[mythtv-users] Backend machine seems to crash every few days

Stephen Worthington stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz
Tue Oct 4 05:39:59 UTC 2016


On Mon, 3 Oct 2016 23:03:33 +0000, you wrote:


>(*) In most electronic devices the electrolytic
>capacitors chemicals age and eventually lose
>their ability to perform.  Typically the timeframe
>is many years, but heat matters.  There was
>also a rash of bad chemicals some time ago,
>which caused premature failures.

As I understand it, the "rash of bad chemicals" was because of
industrial espionage gone wrong.  There was a company (Taiwanese I
think) wanting to make electrolytics and undercut the existing market
leading Japanese companies, and they attempted to steal the correct
formula from those companies.  But they were detected, and the data
they actually got was what those companies wanted them to get.  Of
course, it was the wrong formula - it lacked the proper preservatives
or something like that - and that resulted in capacitors that died
early and badly.  But because the new company was making cheap
electrolytics, a huge number of electronics manufacturers bought from
them and had their products fail in the field, as the bad
electrolytics did last for 2-5 years.  That seems to be how it came
about that lots of people only expect electronic products to last for
5 years, because for a while it was largely true, especially for PC
motherboards.  Motherboards built before or since last much longer -
but only if built using quality (preferably Japanese manufactured)
electrolytics.


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