Brand new, never used with bad caps.

[stevo1210]

Hello Everyone,

I was in the Sydney city CBD yesterday going out with a friend of mine and I managed to stumble upon a computer store.
This is what I saw in the store window and it seemed quite concerning that this display motherboard which was never used before has bad caps!.

I couldn't believe it but it was true, it indeed had bulging caps (no leaking).... I confirmed the board was not used because the CPU, RAM and expension slots and sockets do not have any marking of being used before. I don't know what brand/ model this motherboard this is, so here are a few pirctures attached. Sorry about the really bad quality, I was using my Nokia 6234 mobile phone with a 2 megapixel camera to take these pictures.

The caps are Nichicon HM(M) with date codes 0434. The large black ones are 3300uf 6.3V and the smaller blue ones are 1500uf 6.3V?.

Has anyone seen anything similar? like caps that are never used and are bad.

I can't identify what brand/ model the motherboard was, but I know it has two ATi Radeon chipsets, is black in colour, socket AM2 (or 939?) and has a large ATi logo silkscreened onto it.

Thanks.

[shadow]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

I have heard of this happening before. Just doesn't make too much sense to me.

[kc8adu]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

bought the ga-6vtxd in this box for $5 brand new in the clearance box at a mom and pop store.
the choyo caps were leaking and stunk badly.
dont remember them being bulged though.
cant tell much from your pic other than its a 939 or am2 from ati.

[linuxguru]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

First I've heard of unused Nichicon HM bulging, but it's a 2004 date code, so anything is possible. The most common unused bulger is YEC, used by the old IBM PC company in Netvistas and other systems. I've seen YEC caps that have bulged in sealed, original bags with full length leads, so they could not have been used and then pulled.

[kc8adu]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

no surprise as i remember 6 mo old uniden sat boxes with bad yec
some were flakey right out of the box and had been replaced by uniden.
they didnt even want them back.
i recapped hundreds of these units and they all worked perfect afterwards.
this was in the 80's
yec hasnt improved yet!

[stevo1210]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

I did a search on the net for board and I found it. The board is an ATi OEM board. It's called the ATi Xpress 200 crossfire edition motherboard. Here is a link to a review of the board. http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/09/...ire/page9.html

First I've heard of unused Nichicon HM bulging, but it's a 2004 date code, so anything is possible

I'd have to agree with you on that. This is the first batch of Nichicon HM(M) I've seen bulge without being used.

Thanks.

[linuxguru]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

NVidia, Crossfire, blue PCB, red SATA connectors, yellow serial connectors - must have been a high-end 'enthusiast' board for Ricers - lol...

[Newbie2]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

It must have been used before and then cleaned up good, caps don't just fail bulged without being used.

[severach]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

We had a 10 pack of dual P3 motherboards come in and months later every one of them has the same 14 bulged caps. They hadn't seen any action other than factory testing.

[Phenos]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

I believe this is an PC-Partner built motherboard, I have an Sapphire Pure innovation motherboard which almost looks identical to this one. It has Teapo + OS-CON (CPU VRM), licon (small caps scattered around) and nichicon caps, And it BSOD's everyday around 2~3 times.

[Newbie2]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

I don't understand how some people say that there are bulged caps on a motherboard that wasn't used before, in my thinking either it did get used before or someone is playing a joke and soldered failed bulged capacitors onto a new motherboard.

[Bookworm]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

bad electrolyte and bad aluminum (contaminated) could cause enough internal pressure. Remember that heat is generally simply an accelerator of a reaction that will occur anyway.

[linuxguru]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

Yup - the Taiwanese/Chinese aluminium foils are impure - 97.5% aluminium, 2.5% copper, zinc, tin and other non-ferrous impurities (the proportions may vary depending on the source). Al is amphoteric - i.e. it reacts with both acids and alkalis, so it is very easy for it to form galvanic cells around the impurities. These can release hydrogen without any external potential across the leads. Combine that with defective electrolytes that don't have oxidizers to neutralize the hydrogen, and you can certainly have gas buildup without any use.

The Japanese majors avoid these issues by using ultra-pure aluminium foil (>99.9% Al) and proprietary oxidizer additives in the electrolyte to mop up any free hydrogen.

[kc8adu]

Re: Brand new, never used with bad caps.

We had a 10 pack of dual P3 motherboards come in and months later every one of them has the same 14 bulged caps. They hadn't seen any action other than factory testing.

those were probably pcchips m790/alton v694d/ecs d6vaa(all the same board)
i just got a pile of the alton version where customer bought a dozen spares to hold.these were for a cluster.
he told me when he opened these last week they smelled bad.
not the normal electronics outgassing but like something dead.
his shop guys assembled the systems.
none would work the next morning.
every g-luxon cap was bulging or open.
the ctc 1000@6.3 sizzled and stunk when i desoldered them.
these boards were stored at room temp about 8 years.
the ones in service were recapped by me in 02 with panasonic fc.
only problem since was cheap fans dieing.