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Hardware

Corporate Espionage Leads To Faulty Motherboards 254

Posted by CowboyNeal from the cowboyneal-is-too-lazy-to-make-a-dept dept.
Champs writes "If you've gotten the feeling that they really don't make 'em like they used to, you might be right. This article at IEEE Spectrum tells the story of large batches of faulty capacitors sourced from Taiwan causing motherboards to eventually fail, with an interesting twist on the reason why these capacitors failed."
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Corporate Espionage Leads To Faulty Motherboards More

Corporate Espionage Leads To Faulty Motherboards

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  • Dupe again (Score:5, Funny)

    by daghlian ( 113201 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @11:27AM (#5258847) Homepage Journal
    This story has already been posted. This story has already been posted. This story has already been posted.

    • Re:Dupe again (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cyberlotnet ( 182742 )
      I think that every time a editor posts a dupe story they should be required to donate $5 to http://www.eff.org/

      If this rule was put into affect, the EFF would end up with enough money to take anyone to court, even have a head on battle with Microsoft!!
    • I've seen this comment on another story, too
    • This story has already been posted. This story has already been posted. This story has already been posted.
      I tried to post this paragraph three times in a row but it failed the lamness filter
      Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.

  • Didn't we just leave this party... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Reziac ( 43301 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @11:28AM (#5258852) Homepage Journal
    .. like, two days ago, and last month too??

  • ... who were using the planned obsolecence features.

    -Rusty

  • Repeat! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Bios_Hakr ( 68586 ) <xptical.gmail@com> on Saturday February 08, 2003 @11:29AM (#5258860)
    This is getting really old [slashdot.org]
  • Leaky electrolytic capacitors?

  • You get what you pay for (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This shows that quality comes at a cost. If you truly want to get good quality goods, don't expect to keep forcing the market to make cheaper and cheaper products.

    Why would a company steal a formula such as this? so they ddn't have to pay as much for the 'real deal' and then henceforth could sell at a cheaper price and undercut others. When this happens quality suffers.

    It has happened in many other industries and frank, I'm surprised it hasn't yet happened in something as stressed and pushed-cheaper as the motherboard and other componentry markets.

    Rampant commercialism is causing problems like this.
    • I don't think you've hit that nail on the head. I think there's a lot more to it than this simple view.

      But cheapness does have part to do with it.
    • But why would they want to steal it? I'm pretty sure that chemical analysis has advanced enough so that they can just buy a few capacitors and find what they're made from.

      Could anybody explain what's the advantage of stealing a formula instead of reverse-engineering it?
    • There are plenty of ways to cut costs ethically. These guys tried to take an unethical shortcut and it bit them. As for quality suffering, the process of cost reduction in ANY product will sometimes take a wrong turn here or there. But if you take a look at almost any product category in 2003 and compare it to, say 1973, I think you will find that the products are higher quality at lower prices. Thank goodness for "rampant commercialism".

      • "These guys tried to take an unethical shortcut and it bit them."

        Actually, it wound up biting us, the end user. The evil capacitor companies have probably had to change their names a few times to stay in business(while the good companies whose names they "imitated" are probably wondering if they will have to change names because of the collateral damage), but enough of the boards from several different companies managed to avoid breaking down until a day or two after the warranty expired that the motherboard companies will survive, but thousands of consumers are stuck with products that are beyond economical repair.

        You can say that we have no complaint once the warranty expires but if we all knew for a fact that everything you bought would break and have to be replaced as soon as the warranty expired, if not before then, would we have made the same purchases we did? You expect everything to not cause you any replacement expense during the warranty period and most of it to survive a reasonable length of time afterwards so that you might have to buy a new VCR within a year of warranty expiration, but not a VCR, a television, a DVD player, a printer, a monitor, a scanner, a motherboard, a processor, a modem, a sound card, a stereo receiver, a cassette deck, a CD-RW, and all your other electronics gear all at once or one right after the other.

    • It's called "Read one, get one free!"
  • Could it be that this isn't the whole story? perhaps the blaming on motherboards failing is coming from the manufacturers

    Making improper motherboards with bad/cheaper processes, and then blaming some far-down-the-line capacitor maker who can't easily be traced. What then?

    It's not unknown for things to be the opposite of what they seem.

    I don't know who to believe any more. I would suspect however it's more than likely with cheaper and cheaper processes and manufacturing that the normal-spec caps can't handle shoddy workmanship

    Then they fail.

