The leaky capacitors issue - time for a grassroots campaign?

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Mr Toastz
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The leaky capacitors issue - time for a grassroots campaign?

Post by Mr Toastz »

In my quick rounds today I saw several mentions about a certain supplier selling substandard capacitors to a number of motherboard manufacturers. Most of the manufacturers are still denying this is a problem, but several have admitted to it.<br><br>The nature of the problem means that in a lot of cases, it manifests itself after the RMA period, which means that the buyer is stuck with a dead board that will cost more to fix than replace.<br><br>The reason I bring this up is that I think that I am thinking it might be nice to start a campaign (on several websites) to get the motherboard manufacturers to certify that any boards being sold at this point are free of the defective capacitors (and that those in the retail channels now which have the defective capacitors have them replaced with non-faulty ones). If enough of us tech sites raise hell about this, I'm sure that they will at least make an effort to correct the boards we are buying now.<br><br>We are just a tiny site, but I know several of you frequent other forums. Raise some hell people!<br><br>I also wonder if a class action suit has any merit, but as many of these boards are no longer under warranty, I think the chances of that going anywhere are slim to none...<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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blue
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heh

Post by blue »

I used to juice capacitors into a jar wonder if I still have it somewhere. <p></p><i></i>
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mulvihill
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Let's do something.

Post by mulvihill »

A class action lawsuit is always an option but it is an option of last resort and doesn't really address our immediate concerns as consumers and, if successful would raise the price of mboards.<br>Because we are a tech site, perhaps we could fire off a short form letter to all the manufacturers advising them that we are doing a syndicated article on this issue and would like to know what they are doing to address this "growing sore spot in the market". We could publish the responses and start a poll, rating the responses. This is not just an opportunity for us to take a swing at this problem; it is also an opportunity for one or two of these manufacturers to really cream the market with some kind iron-clad warranty on capacitors. More power to them. <br>If other tech sites don't run with it we will at least have posted links to our site and increased our own readership.<br><!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :chainsaw --><img src=http://www.k6plus.com/siteart/emoticons/chainsaw.gif ALT=":chainsaw"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub70.ezboard.com/bk6plus67153.s ... lvihill</A> at: 2/7/03 4:15:17 pm<br></i>
feizex
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here

Post by feizex »

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mulvihill
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and here

Post by mulvihill »

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mulvihill
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Re: and here

Post by mulvihill »

I pulled these two quotes from a Toronto Star article:<br><br>"Gary Headlee has replaced some 40,000 leaky capacitors on almost 1,500 computer motherboards over the past year, including Geery's. The electronics technician in Midvale, Utah, first encountered the problem when he found leaky capacitors on his own computer motherboard"<br><br>"Headlee said he's replaced leaking capacitors on just about every kind of computer motherboard "except Asus," including motherboards made by Micro Star International (MSI) and Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd." <br><br>This suggests that my own experience with the A7A was an exeption to the rule and that if we really wanted to do something about this issue, we could start by putting an Asus on our shopping list.<br><br>The thing is, I already have a T2P4, a P2B-F and two P5A-Bs. It just wouldn't look good to be caught holding more than four Asus.<br><br><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub70.ezboard.com/bk6plus67153.s ... lvihill</A> at: 2/18/03 2:19:48 am<br></i>
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