jaganath; the thing about failing capacitors is that they can be very dangerous, when a capacitor fails it can even short itself or just plain stop working... See
this thread for example, I think this guy is glad those failed caps did not end up burning his house down...
And about the useful life of a capacitor, I have never seen failed caps of the
known good brands even in equipment that is
well over 30 years old
The thing was that I read the review here at SPCR and expected to get Japanese capacitors, so rightfully I got quite dissapointed when infact they where not.
however I did notice the fact that Seasonic never said they where Japanese, only of higher quality...
The thing with powersupplies is that it is very difficult to know what capacitors they have when you buy them, and if you open up the case to look you void the warranty. Plus they are very dangerous to work on for inexperienced people, therefore most blown caps in powersupplies goes undetected, sure, the computer starts crashing more often, and the voltage monitor on the mainboard starts showing the voltages fluctuating, so the user buys a new 450w powersupply for 25$ and problem is solved, for another 18 months... (how many of these threads have you not seen on forums on the internet BTW?)
Stjopatron; the capacitors in the picture you posted are made by the Chemicon group (Nippon Chemi-con, Europe Chemi-con or United Chemi-con) (they are the same)
kuril; Trust me, OST
still makes bad capacitors
Seasonic replied to my e-mail. Here it is, e-mail addresses removed.
Dear Sir
Seasonic has led the high quality bulk capacitors in since the Super series even at
the moment that most PSUs still use a China-made capacitor. In fact, for the main
capacitor, we always use a well-noted Hitachi bulk capacitor. To promote this
advantage, we stated the "Long-lived aluminum electrolytic capacitors" in the
subsequent S12 series. That means more and more reliable caps were used and made our
S12 series among those power supplies that used most high quality caps in the world.
Due to the fact of possible shortages attributed by limited suppliers, we therefore
be very conservative to our statement and never intend to mislead end users.
Therefore we never express the usage of high capacitors as "100% Japan Made
Capacitors".
In addition, when more and more Japanese caps were used gradually, there is no
additional charge on the selling price.
The unit you got maybe a early product. However, Seasonic's 3-year warranty will
never be discounted.
Thanks for your understanding.
Best Regards,
Support Team
Sea Sonic Electronics Co., Ltd.
EDIT; Lastly,
see the Class Action Lawsuit Against ABIT, they actually
lost in court due to using too cheap capacitors on their mainboards...
EDIT2; I was just informed that there has been a similar lawsuit against MSI
http://www.msisettlement.com/ Thanks AK0R of Badcaps.net