What makes the graphic card capacitor to blow up?

[teracore]

Two days back when i was playing dragon age origins i heard a small exploding at my pc. I opened the case and found that 5 capacitors on my graphic card (XFX 8600GT) had been broken or blown up. Now the graphic card is dead. I didn't OC it. No poor ventilation case.

See the pic:

http://i48.tinypic.com/2ebu25x.jpg

I have a newly bought 460w coolermaster PSU.




And sorry for my poor english.

 

[HalfCrazy]

Could be a number of things really. Like voltage problem, defective caps, or just plain old age. If this video card is still under warranty. I would give them a call and ask for a replacement.

 

[PM650]

Those are Sacon FZ series, a known brand of bad caps. Simply put, many taiwanese brand capacitors will fail after some period of time, they use an unstable electrolyte.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

 

[RiDE]

XFX is pretty good with their warranty. I RMAd a 7800GT and they sent back an 8800GT.

 

[soccerballtux]

Those are Sacon FZ series, a known brand of bad caps. Simply put, many taiwanese brand capacitors will fail after some period of time, they use an unstable electrolyte.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

all capacitors will fail after some period of time, if they are not solid state.

 

[alkemyst]

someone send it up the bomb.

There have been a lot items affected by bad caps lately...we had a 80% in warranty failure of about 100 or so desktops purchased from Dell and HP 3 or 4 years ago.

 

[ScorcherDarkly]

I had the exact same card from the same manufacturer do the same thing to me about 6 months ago. The card was about 1.5 yrs old, but I was a noob when I bought it and didn't know about the lifetime warranty (which only works if you register the card), so the default 1 yr warranty had already expired. I was just a bit frustrated.

 

[Seero]

Two days back when i was playing dragon age origins i heard a small exploding at my pc. I opened the case and found that 5 capacitors on my graphic card (XFX 8600GT) had been broken or blown up. Now the graphic card is dead. I didn't OC it. No poor ventilation case.

See the pic:

http://i48.tinypic.com/2ebu25x.jpg

I have a newly bought 460w coolermaster PSU.

And sorry for my poor english.

Capacitor usually breaks when experienced a high voltage spike. PSU should never be pushed. If it can deliver up to 460watt, then the load must not be greater than 368 watt (80%). The closer to the maximum, the more chance of voltage spikes. The age of the PSU may also increase the chance of voltage spike as the maximum capacity deceases. The third thing that may need to lead to this is an increase draw of power. May be the game is a little too demanding for your old PSU.

Many people fry their PC because they suddenly play a heavy duty game without knowing the parts, especially the PSU, are no longer in good shapes.

Make sure you get a good PSU before you plug in any big guns.

 

[shangshang]

I think you have a bad graphic card. If your power supply was bad, then chances are other components would have failed too. RAM and CPU are much more susceptible to a power supply failure (power spikes) than capacitors on a peripheral part. You have a bad card.

 

[Schmide]

Capacitor usually breaks when experienced a high voltage spike. PSU should never be pushed. If it can deliver up to 460watt, then the load must not be greater than 368 watt (80&#37. The closer to the maximum, the more chance of voltage spikes. The age of the PSU may also increase the chance of voltage spike as the maximum capacity deceases. The third thing that may need to lead to this is an increase draw of power. May be the game is a little too demanding for your old PSU.

Many people fry their PC because they suddenly play a heavy duty game without knowing the parts, especially the PSU, are no longer in good shapes.

Make sure you get a good PSU before you plug in any big guns.

Seriously do you make this stuff up?

A Capacitor degrades especially if their are impurities within the solution. As it heats and cools these impurities migrate and cause the insulator to become unstable, often leaking and bulging at the top.

Capacitors are put on this earth to adsorb and level out voltage spikes and dips.

 

[fffblackmage]

Those caps in OP's pic, aren't those solid state caps?

I thought these are solid state caps

and these are those electrolytic caps

So solid state caps also explode? I thought the whole point of SS caps are that they don't explode (and last longer).

 

[Schmide]

If it's in that cylinder shape it's electrolytic.

