Best quality motherboards for AMD

[Daniel Prince]

Who makes the best quality motherboards for AMD CPUs with all solid
polymer capacitors? Which maker has the lowest number of defective
motherboards and the lowest number of early failures? Which maker
has the longest lasting motherboards? Which company has the best
customer support?

Are Gigabyte and ASUS the only companies that make motherboards for
AMD with all solid polymer capacitors? How do they compare in terms
of quality, longevity and customer support?

Thank you in advance for all replies.

 

[RayLopez99]

Are Gigabyte and ASUS the only companies that make motherboards for
AMD with all solid polymer capacitors?  How do they compare in terms
of quality, longevity and customer support?

Why the fixation with these capacitors?

And is AMD still competitive in the PC race?

RL

 

[Daniel Prince]

Why the fixation with these capacitors?

Because many electrolytic capacitors are counterfeit units made in
Taiwan that often fail in less than a year. Even quality Japanese
electrolytic capacitors are the most failure prone component in
electronic devices. Solid polymer capacitors should last at least
six times as long as electrolytic capacitors and they are not that
much more expensive.

And is AMD still competitive in the PC race?

That I am not sure about.

 

[RayLopez99]

Because many electrolytic capacitors are counterfeit units made in
Taiwan that often fail in less than a year.  Even quality Japanese
electrolytic capacitors are the most failure prone component in
electronic devices.  Solid polymer capacitors should last at least
six times as long as electrolytic capacitors and they are not that
much more expensive.

Well that's interesting. I suppose this is not to be confused with
"High K dielectric" in the semi manu process...let me Google
this...nope, different concepts.

Seems like solid polymer capacitors, from this 2007 article:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2113
are "high end" capacitors that are better than "normal". That's good
to know, and though I've not had any problems with "normal"
capacitors, I suppose if the price is right it's better to get the
high end capacitors.

As your original question, if logic holds, I would imagine that by
definition the high end capacitors should be better, being the gold
standard if not gold plated, no pun intended, so as ASUS (heard of
them) and Gigabit (never heard of them) are presumably reputable
companies, then you've answered your question--high end is better.
I'll keep this in mind if I go mobo shopping.

RL

 

[Paul]

Well that's interesting. I suppose this is not to be confused with
"High K dielectric" in the semi manu process...let me Google
this...nope, different concepts.

Seems like solid polymer capacitors, from this 2007 article:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2113
are "high end" capacitors that are better than "normal". That's good
to know, and though I've not had any problems with "normal"
capacitors, I suppose if the price is right it's better to get the
high end capacitors.

As your original question, if logic holds, I would imagine that by
definition the high end capacitors should be better, being the gold
standard if not gold plated, no pun intended, so as ASUS (heard of
them) and Gigabit (never heard of them) are presumably reputable
companies, then you've answered your question--high end is better.
I'll keep this in mind if I go mobo shopping.

RL

Polymer caps are a response to the "capacitor plague" of years back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

To fight the perception, that the motherboard makers might use
defective caps, they started switching to solid polymer. The intent,
is to disassociate the product from the capacitor plague, to put the
customer's mind at ease. In fact, there is no dying need for polymer,
but there you are. They're using them.

Aluminum electrolytic capacitors can last 15 years at moderate
temperatures. The wearout mechanism, is the rubber bung on the bottom
dries out, and the electrolyte dries out as a result.

Plague capacitors can fail in storage, and without bias, in a couple
years. So, by comparison, the caps with the bad chemistry are rather
sad, in terms of lifetime performance. They don't even need to be
used, to fail.

Another thing to note - some disreputable capacitor makers, have been
putting aluminum electrolytic caps, in polymer packages.

(Caps meant to look like polymer.)

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/6176/saconfzcapsah7.jpg

More pics for fun.

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/lofiversion/index.php/t70624.html

The only cap failures I've had here, were in an Antec power supply.
All my motherboards are fine. Even a 10 year old board still runs.

Paul

 

[Ken]

I had some capacitor problems too. Less than 2 years in use.
I replaced them year 2009.
http://tekniken.se/docs/image/example/itx_cap_ce11.jpg
http://tekniken.se/docs/image/example/m2-atx_cap_c28.jpg
http://tekniken.se/docs/image/example/m2-atx_cap_c47.jpg
http://tekniken.se/docs/image/example/m2-atx_cap_c48.jpg

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

Why the fixation with these capacitors?

With most consumers it's just because "solid polymer" is trendy, but
those caps have been more reliable than the average wet ones, probably
because the vast majority of polymer caps are made mostly by quality
manufacturers, that is, Japanese companies, or maybe it's just not
possible to goof up the solid material the way electrolyte can be.

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

Because many electrolytic capacitors are counterfeit units made in
Taiwan that often fail in less than a year. Even quality Japanese
electrolytic capacitors are the most failure prone component in
electronic devices. Solid polymer capacitors should last at least
six times as long as electrolytic capacitors and they are not that
much more expensive.

