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Comment by lallysingh | Hacker News Reader

I remember bad capacitors being quite a problem a few years ago for laptops and other systems. They would blow a year into service.

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Only a few years ago, very recently? Or could it have been throughout the naughts?[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

The last time I got a new computer with bad caps was 2010-11. Between that and ROHS solder, the mid 00s were a Bad Time

If you are going to use naught, you must refer to the time period as "The Naughties".

I prefer the "Turn of the Millennium" myself.

My friend who does electronics repair says he's been shotgunning (replacing all of a part, without testing them) Electrolytic caps in transistor radios since the late 1950s. He said it almost always worked.

So, obviously, it's a long standing problem.

It was particularly bad for a few years due to supply chain issues. I worked at BestBuy at that time and it was easily 30% of our workload, computer comes in acting weird, take the side panel off and see a bunch of blown caps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Electrolytics have a limited lifespan, that's not due to poor quality like the PCs with caps blowing out. Almost any old electronics will need caps replaced if they haven't already been.

I worked for my uncle who had arcade games then for a lottery with slot machines. Capacitors always leak I've never seen a device over 40 years where there wasn't a bad cap.

At the lottery I had a $5,000 3D multilayered monitor fail. All it needed were 3 SMD caps at maybe 1 cent total parts cost plus labour to fix. the lottery just trashed the monitor instead.

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