It is a extensively recognized drawback with roots in city legend: Units with motherboards failing within the early 2000s with a sudden pop, a ugly spill, or typically a burst of flames. And it was allegedly all attributable to one man who did not copy a stolen system accurately.
The “capacitor plague” of the early 2000s was actual and pretty widespread amongst units, even when the vast majority of these units did not go unhealthy on the identical time and even in the identical yr. The story of this widespread failure, passing between trade insider tales and media experiences, had a particular offender, but in addition a broad narrative in regards to the shift from Japanese to Taiwanese producers and about outsourcing usually.
The Asianometry channel on YouTube lately dug into the “capacitor plague” in a video that asks, “What occurred to the capacitors in 2002?” and involves some knowledgeable, broad, and layered solutions. It explains the specifics of what is occurring inside each a working capacitor and the defective fashions, relays the reporting on the businesses blamed and affected, and, crucially, places the plague within the wider context of hotter chips, advanced provide chains, counterfeits, and, positive, some industrial sabotage.
“We are going to by no means know what precisely occurred, however let’s attempt,” the host says at the beginning. It is suggested you comply with alongside.
“What Occurred to the Capacitors in 2002?” by Asianometry.
With out replicating an excessive amount of of the video and bigger mythos, the essential story is that, in accordance with varied disputed timelines, electrolytic capacitors put into electronics between 1999 and 2003 or so failed in dire methods from 2002 by way of (maybe) 2007. Boards and computer systems purchased from Abit, HP, IBM, and, infamously, Dell, amongst others, suffered these defective capacitors and had been dealt with with remembers, repairs, or, typically, silence.
A finely balanced cocktail
The “Low equal sequence resistance,” or “low impedance” aluminum capacitors at situation, contained an electrolyte answer that, when doing its job, served as a cathode and saved the paper separating two foil strips contained in the rolled-up capacitor saturated. As a result of the electrolyte is roughly 70 p.c water, and the capacitor may tackle wider fluctuations of voltage, it turned an affordable, in style element in lots of units.