Counterfeit capacitors are widely sold, but motherboard makers rarely
use them and instead install GENUINE crap brands, like OST, Ltec,
Teapo, Koshin, Fuhjyyu, or G-Luxon (they're back!), which tend to last
2-3 years. OTOH high quality wet electrolytic caps can easily last 10
years, as the Japanese Chemicons, Rubycons, and Nichicons in my
vintage-1999 Delta power supplies have, and I've had to replace only 2
caps in my 33-year-old Japanese TV while 3-4 caps have already gone
bad in the < 2-year-old digital converter box that sits on top of it).

 

[Daniel Prince]

OTOH high quality wet electrolytic caps can easily last 10
years,

How cool do they have to be keep to last 10 years?

 

[Paul]

How cool do they have to be keep to last 10 years?

The capacitor thing, uses a modified Arrhenius relationship. In
chemistry, Arrhenius predicts that chemistry reaction rate, doubles
for every 7C rise in temperature. For capacitors, they do a curve
fit, and the exponent isn't quite the same as the one in chemistry.
Capacitor reliability may double, for anywhere from 10C temperature
rise, to 15C temperature rise.

http://www.rubycon.co.jp/en/catalog/e_pdfs/aluminum/e_MBZ_MCZ.pdf

The data sheet has the basic endurance stated in it. In small print...

2000hrs at 105°C,

Say the temperature inside the computer case is 35C. From 105 down
to 35, gives us 70C to work with. (I'm ignoring core heating in
the cap, for simplicity.)

Just picking a number, if the lifetime doubles for every 10C, that
is 7 doublings or 2**7 times longer life, or 2000 * 2**7 = 256000 hours
or 29 years of operation.

If you pick a different number, like 15C for the modified Arrhenius factor,
you might be looking at 2000 * 2**5 = 64000 hours or 7.3 years of
continuous usage.

Each manufacturer will provide a web page or data somewhere, as to
the modified Arrhenius factor. (They do curve fitting to measured
data, to get it. You cannot assume every manufacturer gets the same
answer. Some of them will cheat and use the measurements of others.)
They mention 10C in this note, plus 15 year service life independent
of the Arrhenius calculation. The 15 year service life is based on the
rubber bung in the bottom of the cap, drying out and failing to maintain
the seal on the capacitor. Rubber is attacked by things like ozone, and
local conditions might cause the rubber to fail before that estimate.
(Consider how long a rubber band lasts in your environment, to get some
idea of what is happening to rubber.) If your Arrhenius calculation comes
out to 29 years, then the 15 year service life overrides that calculation.
And the service life isn't a "guaranteed fail", it would represent
some percentage of the caps in service, needing to be replaced.

http://www.rubycon.co.jp/en/products/alumi/pdf/Life.pdf

When electronic equipment is designed, "Service Life" is a factor
which is stated in the high level architecture documents. Where
I worked, at one time, that number might have been 20 years, while
later the number dropped to 10 years. A change in the Service Life
for a line of products, gives the engineer more room for cost cutting.
To meet 20 years, might take extensive component testing, usage of
more expensive components, or a complete change in implementation
(say a digital VRM with Volterra, rather than the usual Vcore
implementation). I have no idea what the "Service Life" target
for motherboards is. Presumably, it is longer than the 3 year warranty
But not by much.

If you can find similar documents for solid polymer caps, you could
go through a similar analysis, to see what they're buying you.

Paul

 

[Daniel Prince]

The capacitor thing, uses a modified Arrhenius relationship. In
chemistry, Arrhenius predicts that chemistry reaction rate, doubles
for every 7C rise in temperature. For capacitors, they do a curve
fit, and the exponent isn't quite the same as the one in chemistry.
Capacitor reliability may double, for anywhere from 10C temperature
rise, to 15C temperature rise.

I think you mean "half" not double or you mean "temperature
decrease" not "rise".

http://www.rubycon.co.jp/en/catalog/e_pdfs/aluminum/e_MBZ_MCZ.pdf

The data sheet has the basic endurance stated in it. In small print...

2000hrs at 105°C,

Say the temperature inside the computer case is 35C. From 105 down
to 35, gives us 70C to work with. (I'm ignoring core heating in
the cap, for simplicity.)

Just picking a number, if the lifetime doubles for every 10C, that
is 7 doublings or 2**7 times longer life, or 2000 * 2**7 = 256000 hours
or 29 years of operation.

If you can find similar documents for solid polymer caps, you could
go through a similar analysis, to see what they're buying you.

I think you mean "selling you".

ASUS claims that their solid polymer caps will last 57 years at 60
degrees C (140 F). I think 60 C is warmer than any decent case will
get.

 

[Paul]

I think you mean "half" not double or you mean "temperature
decrease" not "rise".
Oops.


ASUS claims that their solid polymer caps will last 57 years at 60
degrees C (140 F). I think 60 C is warmer than any decent case will
get.

Maybe they're taking self-heating into account, so that is the
internal temperature inside the cap ? In any case, it is a
pretty impressive number. I can't imagine sitting in front
of the same computer for 57 years, to prove it is really true.

Paul