Re: ATX power supply not made in China
I'd be interested in this, but unfortunately I've never seen a non-China power supply either.
gdement
Badcaps Veteran
Last Activity: 11-02-2023, 05:26 PM
Joined: 01-16-2007
Location: Northern CA
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Re: LCD monitor backlight
It's been a long time since I looked into it but I believe the operating brightness makes a huge difference in the bulb's lifespan. I always keep my backlights pretty dim, I don't see the point running them really bright. That makes them look good in store displays but it's not necessary. At most, it might take a few minutes to get used to the dimmer setting, then you won't notice anymore.
I just checked - my main desktop LCD is on 0 brightness. I used to have it on 15% but I changed to 0 when there was a power outage. I never remembered or cared...Leave a comment:
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Re: Linux penguin -- Best, comment, rage.
First unix I installed at home was FreeBSD 2.something. Command prompt only, worked fine but I only played around with it a bit.
Then tried redhat 6.2. Tried the Gnome GUI on that, didn't like it.
I think after this is when I tried BeOS v5. Worked great and I even liked the GUI, but of course it was a niche OS and died off.
The first linux I used long-term, and set up as a server, was RedHat 7.2, later upgraded to 7.3. This ran on a dual Pentium Pro 200. I kept using that until the fedora-legacy site stopped supporting...Leave a comment:
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Re: SVHS Goodness
I've bought 3 $5 VCRs in the past year, and they were all fails.
The first one worked for about a month. The other 2 were DOA. Annoying.
I haven't seen an SVHS yet, I'd love to get one of those if I happen across a cheap one. But when I do, it probably won't work.Leave a comment:
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Re: CapXon
Even though the replacement caps weren't low-ESR, it still should have most likely started running (for a while at least) if caps were the only problem. There's probably another problem besides the caps - but the caps still needed to be replaced anyway.Last edited by gdement; 04-27-2010, 06:10 PM.Leave a comment:
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Re: Gigabyte GA-7VTXE - Bad Caps
As it happens, I apparently did a diagram of this board. I found it on my hard drive, so I've attached it here (too big to post inline).
That's what I would do. The board was laid out for 9 caps, so the switch to 4 big caps was probably just to save money.
Using more caps makes it easier to get lower ESR, and it should be better for reliability....Leave a comment:
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Re: Does anything less than 470uF usually bulge?
Weird - isn't ITOX a long-life brand? I'm amazed they'd use OST caps....Leave a comment:
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Re: Video adapters - bad caps
I think part of the reason for the cheap caps is because the add-on video card market is very gamer oriented. The big customers buy new cards every year, so long lasting parts aren't a necessary expense. Timely failure also takes the card out of circulation in the 2nd hand market.
Avoiding no-names is a start, but it's not really enough with video cards. Many of the major brands also make crap cards. ATI doesn't sell their own anymore, and nVidia never did, so you're stuck with a 3rd party. Most of the popular brands push...Leave a comment:
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Re: Opinions on "ultra durable" Gigabyte boards?
True if you count Opterons, I think Supermicro also makes those. I was really thinking of desktop PC boards.
The high end brands make desktop boards for Intel, but they're only interested in servers on the AMD side....Leave a comment:
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Re: Opinions on "ultra durable" Gigabyte boards?
Those caps are really rated for 2k hrs at 105C, but the endurance increases dramatically with reduced temperature. So Gigabyte is just speculating that they'll run for 50k. That number doesn't come from the cap manufacturer.
Generally speaking, I think that modern motherboards aren't likely to last as long as older boards. As technology (improves?) components become more complicated and have stricter tolerances. Look at all the old 80's PCs that still work - it isn't easy to kill them. As things...Leave a comment:
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Re: What is the quality of Sapphire video cards? Do they use good capacitors?
A few years ago I ordered a Sapphire card (Radeon X1550) for my nephew's old computer. It had some cheap caps on it but it's good to hear they've apparently improved on that.
I'm annoyed that ATI doesn't sell their own cards anymore. I don't trust the gamer brands. I fear that all the mid-grade accelerators will break, since they're designed for people who buy a new card every year. I've been leaning toward Gigabyte, but maybe Sapphire is the way to go now.
In reading...Leave a comment:
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Re: LOL virus fail.
I'm not talking about killing a virus after it's infected you. Loading a web site has never given me a virus.
We're talking about the ability to kill Firefox (as acstech did) when it loads a suspicious site that's using Javascript to harass you and you'd rather not click on it. The ability to kill processes is the same on either OS....Leave a comment:
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Re: LOL virus fail.
I don't see how that's any different than Windows. I kill stuff in the task manager all the time.
What annoys me is that Firefox doesn't provide a clear way to close those popups without using the popup's own interface. We shouldn't have to kill Firefox to get away from something like that....Leave a comment:
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Re: Is buying a used SmartUPS a good idea?
I got the UPS about 1 1/2 weeks ago, or something like that.
It's working great. It didn't include the serial cable, which apparently is proprietary, but I got one of those later. It also didn't include the software, but I downloaded APCUPSD and "Powerchute Plus" (old). The newer Powerchute versions are supposedly on APCs web site but the download page is broken.
Anyway, I've settled on APCUPSD rather than powerchute.
The firmware was set for loose tolerances, so I tightened that up. It now kicks in...Leave a comment:
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Re: Abit NF7
I've never traced out that board, but it's possible that 1 unique cap near the AGP slot might be the only cap on the AGP power supply output. If so, it might be overstressed with higher power cards.Leave a comment:
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Re: Identifying badcaps in a Xbox360
There's many machines (360 probably among them) that run so hot that cap failures are common regardless of the brand.
I've also seen blown Rubycon MCZ in a small form factor computer. It was just too hot, and heat reduces their lifespan.
The endurance spec of high performance caps like the MCZ is 2000hrs at 105C. That doubles for every 10C reduction in temperature, so reasonable temperatures will last a very long time. But some machines don't have reasonable temperatures.
If you do recap it, polymer capacitors might...Leave a comment:
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Re: 2 motherboards - 2 problems....
The Intel sounds like a power supply issue. Maybe also the Gigabyte. When it was still able to boot (but failing), did you check the voltage readings?
When you replaced the Intel board with the Gigabyte, is that also when you started using the OCZ power supply?
If so, have you tried using that power supply on the Intel board? Or the old PSU on the Gigabyte?
Gigabyte motherboards from the P3/P4/Socket-A age did have bad capacitors, so that's certainly a possibility. Intel boards normally don't have that...Leave a comment:
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Re: Is buying a used SmartUPS a good idea?
Sounds like the used SmartUPS is probably a better choice than a new BackUPS. Seller looks reputable, so I've now bought one. Thanks for the help.Leave a comment:
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Re: Is buying a used SmartUPS a good idea?
Isn't deep discharge very bad for lead-acid batteries? I've only heard of that being good for NiCd or NiMH....Leave a comment:
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Re: Win7 sucks as gaming platform with CRT screen?
I wonder if this is a bug with the game(s), not the OS/DirectX. The game should be able to detect all supported modes but some might just assume you want 60Hz nowadays.
Try a manual override in dxdiag. I used that several years ago when I was on a CRT. My Hercules GF2MX card had a screwy off-spec refresh rate so manual override was the only way to produce the intended result. I had to put 80Hz in there to get 85Hz out.
I just checked and the option is still there on DX9.0c, but I don't know...Leave a comment:
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