Solid state just means no moving parts which as far as I've seen all capacitors fall into.

 

[Modelworks]

Calling solid caps solid state is wrong. If you go to a supplier and tell them you want some solid state caps they will have no clue what you want. Drop the state part they are solid electrolyte caps. They can fail just like any other cap if voltage is exceeded or polarity reversed. They don't really explode like the liquid caps because the material burns instead of coverting to steam. The real advantage is they do not dry out over time.

Some SMD caps look like solid caps but are just the normal liquid electrolyte type. The way to tell the difference is the liquid type require the top to have a cross mark embedded so the release of pressure can occur should it fail.

 

[Cookie Monster]

So solid state caps also explode? I thought the whole point of SS caps are that they don't explode (and last longer).

Almost all caps can explode. (Try hooking them up the other way around )

Solid caps just have a better life expectancy than your run of the mill electrolytic cap (The latter uses liquid I think).

Those blown/bulged capacitors in the OP's pic seem to indicate that something has gone wrong in the power regulation part of the video card. Could be the age problem, or something funky has happened with the coolermaster PSU supplying the wrong voltage/current values. Does the card still work? If you have experience in soldering, id just solder in some new ones.

 

[fffblackmage]

Thanks for clarifying!

 

[Friendo]

Me

 

[teracore]

The graphic card was 2.5 yrs old. Now i am buying XFX 9600 GT 512mb soon.

 

[PM650]

all capacitors will fail after some period of time, if they are not solid state.

Well if you want to be dramatic about it, everything on earth will fail, eventually Bad caps failing very prematurely (often catastrophically) due to poor manufacture is not something I just conjured up in light of this thread - http://www.badcaps.net/forum/



It's true that the caps pictured are not solid electrolyte caps - only electrolytic caps will have vents. If you were to remove the plastic sleeves from some electrolytics, they would look identical. Some early nichicon HD series caps looked like solids, but with a clear sleeve - these were used on some Abit mobos (circa KT266A era), among others.

 

[wwswimming]

i've noticed that some caps with liquid dielectrics (used in power electronics) will leak a dielectric when they are hot - but not at startup.

in one case i used a fan to cool the instrument case (including the cap) and it ran cooler, and the cap stopped leaking. the replacement cap we ordered was never used.

 

[wwswimming]

i've noticed that some caps with liquid dielectrics (used in power electronics) will leak a dielectric when they are hot - but not at startup.

in one case i used a fan to cool the instrument case (including the cap) and it ran cooler, and the cap stopped leaking. the replacement cap we ordered was never used.

 

[taltamir]

So solid state caps also explode? I thought the whole point of SS caps are that they don't explode (and last longer).

Anything can fail.. Solid capactiors are more durable... not made out of maigc / Cuendillar / curriculum / unobtanium or whatever.

 

[MentalIlness]

unobtanium.

All hail Virgil !

 

[soccerballtux]

Well if you want to be dramatic about it, everything on earth will fail, eventually Bad caps failing very prematurely (often catastrophically) due to poor manufacture is not something I just conjured up in light of this thread - http://www.badcaps.net/forum/



It's true that the caps pictured are not solid electrolyte caps - only electrolytic caps will have vents. If you were to remove the plastic sleeves from some electrolytics, they would look identical. Some early nichicon HD series caps looked like solids, but with a clear sleeve - these were used on some Abit mobos (circa KT266A era), among others.

I'm saying that, like lightbulbs, it is expected for electrolytic caps to go bad.
Different from, say, a car, where if you take care of it and it was designed well (Honda) you'll get to drive it to 350k+ miles.

 

[tcsenter]

I know someone with XFX 8600GT (because I purchased the card and did their upgrade) that had the same problem, but I don't know if it was the same caps. They just said a couple caps on the board went pop. The XFX warranty was only one or two years and had expired.

 

[C1]

Someone pointed out on the PS forum that, besides quality, capacitors come in different temperature ratings. I would suspect that it is either the low quality of the CAPs being used or that the manufacturer should have used CAPs rated for higher operational temperature. Ive got video cards over 10 years old which work fine.