[userbinator]

Bad capacitors -- particularly electrolytic ones -- are the biggest enemy of electronics. The early 2000s was the worst period for that. There's even a site dedicated to fixing them at badcaps.net. Other components tend to fail far less often.

[greenbit]

Between the caps and the early ROHS solder formulations, the 20-ohs was kind of a low point for electronics.

[cassepipe]

I recently learned that it was a common cause of hardware failure on IMac G5 (2004) but I am surprised to learn that it was part of general trend

[ipcress_file]

There used to be a website dealing with just this issue on old T-series Toshiba Satellites. Actually, I found it: https://www.vobarian.com/toshibaProblem.html

I've seen a lot of discussion around bad capacitors on forums dealing with old stereo equipment too. So it really does seem to have been a widespread issue.

[jesprenj]

relevant link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague?

clickable link from your post http://badcaps.net