Comments | giza: My poor iMac

giza

My poor iMac

May 08, 2011 15:47

When I got back from Dorsai Thing a few weeks back, I saw a kernel panic on my iMac, so I tried rebooting it. Upon rebooting it, the screen stayed black and no sounds came from the speakers, nor did the Caps Lock light turn on on the keyboard when I pressed the key. So I took the machine out of service and made a note to open it up at some point ( Read more... )

hardware, imac, apple, mac

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greenreaper May 8 2011, 20:47:43 UTC

Yeah, that happened to me too. Basically around the turn of the century some cheap Taiwanese capacitors stole a formula for electrolyte fluid which resulted in a buildup of hydrogen within the cells. The end result is that they all started popping their tops a few years later. It's known as the capacitor plague and it was a big scandal at the time.

electropaw May 9 2011, 00:48:48 UTC

Yeah I've seen this happen many times with various pieces of equipment. Crappy caps. Chances are you can "shotgun" all of those filter caps and possibly spare the life of your machine. I've probably saved about a $1000 in electronics/repairs simply by replacing caps blown like these.

furahi May 9 2011, 02:19:59 UTC

I was about to suggest that :)

thraxarious May 9 2011, 02:14:17 UTC

That is sort of a story passed down decade to decade. Its been far too long and the story changes on what country is doing what.

Its more likely a company skimping on parts, or using counterfeit parts (been known to happen.)

greenreaper May 9 2011, 02:30:38 UTC

There's some reasonable coverage to back up this specific issue - but yes, the overall message is "don't skimp on parts". That 500W PSU that's as light as a feather probably isn't a good deal!

thraxarious May 9 2011, 13:54:35 UTC

Yep, some companies, especially when pressured to hit specific price points, sometimes do that. It might not seem like much, but 0$.05-$0.20 can be a lot over a whole run.

The big dell lawsuit over the SX lines was over doing that. And they had the gall to claim it was a software issue!

There is a bit more info on this site here about the history, and with different company names. But I agree, its been too long for a case of industrial espionage. More likely today its just bad cost cutting practices.

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=425

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