The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

[Wester547]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Indeed.

However, when it comes to Prescott and Pentium D, you will want things done more seriously. My guess is that's what killed the MCZs on the DC7700 motherboard I got from eBay.

So the MCZs in the VRM input failed under the thermal duress imposed by the hot FETs? Disappointing. I've seen the 16V MCZs fail in the VRM input before, but only when they're under extreme thermal stress with many years of 24/7 usage (or if the cooling sucks). And thick copper planes definitely help.

Most of the MCZ failures I see are in the VRM out, like in the Optiplex GX270 motherboards. The 1800uF 6.3V MCZs go bad whilst the 1800uF 16V MCZs remain fine, almost camouflaged beneath the heatsinked VRM daughterboard (but needless to say basically touching the fins of that very heatsink and that board does run hot as it's only a two-phase VRM with four FETs per phase). And the 1500uF 6.3V MCZ beside the two hot AGP linear regulators goes bad now and then too, of course.

[Pentium4]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

And yes, MSI usually designs their VRMs very well, so then I guess those WFs probably failed all on their own then.

Just like the WFs on that AMD motherboard I had. The one with the 4 phase 16 FET VRM. There must be an issue because the WFs failed before any of the KZGs did and there were over 20 of them.

[cruzinforit]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

I have a few. I was decomissioning a few Dell Optiplex 320, 330, and 360s that are being replaced as part of a Windows 7 move. All of the 320s that had KZJ series caps had busted caps, the ones with rubycon and panasonic ones were fine. The 320s all had Pentium 4 CPUs in them.

These pics actually are from 3 different Optiplex 320 SFFs. Sorry for the not so great pics I only had my smartphone on me at the time.

[Pentium4]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Ouch. Pretty normal for those KZJ to bulge. Especially since the heat coming off the CPU heatsink goes directly over them. I'm not sticking up for the KZJ at all though. I've seen Rubycon MCZ in the same position with a Prescott Pentium 4, and even after 80,000 running hours they still tested in spec. Are you going to recap these machines, or scrap them? In my opinion, these are some of the best machines that Dell made.

[Behemot]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

MCZ tend to bloat as well under some heat…does not even need to be too much, 50-60 °C.

[cruzinforit]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Ouch. Pretty normal for those KZJ to bulge. Especially since the heat coming off the CPU heatsink goes directly over them. I'm not sticking up for the KZJ at all though. I've seen Rubycon MCZ in the same position with a Prescott Pentium 4, and even after 80,000 running hours they still tested in spec. Are you going to recap these machines, or scrap them? In my opinion, these are some of the best machines that Dell made.

At this point we are replacing upwards of 700 machines, we don't have time to recap all of them, and they are old enough at this point we are just replacing them. I've grabbed a couple of the 360s for personal use though after they went through donation stuff.

[Pentium4]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Understandable. Hope you recap a couple and get some good use out of them

[Wester547]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Ouch. Pretty normal for those KZJ to bulge. Especially since the heat coming off the CPU heatsink goes directly over them. I'm not sticking up for the KZJ at all though. I've seen Rubycon MCZ in the same position with a Prescott Pentium 4, and even after 80,000 running hours they still tested in spec. Are you going to recap these machines, or scrap them? In my opinion, these are some of the best machines that Dell made.

Those Rubycon MCZs must have been in machines that were cooled exceptionally well or were ran at a very low room temperature to have lasted that long in a Prescott machine. Were they in the VRM input of the CPU? Not saying MCZs are bad, just Rubycon's most sensitive series along with MFZ as far as heat goes. Any chance you're making reference to the (SFF?) GX620 you spoke of before, which had Nichicon VRs as well that tested in spec after ~78,000 hours of use?

[momaka]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Wow, those KZJs really pooped themselves badly!

In my opinion, these are some of the best machines that Dell made.

Agreed.
First time I actually like a case made by Dell. Their older cases were either too "plastic-fantastic" or just annoying about certain things.
The only thing I don't like with these newer Dells is lack of PS/2 ports. The PCI-E 16x is a nice touch, though.

[Pentium4]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Those Rubycon MCZs must have been in machines that were cooled exceptionally well or were ran at a very low room temperature to have lasted that long in a Prescott machine. Were they in the VRM input of the CPU? Not saying MCZs are bad, just Rubycon's most sensitive series along with MFZ as far as heat goes. Any chance you're making reference to the (SFF?) GX620 you spoke of before, which had Nichicon VRs as well that tested in spec after ~78,000 hours of use?

No, they were in the same position as those KZJ in the machine he posted. I ended up replacing them anyways with FP polymers just because of their age and running hours. Yes it's the same machine, I was just rounding up that machine has been my file server since November, 2014 so now that board has a rough estimate of 83,000 running hours on it.

Agreed.
First time I actually like a case made by Dell. Their older cases were either too "plastic-fantastic" or just annoying about certain things.
The only thing I don't like with these newer Dells is lack of PS/2 ports. The PCI-E 16x is a nice touch, though.