    Are we blaming the right people?
    • I've been wondering that too. It makes me question the idea of "brand loyalty" that I grew up with (find a quality brand, and stick to it). But I'm not sure what to replace it with, other than old-fashioned critical thinking.
    • How dare you try to start legitimate discussion in this thread!? Don't you know that it's reserved for saying, in as many clever ways possible, that this story's a dupe?

    • Re:Is this the whole story? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @12:13PM (#5259042) Homepage
      Buddy,

      If capacitors are exploding (see the pics, they are), across multiple motherboard vendors, all of whom are desigend differently, you dont have to be a rocket scientist to recognize the trend here.

      The capacitors are exploding. Vendor-independantly. Maybe you can provide some proof that cheaper and chaper processes are leading to the same capacitors exploding in many brands of motherboards .. or actually take *gasp* some news at face value instead of dreaming there's some secret "blame it on the guys' whos capacitors are exploding" consiracy.

      Anyhow, the Mobo manufacturers were loathe to admit the capacitors were exploding. If it really *was* their shoddy workmanship causing faulty boards, they've hae JUMPED at the opportunity to blame it on some untracable capacitor. But the article makes it very clear that manufacturers are reluctant to say anything, making it clear to me that the common element in all these exploding capacitor situations is ... gasp, the capacitor! Not much of one to beleive in Occoms Razor, huh?
      • Oh now you're being silly

        It's well known that when overclocking, voltage needs to be increased in some cases. What about that then?

        Capacitors are known to explode when they are operated out of spec. I suspect there's a big link here.

        Manufacturers selling boards that are already 'pre cooked' when it comes to overclocking. Extra voltage anyone? More heat to your capacitor anyone? more likelihood of explosion anyone?

        Any overclocker will tell you they do it for fun and know the risks of the process. That is fair, it is their fun and they know the cost.

        Slugging normal consumers with this is rediculous and just plain stinks. There should be an Enquiry
      • Anyhow, the Mobo manufacturers were loathe to admit the capacitors were exploding

        My theory for why the companies don't want to talk about it is that it proves that buying branded products is over-rated today. It used to be that if you bought something from "good brand X", all the parts were made by the company or the company did extensive research and quality testing. But what this article is showing is that this is no longer the case. It seems MB manufacturers are putting the cheapest shit in thier product to keep cost margins down. I read that ABIT is now buying capicitors from Japan because though the Japanese are more expensive, they are more reliable. Once burned- twice shy... at least some of them are learning thier lesson. I only wish quality assurance was a philosophy instead an after thought when costomers start complaining.

  • No matter how many times I refresh.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Yo Grark ( 465041 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @11:31AM (#5258870)
    ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG I'm still getting Slashdot's History Pages.

    I'm stuck in Cache HELL!

    Can someone tell me how to get the latest stories? :P

    Yo Grark
    Canadian Bred with American Buttering American Buttering American Buttering

    • Re:No matter how many times I refresh.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 08, 2003 @11:40AM (#5258914)
      I'm impressed. This is not the second, but the third time this story has been posted. People actually pay money to read this site? I'd do better flushing 5+ bucks a month down the toilet.
      • Hey, if you read the story you will find that there is a new twist to it - as in why the caps failed.

        graspee

      • I'm impressed. This is not the second, but the third time this story has been posted. People actually pay money to read this site? I'd do better flushing 5+ bucks a month down the toilet.

        I hope you don't watch the news on TV or read the newspaper because when I do, they not only often have the same story on the same page with only a slightly different angle, they keep repeating the story over and over with nothing really new. Newspapers are notorious for that but people don't seem to be bothered that they pay a dollar to do so.

    • Imagine (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mdog ( 25508 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @11:43AM (#5258926) Homepage
      Wouldn't it be cool if the editors of slashdot ran a professional, spellchecked site? With policies that are more than whims? I know they're just a bunch of geek morons in Michigan, but a boy can dream, can't he?

      • Re:Imagine (Score:5, Funny)

        by proj_2501 ( 78149 ) <mkb@ele.uri.edu> on Saturday February 08, 2003 @11:51AM (#5258959) Journal
        CowboyNeal is actually a hip-hop DJ. This is only his day job.
      • If you don't like it, go here [kuro5hin.org] instead. So the editors here post dupes (trips? uh..). If you don't like it, tough. There are more websites out there that do get spellchecked.
      • No that would not be cool. That would turn this into a lycos, excite, yahoo, or whatsamacallit dot com. Actually, I often do enjoy those sites too, but they are not slashdot and slashdot is not them, neither should it try to be.

