DoN. Nichols wrote:
On 2008-08-13, clare at snyder dot ontario dot canada clare wrote:
On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:49:24 -0400, Al Patrick wrote:

[ ... ]

I've had several flatscreens fail just off warranty. Problem was
traced down to a couple electrolytic caps that had swelled. Nobody
local had them in stock so I ebayed 10 of each out of HongKong of all
places - japanese caps - for less than I could have bought them out
of the states without the shipping. A couple minutes with the
soldering iron and all 3 back in service - with spare parts for 2
more.

Hmm ... IIRC, the cause of the swelling capacitors was some
manufacturer (Chinese, I think) buying a stolen formula for
electrolyte from a Japanese source. But the stolen formula had a
problem, and capacitors made with that formula tend to swell and die
within a couple of years. It strikes me that your Hong Kong ones may
well be ones made with the stolen formula, and likely to die just
like the originals did.

Abit ended up with a series of motherboards that had this problem.
I know - I have one, and the fix was replacing the caps with good high
quality hardware.


--

John R. Carroll
www.machiningsolution.com