[adolph]

Back in the day the story was that a knockoff manufacturer of capacitors used an incomplete recipe—the caps started out fine but didn’t last. Wikipedia says the story is unverified but still includes it under the “Investigation” section:

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

[briffle]

Anecdotally, I built 4 computer labs at a college with Dell optiplex desktops, and a year later, 30 of the 104 had their motherboards replaced due to blown caps. And at the time, the nearest certified tech was 70 miles away, over a mountain pass.

[dylan604]

So litterally up hill both ways

[deeesstoronto]

The plague is true... I was repairing motherboards by replacing vrm capacitors around 2008.