        Slashdot is cool as it is. Nerd for Nerds, Stuff that Matters. Not 'prechewed and spellchecked news for [selfcensored]'

        Don't like it? Go try building a community yourself, and stop bitching here. Or write a (perl) script that detects double stories and filters them for you, then submit that to CmdrTaco for inclusion in the slashcode, with a 'preferences' setting to enable it for the whiners.

        The fact that some stories are double simply is not 'stuff that matters'.

    • Post modern posting (Score:4, Funny)

      by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @12:51PM (#5259242) Homepage
      It's a little known fact, but the world ended several years ago. In order to keep things going, They have been recycling time from the past. That's why we're getting a shuttle disaster again, Desert Storm again, Bush in the White House again.

      It's a tough job just keeping the Big Picture going, so weird effects show up in the small things. That's why television is all repeats, and why Slashdot has dups. Oh yeah, and Anonymous Coward really is this one guy.

      Have a nice day, again!



  • So far, the only motherboard maker to admit to the problem is ABIT Computer Corp. (Taipei), and the only major PC maker to acknowledge being affected is IBM Corp. But the problem is likely to be more widespread. Indeed, those who have repaired the damaged boards say that they have encountered crippled motherboards from Micro-Star International, ASUSTek Computer, Gigabyte Technology, and others.

    Nice of ABIT and IBM to come clean. And here I thought I was an idiot newbie for paying more and buying Intel mobo's to build my boxes. Or is it just a matter of time? Aaugh!
    • I saw this IEEE article a few days ago and was concerned since I have a couple of Gigabyte motherboards. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed to find that there was absolutely no mention of this problem on Gigabyte's web site. I'd hoped that there would be some mention of it if only a ``we are looking into the reports, etc., etc.'' type of release. Guess I'll be doing a visual inspection of the systems that have those m'boards.
    • I have been using MSI motherboards extensively and exclusively for many years and never have had problems. Out of close to 100 boards, I have only had one MSI 1 K7 board go bad and MSI RMA'd it no problems (with only 1 week turnaround).

      Intel boards are not more expensive. An MSI board running an 845 chipset will cost more than an intel board running the same chipset with the same features. The cheap ECS type boards are not using Intel chipsets and as a result they do not have to pay the intel tax.

      Low end Athlon chipset based (via KT333) boards from MSI offer more dollar for dollar than Intel chipset(845) based boards from either MSI or Intel and will typically perform better for most everyday tasks. I think part of it is that the VIA 4 in 1 drivers are better optimized for the via chipsets than the intel inf drivers are for intel chipsets.

    • Actually I doubt if Abit rushed to admit to the problem just because they're such great guys as much as they were dragged to it kicking and screaming because the evidence was just too overwhelming.
  • I deleted all of my temp internet files and this story still showed up! Where did I go wrong?
  • maybe if the motherboards didnt have pentiums on them...;)

  • So... (Score:5, Funny)

    by labratuk ( 204918 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @11:37AM (#5258900)
    ...if a duplicate post is a 'dupe', does that mean a triplicate post is 'tripe'?

  • DUPE (Score:2, Redundant)

    by man_ls ( 248470 )
    I have never posted "dupe" before, but this is the _third_ time in recent history that I've seen this story.

    Don't you people ever check the current articles?

    Seriously...
    • I can only imagine the physical distress you're caused by having to skip over an article that you've already seen before. As it turns out, many folks have other things to do with their time than stare at (insert fav browser here) and click refresh checking out new /. stories all day.
      As for the editors, shame on them for not catching a duplicate in the many thousands of stories they sift through every day in order to provide you with some reading material at no charge to you whatsoever.
      Does the expression "you get what you pay for" mean anything to you?
      Seriously...
    • When your motherboard blows up, this article is current.
      Seriously.
    • My problem with dupes is, doesn't the /. editorship actually read slashdot?

      Obviously not because if the editors did actually read the site, they would know these stories have already crossed the front page.

      I suggest a two-pronged attack to solve this problem. The first is a sloppy pattern search to see if something with a similar headline and/or story copy has already been posted. The second? Editors have to read a certain number of stories on the site or their editorship is revoked automatically until they read enough stories again (Say, 33%.)

      Of course this will never be implemented but it would probably work...

  • OMG! (Score:5, Funny)

    by NMerriam ( 15122 ) <NMerriam@artboy.org> on Saturday February 08, 2003 @11:42AM (#5258922) Homepage

    hey, everyone! i don't think this is public yet, but there are some faulty capacitors going around!!!!! send this message to ten of your friends and post it everywhere or else nobody will know!!!!!!

