Re: Increasing HZ (patch for HZ > 1000)

Gene Heskett
2003-12-11T18:35:19Z

On Thursday 11 December 2003 12:33, Martin J. Bligh wrote:
>> Hardware indeed. I'm a Certified Electronics Technician. Have
>> someone check all those electrolyric caps in the on-board psu in
>> particular, using a device similar to a "Capacitor Wizard" which
>> measures not the capacity of the cap, but the caps Equivalent
>> Series Resistance (ESR) at 100 kilohertz or more. Anything over
>> half an ohm should be replaced forthwith. This assumes of course
>> that your tech in charge of hot solder has the tools to do it
>> correctly. If not, find one who does have the tools.
>>
>> Many mobos in a period ranging from about 2.5 to 1.5 years ago
>> were built with caps that go defective prematurely due to a bad
>> batch of them from several far eastern cap makers who were fed a
>> bad recipe for the electrolyte in the caps, eg the Ethylene Glycol
>> wasn't near pure enough.
>
>When you say "fed a bad recipe", didn't they actually steal it? Or
>is that just an urban legend?
>
>M.

Well, I *was* trying to be nice<vsg>. I'd made the assumption that
the supplier was the one doing the stealing, and that they (the cap
makers as buyers of this cheaper than usual product) were not 100%
aware of the problems at the time. Yes, I've read the story, and the
history of capacitor failures over the last 2 years does seem to lend
considerable credance to the story. When you are a CET, doing
component level repairs for a living for the last 50 some years, some
things do get your attention, and poor life of capacitors has long
since become the single leading failure of things electronic,
recently by a factor measured in magnitudes over anything else, like
bad semiconductors. Thats been the tend for the last 10 years in
fact. Poor lubrication of things basicly mechanical like electrical
switches is now second on the list, with a lot of white space between
them.

The windshield wiper speed switch in your car being a prime example of
that 2nd type of failure. If it hasn't miss-behaved, it will. Pull
the knob off the end of the stalk and remove the super sticky syrupy
grease there and replace it with lubriplate, end of problem, probably
forever. Certainly for as long as you'll own it. Your trivia fact
for the day :-)

--
Cheers, Gene
AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M
Athlon1600XP@1400mhz 512M
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Copyright 2003 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.