OT: In Faulty-Computer Suit, Window to Dell Decline

[Tim Bogart]

This is not an uncommon occurrence.  It's been going on since the home brew days.  For a while, the now extinct VA Linux couldn't produce machines because they couldn't find ram of high enough quality to keep up with their demanding tests.  Capacitors are not the only components that exhibit this behavior.  Resistors and more commonly components used in power supplies are very often points of failure.  The temptation to use either cheaper parts, or the temptation of component manufacturers to slightly over rate their components' capabilities is sometimes just too great to resist.

My $0.02  




________________________________
From: Technomage <technomage.hawke at gmail.com>
To: plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
Sent: Tue, June 29, 2010 7:03:07 PM
Subject: Re: OT:  In Faulty-Computer Suit, Window to Dell Decline

  Interestingly enough, one of my clients had a newer model dell (less than 3 years old) buy the farm as a result of bad caps
(5 of them along the regulator strip on the motherboard had popped, one explosively so). I gave her my last remaining 
working older machine (and older AMD 3200+ 32 bit machine) that actually seemed to work *better* than the machine
she originally brought to me.

Unfortunately, the hardware failure also resulted in her OS (windows xp pro) having issues that took me multiple
tries and finally a full blown re-install to get corrected (the last at my cost).

The situation as reported in the news article is actually a lot more common than people are lead to believe. as companies try
to maximize their bottom line, they tend to cut corners (like finding apparently cheaper vendors for some parts of their 
product line, etc). as stated, dell wasn't the only one to have these problems (caused in large part by financial pressure
to get things done on the cheap).  I have at some point worked on many machines (and other pieces or hardware) produced by 
a variety or foreign or domestic firms where cheap caps were the primary cause of failure (computer PSU's being the most common
among them). 

anyone here know how all this got started? a little piece of botched industrial espionage in Japan where a Taiwanese competitor 
tried to steal the formula for the electrolyte compound used in the production of capacitors. Only they got the incomplete formula
missing the depolarizing agent (the chemical that prevents both electrolytic breakdown and oxidation of the metal strips used in 
such devices). the problem wasn't discovered until almost 2 years later when caps started exploding in cheap power supplies. 

here's a wiki on the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

what is more amazing, some of these bad caps are still sitting on store shelves in some shops waiting to be sold or being used in 
new equipment (such as the new wireless N routers and other consumer gear).


On 6/29/10 4:41 PM, keith smith wrote: 
I have 3 Dells and might not buy anything new until next year.  I'm now considering  another vendor even though I have had great experience with their products and service.
>
>http://finance.yahoo.com/news/In-FaultyComputer-Suit-Window-nytimes-2375403564.html?x=0
>
>
>------------------------
>Keith Smith 
>



      
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