    • Re:OMG! (Score:2, Funny)

      by ForestGrump ( 644805 )
      no no...
      its pass it around to 10 friends within the next hour...or the caps on YOUR mobo will blow!

      -Grumpy Old Man.

  • This is happening again! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonym0us Cow Herd ( 231084 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @11:42AM (#5258924)
    Fool me once, shame on me. ....

    We should have learned our lesson about corporate espionage the first time. But now that history has repeated itself, within only a few days, I guess we didn't learn our lesson the first time here on Slashdot.

    How many times will we have to have faulty motherboards and other consumer electronic items before we learn our lessons abotu corporate espionage?

    Are we learning yet?
  • Ok, I realize that pontificating on the less than dedicated Slashdot editors is not the most worthwhile activity, but between crap reposts like this and the daily XBox post, Slashdot just plain sucks anymore.

    The Slashdot Editors are a bunch of two faced, idiotic morons. I can't take it anymore: I'm off to finally look at the options here for filtering out XBox crap. Can you filter stories by editor? I'd prefer to never read another word written by CmdrDipshit again.

  • More info from the guy who changes the caps (Score:5, Informative)

    by sapgau ( 413511 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @11:44AM (#5258932) Journal
    Gary Headlee is the guy mentioned in the article who has more information on the list of boards affected:
    Motherboard Cap Replacement [att.net]

  • Chinese et al are thieves (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Multiple chinese natives are busted for spying in the Silicon Valley.

    Cisco is dealing with a Chinese company that flat out stole it's software.

    Software piracy is rampant in the third world.

    And yet, our corporations in their all knowingness replace american workers with foreigners who quickly secret out trade secrets.

    And yet, our corporations in their all knowingness move important operations offshore - operations with american credit information, customer information, and YOUR information.

    This is going to blow up in our faces - but it won't be the government's problem, it won't be the company's problem - it will be your problem when your identity is stolen from your very own bank records and you need to clean up the mess.

    It will be your problem when you try to get service from a company for a product you purchased (whether real or a "financial instrument.")

    Already I have heard of Indian programmers causing people trouble when they loose a contract - mailing virus's and shit to the company's email server or attempting to cause damage.

    Lets face it, there is a whole different set of morals over there - a whole different idea of what is right to do, and what is wrong to do. Are they poor because of the political and social decisions they make? Or because "America, the man, is keepin us down!" Or maybe because they have no concept of capitalism, no concept of win-win, no concept of value.

    American business is going to learn this the hardway.

    A whole bold new marketplace? No. Steal our ideas, steal our technologies, and build up products to sell at home. And they will tariff or ignore our products (aka see how they hate MS because it is not-built-there, among more valid reasons.)

    • Re:Chinese et al are thieves (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That is why the smart money is going into nearshore outsourcing, "nearshore" being Canada. Canadians speak English, work harder than Americans for less money, are more law abiding and very much less violent. Canada has cities and transportation infrastructures that haven't been allowed to decay, unlike in America where cheapass taxpayers don't mind if their city turns into a jungle if it will save them $100/month. Canada also has telephone and internet services that are as good as if not better than those in the USA. Canada doesn't have greedy corporations running its health care, so it costs less and covers everybody.


      America is as obsolete as a rusted out 1976 Ford LTD; come to Canada.

    • Steal our ideas, steal our technologies, and build up products to sell at home.

      Yes, that's exactly what the US did. Look a little into what US companies did in the 19th C, when its companies stole industrial processes, published books, from European countries without permission or compensation.

      Only when it had caught up and started to produce IP that it wanted to sell did it start to make and enforce such laws, and now of course uses massive pressure to force other, poor, countries into line.

      Lets face it, there is a whole different set of morals over there - a whole different idea of what is right to do, and what is wrong to do.

      As for "morality", the US is such an example of self interest in its relations with the rest of the world, that only your countrymen could keep a straight face when you mention it.

  • ENOUGH (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 08, 2003 @11:47AM (#5258947)
    I am sick of this. Evertime there is a dupe(a mistake! sometimes people make these) there is always the obligatory barrage of "DUPE" messages and never any discussion of the issue.
    Get over it and find something constructive to do!
  • Anywho I have a MSI KT7 Ultra MB that's buring out power supplies. I've put it in my collection of old computer crap but I'm wondering if i'm a victim. However I dont see any problems with the capacitors and just chalk it up to a bad voltage regulator on the board.
  • Slashdot has gone bureaucratic on us and is filing stories in trip [slashdot.org] li [slashdot.org] cate [slashdot.org].
  • This story reminds me of the years when I
    was in aerospace.