Yes, I don't like that they lack PS/2 either. Which was pretty bizarre for ~2005. However, they were way ahead of themselves in a lot of ways which is what I think they were going for. Such as onboard gigabit LAN, 8 USB ports total, PCIe x1.

[Wester547]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

No, they were in the same position as those KZJ in the machine he posted. I ended up replacing them anyways with FP polymers just because of their age and running hours. Yes it's the same machine, I was just rounding up that machine has been my file server since November, 2014 so now that board has a rough estimate of 83,000 running hours on it.

Your original post states that they were in the VRM input (1000uF 16V) and scattered amid the board (2200uF 6.3V and 1800uF 6.3V for filtering). I'm amazed those MCZs lasted that long given that it was a SFF machine and that it was in the vicinity of a Prescott (though a Pentium 4 630 isn't exactly glutton for power compared to the worst ones), and given that the chipsets/heatsinks aren't exactly stone cold or cool as a a cucumber. That's why I surmised that it must have been a well controlled environment in terms of ambient temperature (or not?).

When you say they were in spec, though, does this mean that they were close to their values in the datasheet? Or does it mean that they were somewhere around 0.03 - 0.06 ohms (if you recall)? Since that would indicate some degree of drying up.

And cruzinforit, I think your images are just fine (a little blurry in places but certainly not bad). It would be one thing if this was a motherboard that you were troubleshooting and inquiring for help on, but this is just The Hall of Shame. Those may not be the clearest of images but I've certainly seen much worse. And besides which, I don't think anyone here wants to see those KZJs soiling themselves with any more clarity than that...

[delaware74b]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Here's one for the Hall of Shame: plastic-can 24uF, 480-Volt rated capacitor for 1000-watt metal halide light on a 45-foot high pole. Catastrophic failure, and it burned until it ran out of materials to burn. This is the reason why I don't replace them with another plastic-canned dry capacitor. I use only wet electrolytic caps in metal cans. When a metal one fails, it never burns, just goes open-circuit.

I had this photo on my phone for 1.5 years and figured it was time to share

[Behemot]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Oh yeah? You better find that post of budm IIRC with big 400V cap which exploded and did some extreme carnage. Cannot do that right now, EDGE connection…

[ben7]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Here's one for the Hall of Shame: plastic-can 24uF, 480-Volt rated capacitor for 1000-watt metal halide light on a 45-foot high pole. Catastrophic failure, and it burned until it ran out of materials to burn. This is the reason why I don't replace them with another plastic-canned dry capacitor. I use only wet electrolytic caps in metal cans. When a metal one fails, it never burns, just goes open-circuit.

I had this photo on my phone for 1.5 years and figured it was time to share

Wow!!!

I've seen/heard of those getting hot and oozing out a metallic looking goo, but not catching fire!

Made In ... damn it's melted off!

[delaware74b]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Wow!!!

I've seen/heard of those getting hot and oozing out a metallic looking goo, but not catching fire!

Made In ... damn it's melted off!

.....China, where else?!

[Pentium4]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Your original post states that they were in the VRM input (1000uF 16V) and scattered amid the board (2200uF 6.3V and 1800uF 6.3V for filtering). I'm amazed those MCZs lasted that long given that it was a SFF machine and that it was in the vicinity of a Prescott (though a Pentium 4 630 isn't exactly glutton for power compared to the worst ones), and given that the chipsets/heatsinks aren't exactly stone cold or cool as a a cucumber. That's why I surmised that it must have been a well controlled environment in terms of ambient temperature (or not?).

When you say they were in spec, though, does this mean that they were close to their values in the datasheet? Or does it mean that they were somewhere around 0.03 - 0.06 ohms (if you recall)? Since that would indicate some degree of drying up.

Yeah, sorry I forgot that they were also on the VRM high. I was impressed with how they held up. I know it isn't the higher clocked Prescott but they still run warm, especially when being used. This one was used daily at John L Scott Westwood for 9 years. All the MCZ caps read between 0.02-0.04Ω ESR. I'm guessing their office was air conditioned, but I wasn't the one who ever went out there to work on these machines.

[Heihachi_73]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

This ISO-450PP power supply suffered the Fuhjyyu plague, helped due to being absolutely caked in dust; this PC had never been cleaned since 2007! Even with only three caps bulging, I doubt the others are much better. Primary caps were 2x Koshin 680uF 200V however (whether they actually were 680uF or rebadged 470s or 560s is another story, I am yet to check them - they also look bulged underneath the plastic, and the lids don't seem to push down).

[Heihachi_73]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

This PSU also qualifies for the Gutless & Bloated thread (had I not noticed this earlier, it would have been put there). Both MOVs are toast, note the magic smoke trail in the photo. The date code obscured by the film capacitor is 0631.

[momaka]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

^ Doesn't look too bad, IMO. Especially for a PSU that has been in service since 2007.

Just remove or replace the MOVs, put new caps in, clean it up + oil the fan, and you got a working PSU again .

[Behemot]

Re: The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

Better test it with a bulb, may be something else blown with the varistors.