesterday. I replaced the board, but i thought it might be fun to replace the TWELVE popped caps in my DELL 470 just to see if I can!

they are a range of 6.3v1500uF MCZ's upto 6.3v2200uf MCZ's

I was going to take a trip up to RadioShack to see what they had.

None the less. Hope to meet a few of you guys. Looks like a cool site!

Sean
Austin Texas

[Per Hansson]

Originally Posted by bigcape

I was going to take a trip up to RadioShack to see what they had.

None the less. Hope to meet a few of you guys. Looks like a cool site!

Sean
Austin Texas

Welcome to Badcaps!
Please, don't go to Radioshack and buy capacitors, those are not LOW ESR and will not work for a computer in the long run

[ryu]

hi =] im ryan, im an aussie.

im an ex-software engineer soon to be uni student. been on pc's all my life and im pretty handy with a soldering iron and an arc welder too.

Seems like a dec forum. joined cos my Asus P5 board wont post anymore, i think at least three caps are busted, i think they are the heat vunerable ones. summer here usually gets over 40c a few times each year and ive also heard our power voltage is not always stable. im going to try to fix the board i dont like throwing away stuff and fixing things is fun.

I think I will get a good new power supply maybe a Cooler Master and a new board and that for now anyway, I want to it fixed with good parts to use with my new Asus Xonar sound card, its got high def analog in/out, gold plated caps and all =]

i wish i had known about all this earlier there is plenty stuff thinking back i could have fixed had i known :/ and i love soldering and never get to do it :///

oh well =]

[albert36]

Hallo to all technicians and others who like electronic..
I am an old timer technician for radio and telecomunik. equipments, but retired and now using My oldnes for hobby and Ham radio-since 1954 under call sign E77UW..
We need some info abt reparatur ... and help become good.
Thanks ! Albert

[usmike5]

Hi my name is Mike and I am in Los Angeles. I started out installing phone systems, then networks, and now I'm kind of learning the electronics side of things. My first company that trained me to install phone systems use to have me replacing hookswitches on old TIE phones and that's when I was hook. Since then I have slowly been acquiring know-how and look forward to use this site to its fullest . Thanks everbody for your help cause I'm going to need it.

[tomh]

Ok I'm tomh, Boston area. Your basic electronics junkie, computers, Hi-Fi, ham radio, etc, etc, etc. I have a engineering degree but I started out as a tech so I've got lots of time on the bench. I found this place looking for info on the dreaded Mac G4 MDD power supply issue. I have an interesting problem which is partly solved i.e. I know what to look for when I dive back into the power supply again. Bad cap? Could be, I'll let ya know in the appropriate forum. Looks like a really nice site. Thanks

[AwesomeTurtle]

My name is Michael, and I'm located smack in the middle of Phoenix, Arizona. A year or so ago I had a little Nintendo DS Lite repair service going for systems with fuses gone bad, and that's what really turned me on to electronics and their innards (I'd always been a curious little monkey, taking stuff apart and looking at components even though I had no idea what the hell I was looking at). I registered here for learning purposes, but I'll do my fair share of goofing off, too.

[p2chipper]

Hi Guys....
my name is antonio i am from central america i a devry grad from 83 i am a tech repair technician and 46 yrs old lot of work repairing electronics because of bad power and lightning storms, found this place after searching for replacement boards for a gateway
FPD1975W monitor as i thought it was the caps before but still after replacing them got nothing on the screen ,as it started out just clicking off and on after power switch.....
anyway i am going to make good use of my time here a very private but informed person
and love the truth and some opinion.

thanks for having me
p2chipper

[tigertamer]

Thanks for allowing me on board. I am a tweaker by hobby and I have enjoyed fixing anything that I was able. I found this forum searching for a few fixes for a couple of LCD monitors. Your network comes up fast on the search engines!

I am not long winded until it comes to the technical stuff, so please excuse the brevity of this introduction.

See you on the board,
Respectfully,
Tigertamer

[paule22]

Hi to all badcaps members just registered and hope to help people out if i can. my skill in electronics repair are basic but have managed to repair a lcd monitor with a backlight problem dry joints on inverter board.

[katana]

Hi everyone and thank you for letting me join the forum .

Electronics is a whole new ball game to me ....but have recently repaired a number of monitors for friends and sometimes build a few desktop PC's. Not the greatest qualifications, I grant you...but looking forward to learning more .

[Dorian Black]

Hi to all, i find this site when i search a capacitator for my damaged vga, i have already read the post for resolve the issue.

I'm diplomed in eletronics and telecomunication at high school, but i didn't study it anymore. I used my knowledge for little repair and for helping my friends. And last but not useless, i'm italian and my english is very very bad

[styxbound]

Hello, guys. You certainly seem to have a great thing going here; don't think I've seen another forum where guys make so much effort to be helpful. Thanks already!
I'm from south Louisiana, 67 years old and married 50 of those. Three years ago I turned a computer on for the first time in my life, lost the last bit of my sanity and have wound up buying and selling old computers. A lot of the lcds I come by need repair so that's what's getting me into that end of it. Played around with electronics as a hobby a while back in the 70's so I know the basics and that's about all. Lately I've fixed a few units with obviously bad caps and such but have some more I can't fix. So I bought the blue esr meter which I'm now trying to learn to use and here I am with a vast supply of ignorance_hope you guys can fix that!