    Poorly constructed counterfeit parts have
    been an issue within aerospace for years.
    Counterfeit aircraft parts made from stolen
    drawings.

    Even worse were defective parts, bought for a
    song from a legitimate manufacturer or airline,
    cleaned and polished up a little, and then
    sold back into 'the system' as new parts.

    In aerospace, unlike most desktop computer
    use, this scam can and has been deadly.

    Mark

    • Re:This Issue Can Be Deadly With Aircraft Parts (Score:4, Informative)

      by gmajor ( 514414 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @12:24PM (#5259081) Journal
      Wow, one site says that the aircraft industry "has estimated that as much as $2 billion in unapproved parts are now sitting on the shelves of parts distributors, airlines, and repair stations." I'm quite surprised at the magnitude of that problem, and it seems to dwarf the current mobo problem.

      Now if only we could throw the offenders in jail, just like they do to people selling faulty airplane parts...

      (fyi, the site was at http://www.jdmag.wpafb.af.mil/bogus%20parts.pdf )
  • Out client has 9000+ HP Vectra VLI8s and we've had to replace *many* motherboards on those.

    This started for us about 1 year ago.

    Not sure if it's related or not. (Who really cares - they're under warranty anyway.)
  • Everytime a /. editor posts a dupe it makes the baby jesus cry.
  • Go to your slashdot preferences, and disable stories from all editors except your favorite one. That seems to stop dupes, unless of course one of the editors actually posts something that he has posted before... ;)
  • Than having Moderation points and yet having no way to mod an entire story "-1 Redundant". Maybe overall story moderation could be included in the next rev of Slashcode?

    So many dupe stories lately, I feel like Bill Murray.
    Sheesh!

  • Babe! I got you babe!

    Its Groundhog Day again at slashdot!

  • Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lurkingrue ( 521019 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @12:09PM (#5259027)
    Oh, no! Its a glitch in the Matrix!

    Oh, wait -- its just standard Slashdot re-posting. Whew!
  • Champs writes "If you've gotten the feeling that they really don't make 'em like they used to, you might be right. This article at Slashdot tells the story of large batches of duplicate posts sourced from Slashdot editors causing readers to go in a tizzy, with an interesting twist on the reason why these editors failed."

  • Dupe-Reporters Harken Unto Me (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I and countless others are getting fed up with all the "this is a dupe" reporters out there.

    I have two questions for you. Are you paying money for slashdot? Are you submitting plenty of original articles to slashdot yourself? If the answer's no and no (and it probably is since you have all the time in the world to go looking for the old links to the reposted stories), then either shut the fsck up or go start your own forum.

    There are three kinds of intelligence. The first is those who just sort of go along ignoring everything. The second are those who criticize everything. But the third, and best, are those who create something at the risk of being criticized...like the people who run slashdot.

    That makes them smarter then you so, again, if you notice a dupe...fine...notice it and then shut the fsck up and go masturbate over some pr0n or something.

    • I and countless others are getting fed up with all the "this is a dupe" reporters out there

      And haven't you noticed you are now one of those people? Not the "This story is a dupe", but the "I'm sick of you dupe complainers" (whining, redundant, cowardly jerk.)

      Are you submitting plenty of original articles to slashdot yourself?

      Actually, two days ago, I submitted a story about how bioresearchers at the University of Oxford released a distributed computing screensaver [ox.ac.uk] to help scan for protein agents to fight smallpox. I was quite thorough in checking the text and the working links. In hours, they rejected it. It really bummed me out. At the time, I thought they didn't like my blurb, but that the story would be important enough to pick up someone else's submission. Nope, instead, they decided to run the capacitor story yet again.

      So, the researchers could really use some CPUs, and some leech here probably could use the karma, so go submit this story again. Beats another dupe, IMO.

      if you notice a dupe...fine...notice it and then shut the fsck up and go masturbate over some pr0n or something.

      Don't you think if the editors can't seem to avoid duping stories within days (or extreme cases hours) from another, that they may need some help in having it pointed out to them?

  • This may have resulted in the duplicate post. Slashdot engineers are investigating. . .
  • Zogbi cites tests by Japanese manufacturers that indicate the capacitor's lifetimes are half or less of the 4000 hours of continuous ripple current they are rated for.

    4000 hours = 166.6 days. No wonder "Made in Taiwan" has such negative connotations.
  • Okay, what do you get when you cross a mountain climber with a flu virus?

