capacitors

The early 2000s capacitor plague is probably not just a stolen recipe

capacitor, capacitor plague, capacitors, china, CPUs, dell, HP, Japan, Motherboards, single-core CPU, Taiwan, Tech / Rejus Almole / March 21, 2025

It’s a widely known problem with roots in urban legend: Devices with motherboards failing in the early 2000s with a sudden pop, a gruesome spill, or sometimes a burst of flames. And it was allegedly all due to one guy who didn’t copy a stolen formula correctly.

The “capacitor plague” of the early 2000s was real and fairly widespread among devices, even if the majority of those devices didn’t go bad at the same time or even in the same year. The story of this widespread failure, passing between industry insider stories and media reports, had a specific culprit, but also a broad narrative about the shift from Japanese to Taiwanese manufacturers and about outsourcing generally.

The Asianometry channel on YouTube recently dug into the “capacitor plague” in a video that asks, “What happened to the capacitors in 2002?” and comes to some informed, broad, and layered answers. It explains the specifics of what’s happening inside both a working capacitor and the faulty models, relays the reporting on the companies blamed and affected, and, crucially, puts the plague in the wider context of hotter chips, complex supply chains, counterfeits, and, sure, some industrial sabotage.

“We will never know what exactly happened, but let’s try,” the host says at the start. It is recommended you follow along.

“What Happened to the Capacitors in 2002?” by Asianometry.

Without replicating too much of the video and larger mythos, the basic story is that, according to various disputed timelines, electrolytic capacitors put into electronics between 1999 and 2003 or so failed in dire ways from 2002 through (perhaps) 2007. Boards and computers bought from Abit, HP, IBM, and, infamously, Dell, among others, suffered these faulty capacitors and were handled with recalls, repairs, or, sometimes, silence.

A finely balanced cocktail

The “Low equivalent series resistance,” or “low impedance” aluminum capacitors at issue, contained an electrolyte solution that, when doing its job, served as a cathode and kept the paper separating two files inside the rolled-up capacitor saturated. Because the electrolyte is roughly 70 percent water, and the capacitor could take on wider fluctuations of voltage, it became a cheap, popular component in many devices.

The early 2000s capacitor plague is probably not just a stolen recipe Read More »

The upside-down capacitor in mid-‘90s Macs, proven and documented by hobbyists

Brown notes that the predecessor Mac LC and LC II had the correct connections, as did the LC 475, which uses the same power supply scheme. This makes him “confident that Apple made a boo-boo on the LC III,” or “basically the hardware equivalent of a copy/paste error when you’re writing code.”

Making sure rehabbers don’t make the same mistake

Why was this not noticed earlier, other than a couple forum threads seen by dedicated board rehabbers? There are a few reasons. For one thing, the rail was only used for a serial port or certain expansion card needs, so a capacitor failure, or out-of-spec power output, may not have been noticed. The other bit is that the original capacitor was rated for 16V, so even with -5V across it, it might not have failed, at least while it was relatively fresh. And it would not have failed in quite so spectacular a fashion as to generate stories and myths.

As to whether Apple knew about this but decided against acting on a somewhat obscure fault, one that might never cause real problems? By all means, let us know if you worked at Apple during that time and can clue us in. Ars has emailed Apple with this tremendously relevant question, the day before Thanksgiving, and will update this post with any comment.

By posting his analysis, Brown hopes to provide anyone else re-capping one of these devices with a bright, reflective warning sign to ignore Apple’s markings and install C22 the electrically correct way. Brown, reached by email, said that he heard from another hobbyist that the reverse voltage “would explain why the replacement cap” they installed “blew up.” Some restoration types, like Retro Viator, noticed the problem and fixed it pre-detonation.

Modern rehabbers tend to use tantalum capacitors to replace the fluid-filled kind that probably damaged the board they’re working on. Tantalum tends to react more violently to too much or reverse voltage, Brown wrote me.

Should C22 or other faulty capacitors destroy your LC III board entirely, Brown notes that 68kMLA member max1zzz has made a reverse-engineered full logic board schematic.