The Capacitor Plague: Like Too Much Bad Acid For Your Motherboard

…To get back to the warning that I received. You may take it with however many grains of salt you wish. The brown capacitors that are circulating around us aren't, specifically, too good. It is suggested you do stay away from them. Of course, it's your own motherboard. So be my guest, but please be advised that there is a warning on that one, OK?

By this I mean the great capacitor plague, of course, which involves the mass, premature croaking of certain brand name (shady?) electrolytic capacitors.

These bad capacitors first surfaced in the late 90s, though a majority were manufactured in the early-to-mid 2000s. Reports of the bunk, dual-terminal electronic components—often after a couple of years of heavy use—forced many companies to either patch up the defects or just stop using the things altogether. Bad capacitors were still on store shelves or in use as of early 2007. And by some accounts, capacitor glitches are still wreaking havoc on power supplies to personal computers, video cards, motherboards, LCD displays and compact fluorescent lamp ballasts as of this year.

The alleged culprit is hydrogen gas, which builds up from improper water-based electrolyte formula in bad (charged) capacitors. The electrolytes break down, essentially. This leads to the bulging and warping and general bursting of their aluminum cases, with inevitable seepage of the crusty brown stuff. By this point you'll probably hear a pop, crackle or screeching hiss—that, or a small explosion.

Mass spectrometry seems to corroborate this theory. Two researchers at the University of Maryland analyzed some of these plagued capacitors by way of ion chromatography and mass spectrometry, and found zero trace of a depolarizing agent typically found in these sorts of capacitors that serves as a hydrogen retainer. And in a loony bit of industrial espionage gone awry, some Taiwanese electrolyte manufacturers used stolen formula designs that lacked the ingredients needed to build out reliably stable capacitors.

The damage has been far reaching, in large part because of severe quality control issues. Symptoms (spontaneous rebootage, spotty memory, power-supply malfunction, unstable images, etc.) only begin rearing their heads after a certain amount of time. What's more, shitty quality electrolytic capacitors have similar measurable parameters to non-shitty, new electrolytic capacitors, and only exhaustive accelerated lifespan gauging via high-ripple current and high-operating temperatures can snuff out low-quality components.

Intel, Dell and HP have all suffered. Around 2005, Dell shelled out an estimated $150 million on a blanket motherboard replacement and an additional $150 million on protocols to determine whether certain systems needed replacing. Motherboards and power supplies in certain batches of Apple iMac G5s and eMacs were hit. HP supposedly scrapped its entire product line in 2004. It's estimated that the U.S. paid some $100 million to rid us of the great capacitor plague.

Ah crapskis, do you smell that? It’s Wednesday and your motherboard is tripping balls.

ODDITY examines strange and esoteric phenomena and events from the remote, uncanny corners of technology, science and history.

Reach this writer at brian@motherboard.tv.