    [Answer one level below]
    • Okay, you can't do it.

      Although a flu virus *is* a vector, a mountain climber is a scalar.

      [You have to know vector math to understand this one].

      For a bonus question for you calculus folks:
      The integral of [Cabin*dCabin] = Noah's Ark. Why?

  • Pete and repeat went up the hill...
    A paying slashdot customer took a gun and went after the editors... which do you think came down?

    DISCLAIMER I don't think that violence is the answer to anything and I do not advocate the use of force to lower oil prices save our selves from possible violence down the road or to reduce the number of duplicates on slashdot
  • However, I'm glad that this is happening to boards that end up in the hands of tech-savvy individuals that can spot the problem. People who buy ABIT, Asus, etc... boards expect a lot from the product that they recieve and are usuially knowledgeable about the equipment that they run.

    I could only imagine if this happened to a major computer company, how it would be swept under the rug (which it may already have been). I see that IBM is named in the article, so at least they are willing to accept the failures. IBM is one of the only computer makers that I trust anymore after the way that they handled their hard drive failure issues. Yes, they tried to fix the problem by changing the uptime specs, but in the end, they got the problem worked out without too much hassle to customers (hardware zealots excluded).

    I would like to know if this problem has been documented by any users that aren't using products from the manufacturers listed in the article and their expierence with the equipment, service and support.
  • Sounds like that's not the only thing he's too lazy to do...

  • How to check before you buy (Score:3, Informative)

    by QDogg ( 648777 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @12:54PM (#5259258)
    It is easy enough to check this before you buy. Go up to the display case at your local computer parts retailer and ask to see XYZ motherboard that you are thinking of buying. Jot down all the markings on the electrolytic caps. Now go home and look up the datasheet for those caps. A good computer grade capacitor will have longevity of 2000 to 3000 hours or more at maximum ripple current and a temperature of 105 or 125C. Reputable brands are Panasonic HA or NHG, Rubycon, etc.

    Forget case mods, maybe we need to start modding our mainboards with better caps.
  • From the article: tests by Japanese manufacturers that indicate the capacitor's lifetimes are half or less of the 4000 hours of continuous ripple current they are rated for.

    For those who can't do the math, this is 166.66 days of normal continous operation, less than six months. If these caps are really rated for 6 months of use, then early failure is the least of our problems.

  • Finally !! (Score:5, Funny)

    by KoolDude ( 614134 ) on Saturday February 08, 2003 @01:06PM (#5259328)

    From the Book of /. Postings:

    And Saint Hemos displayed the posting on paper, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy Holy Posting that, with it, Thou mayest blow Thine readers to boredom in Thy mercy.'

    And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu--

     Hmm... Skipping a bit...

    And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou choose random Story. Then, shalt thou post it three times. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt post, and the number of the posting shall be three. Four times shalt thou not post, nor either post thou two times, excepting that thou then proceed to post thrice. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, post thou thy Holy Posting towards thy readers, who, being naughty in My sight, shall comment on it.'

    Amen.

    Congratulations, /. editors have finally made it ! ;)

  • Too lazy to make a department? Maybe it shoulda been "Department of Redundancy Department"
  • There are so many mistakes in that whole process that it's ridiculous!

    1. Steal info from employer (but you screwed up anyway... idiot!)
    2. Sell your company's IP... idiot! When would you like to go to prison?
    3. Some company BUYS some schmuck's garbage IP... idiots!
    4. Said idiots at that idiotic company don't test the idiot's garbage plans well... idiots!
    5. Sell pathetic, untested crap to big motherboard manufacturers, guaranteeing you will lose business... idiots!
    6. Motherboard manufacturers don't test and audit these new products... idiots!
    7. More idiots try to cover up how much of idiots they are - yeah, like it won't get uncovered... idiots!

    The only people that aren't idiots right now is IBM and any big manufacturer buying these boards. They can't test every little thing... but jesus what a series of idiocy

  • You wouldn't believe how original these games were, I was a development tech there for a while in the late 1980s. Instead of a standardized vector platform (yes, this was a good idea at the time) and a standardized raster platform with custom control interfaces for each game, each motherboard was different, and they were using lots of TTL glue chips when everyone else doing video had moved up to integrating these functions into ICs.

    Worse, they were already running short of new ideas, the new/hot game there when I left was an imported Pole Position (racing game) from Japan.

    It wasn't any surprise to me that they were losing money. It was cool to have worked for the engineer who did Missile Command.

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