[anonymousiam]

There's a good overview of the problems with certain Chinese electrolytic capacitors here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Also, here's a related article describing how a Chinese failure at industrial espionage created a worldwide capacitor problem: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/jun/29/dell...

[logbiscuitswave]

The capacitor plague was real. So many electronics I have from that era have failed due to bad caps. They are almost always cheap bottom-tier components with brand names and packaging suspiciously similar to the more reputable ones. (I’ve also read about inferior components that have been re-sleeved but I’ve never come across these. I don’t doubt they exist, though.)