jbcapacitors blog

Capacitor plague (also known as bad capacitors) is an ongoing problem with premature failure of large numbers of electrolytic capacitors of certain brands. Capacitors are used in various electronics equipment, particularly motherboards, video cards, compact fluorescent lamp ballasts, LCD monitors, and power supplies of personal computers. The first flawed capacitors were seen in 1999, but most of the affected capacitors were made in the early to mid 2000s. News of the failures (usually after a few years of use) forced most manufacturers to repair the defects and stop using the capacitors, but some bad capacitors were still being sold or used in equipment as of early 2007[update], and faults are still being reported as of 2011[update].Reference computer user reports on badcaps.net.

A serious quality control problem is that the issue only manifests after use over a period of time; poor quality electrolytic capacitors have the same measurable parameters as good ones when new. Only extensive accelerated life testing with high ripple currents and high operating temperatures can identify inferior components. After some normal use the bad capacitors fail predictably far sooner than normal end-of-life; most electronic components do not systematically fail in this way.