[plug] Hdd probs - IBM deskstar experiences?

Jon Miller jlmiller at mmtnetworks.com.au
Fri Feb 27 07:09:42 WST 2004


Sorry a little late in the reply, but speaking of capacitors, seems in 2001 there were a bunch of motherboard manufacturers trying to cut corners by installing cheap capacitors (29 of them I'm told) on the ASUS, AOPEN, GIGABYTE and EPOX motherboards (may be others).  Since the M/B have a 3 year warranty on one site where we did a complete upgrade using Aopen and Asus M/B they have all started to show signs of failure ranging from blue sparks when turned on to looping bootup sequence and a lot of locking up or even sporadic shutdown/reboot.  I found this out after replacing 4 M/B and had them lined up under a bright light source and upon inspection I can see that the electrolyte (I believe that is the correct name) leakage around the large capacitor need the CPU.  This leakage if bad enough causes a short and sometimes takes out all the components, at the very least just the M/B is damage.  If you look hard enough you will see the discolouration on the capacitor (looks like rust) and the stain it leaves behind.
This has caused concerned to the client, who wants all the M/Bs replaced as it was deemed a fire hazard if the PC was left on overnight.  a few users reported when they turned on their PCs it "shot out blue flames".
Aopen and Asus seems to be coming to the party by replacing either the M/B or the capacitors.

There are several links on the web regarding this.  
Hope this sends a message to the manufacturers put in cheap now pay or pay later.

Jon L. Miller, MCNE, CNS, ASE
Director/Sr Systems Consultant
MMT Networks Pty Ltd
http://www.mmtnetworks.com.au

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure
 is trying to please everybody." -Bill Cosby



>>> quadfour at iinet.net.au 8:31:35 am 20/02/2004 >>>
Speaking of capacitors, I have one on my video card (NVidia 4200Ti) which is
slowly spewing some orange stuff. Since it still works I'm ignoring it :)

Kind Regards
Michael Collard

Quoting Craig Foster <fostware at iinet.net.au>:

> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: plug-admin at plug.linux.org.au 
> > [mailto:plug-admin at plug.linux.org.au] On Behalf Of Paul Stone
> > Sent: Friday, 20 February 2004 1:10 AM
> > To: plug at plug.linux.org.au
> > Subject: Re: [plug] Hdd probs - IBM deskstar experiences?
> > 
> > hey on the subject of hard drives, did anyone ever use those 
> > awful IBM deskstar hard drives, I had one crash on me at work 
> > and i heard about heaps of others having the same problem!...
> > 
> > Paull
> > 
> > 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Russ Pitman" <rjp at belle.apana.org.au>
> > To: "PLUG" <plug at plug.linux.org.au>
> > Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 11:27 PM
> > Subject: Re: [plug] Hdd probs
> > 
> > 
> > > Michael Collard wrote:
> > > > Hiya Pluggers, I write this email on my barely working 
> > system. My 80Gb
> > > > HDD (seagate) seems to not like reading/writing properly 
> > any more, I
> > > > suspect it has bad sectors somehow. Thought I'd take this 
> > time while my
> > > > complete system backs up, while it is still possible, to 
> > ask if anyone
> > > > else has had problems with these 80Gb Seagate drivers?
> > > >
> > > > Kind Regards
> > > > Michael Collard
> > >
> > > If they have "Made in Idonesia" on the label Yes. Check 
> > what warranty they
> > > were sold under, you may be able to claim replacement. The 
> > ones that died
> > on
> > > me were replaced with Singaporean make and seem ok still.
> > >
> > > Good Luck.
> > > -- 
> > > Cheers
> > > Russ.
> > >
> 
> 
> IBM DTLA-xxxx and 75GXP series were dodgey (I have 2/3 that work at the
> moment)
> Fujitsu MPGxxxx go to sleep by themselves (Cirrus Logic chips underneath)
> Seagate Indonesian builds are suspect
> WD xxxxJB's have had some bad sector batches (and are "de-optimised" for
> RAID)
> (others have not been rosy either)
> 
> If there's anything a computer company hates, it their HDD manufacturer.
> Most physical computer repairs are either motherboard or hard disk related,
> and between the drive makers dropping their 3 year warranties for 1 year and
> changing manufacturing plants every three months, we would *love* to have a
> nice reliable source of hard disks.
> 
> There's only so many failures at 18mths (ie just after the warranty runns
> out) a customer can take before they start asking questions about their
> purchasing choices.
> 
> Oh and don't get me started on crappy (ie the dodgey) capacitors blowing
> around CPUs... We're still getting a steady stream of blown motherboards.
> 
> </rant>
> 
> Craig F.
> 
> PS Anybody buy the hitachi brand IBM drives recently, their pricing is
> "rather impressive"?
> 
> _______________________________________________
> plug mailing list
> plug at plug.linux.org.au
> http://mail.plug.linux.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug
> 



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