Level 1

15 points

Bad capacitors

I have several eMacs that my wife and I have placed in her 1st grade classroom. We bought these machines off ebay and while all worked not all continued working. I found the thread about bad caps and checked our machines out and found that the ones that were acting up did indeed have bad caps.
Not all of them fell into the serial number range that was published though some did.
I just took another out of service because of the bad cap symptoms and discovered that these caps had the 3 pie sections instead of 4 but were leaking bad.
I don't remember if the article said 3 or 4 sections.
This machine will start and run if it is powered up and down 3 or 4 (or more) times with the power button.
What I wanted to do was check this serial number against the list of affected and found Apple has erased all reference to the issue on the Apple site except for the forums. All links either don't work at all or take you to the eMac support page. Absolutely nothing about bad caps.
I am not a novice and I am Apple certified. I do a lot of out of warranty repair and maintenance.
I am good with a soldering iron so I could replace the caps if I had to but I think that Apple should do the right thing (because they know and admitted to shipping eMacs with bad parts) to continue to fix these machines. Even if they repaired the boards in house or farmed them out they would be further ahead in just the free publicity alone. I still have G3 iMacs that run good with out all the problems the eMacs have.
I know Apple made these cheap for education but there's cheap and there's cheap.
Well I just wanted to put my two cents in because even Apple is flawed just like all human endeavors, just look at the housing market or GM etc.
How bout it Apple? You gonna stand up or dodge and duck like a politician.

MBP 2.0, Mac OS X (10.5.4), lots of other Macs, Apple certified.

Posted on Nov 17, 2008 4:29 PM

30 replies

Nov 22, 2008 2:22 PM in response to Michael Lafferty

Sorry, I did not receive it. Don't know why except Road Runner mail is sometimes unpredictable. If you like resend it and I will look specifically for it. I don't have filters on it just for this reason.

Nov 22, 2008 4:36 PM in response to pndproductions

No problem: I sent another.

Nov 22, 2008 5:36 PM in response to Michael Lafferty

That one came through. All it said was you sent another.

Nov 22, 2008 6:01 PM in response to pndproductions

That is seriously strange. Do you have recurring issues with Road Runner?

The resent message was some 33 lines long. Send a message to me, and I will reply. Let's see if that makes any difference. As an relatively experienced mail administrator, I am at a loss to explain why your account should behave as you describe.

Király

Level 6

10,025 points

Nov 23, 2008 9:22 AM in response to dpeam

I hear that the eMac's multilayered circuit board is not the easiest thing to solder on without damaging it. Have any do-it-yourselfers actually been successful at replacing all of the capacitors by hand, and then booted up the eMac and had it work?

If I could find one reference of a DIYer's success at this, with layman's soldering tools, I would be pleased - and a little surprised.

Nov 23, 2008 9:49 AM in response to Király

I cannot imagine how someone with 'layman's soldering tools' could possibly effect this repair properly. Without the equivalent of a Hakko 700C desoldering station and substantial experience, it seems almost impossible to believe that someone could accomplish this task.

It's such a problem that boards sent to us for rehabilitation which show any evidence of an attempt to do so before we receive them are immediately rejected and returned apologetically to the individuals who attempted to do so, or have had such work performed on their behalf by others.

Some tasks are quite easily accomplished by users. In our experience, neither this or a roughly equivalent repair on affected iMac G5 logic boards is among them.

Nov 23, 2008 10:42 AM in response to Király

Király,
I have not as yet attempted this repair. That being said I do feel confident that with patience and some skill at soldering it can be done. It is like a good carpenter says, measure twice and cut once.
Not for the faint at heart. I feel I have those skills and also I have not much to lose. I can try the one that is totally broken and if that one comes back from the dead then yes I can do it. If not then nothing from nothing leaves nothing.
I have been doing this sort of thing since I was 8 years old, I am now almost 60.
I will wait until the dead of winter when the heat from the soldering iron will be nice.

Jimdrum

Level 1

89 points

Jan 5, 2009 6:17 PM in response to Michael Lafferty

So what are the symptoms of bad capacitors? I have an eMac 1.25 GHz that is within the repair serial numbers that has been acting up. I have had to restart often, it freezes and there are weird video issues like distortion when it freezes or lines (white or black) that occur sometimes but not others.

Can you help?

Jan 5, 2009 9:19 PM in response to Jimdrum

The symptoms you describe are exactly the sort of indications that people with defective logic boards observe. You should open the user access panel and see if any of the visible capacitors are bloated, swollen or leaking. Good ones should have flat tops.

If they appear fine, carefully remove the rear case so that others are visible. Your likely to find capacitors that are decomposing. If you don't see evidence of such damage, then you almost assuredly to not have the issue, and your symptoms are caused by some other problem.

If you do, you can write to the electronic mail address in my Public Profile for information as to how to proceed.

Jimdrum

Level 1

89 points

Jan 8, 2009 9:12 PM in response to Michael Lafferty

I opened the access door and saw that the 'K' capacitor looks fine. However, the '+' capacitor is beginning to bulge. That leads me to believe that I may have more bulging capacitors inside. Bummer. I may contact you.

dpeam Author

Level 1

15 points

Jan 31, 2009 6:46 AM in response to dpeam

The issue is becoming moot. I have decided to scrap them and use whatever I can on the good eMacs I still have.
Thanks for all the advice and suggestions.

cope51

Level 1

0 points

Feb 16, 2009 6:05 AM in response to Michael Lafferty

I have a late 2004 emac serial no VM4400MBQQJ

Is there a way of finding out if this was subject to the extended warranty due to defective capacitors as having read this thread I now think this may be the issue?

I too have a constantly freezing emac - complete with frozen and scrambled images and text on screen etc. I had a terminal hard drive error reported which led me to replace it but to no avail. Oddly it will boot and run in Safe Mode. I'm only running the original version of Panther supplied with machine so no 3rd party conflicts?

Király

Level 6

10,025 points

Feb 16, 2009 7:34 AM in response to cope51

Yup, yours is in the range. See here: http://www.apple.com/support/exchange_repair/emac.html

At this point there's not much you can do other than an expensive logic board replacement. It will cost more than what your eMac is worth.

Feb 17, 2009 10:37 AM in response to Király

It depends upon what you mean by '…expensive logic board repair.'

End users can have their logic boards rebuilt for as little as $ 129.00 per machine. That may be more than the perceived value of a 1 GHz or 1.25 GHz eMac, but it's likely significantly less than the cost of replacing a defective machine entirely, with something equivalent or better.

Feb 18, 2009 10:01 PM in response to cope51

This sounds exactly like the capacitor problem.

Open the RAM door and have a look at the 2 capacitors there. If they are swollen/leaking, yep - they are bad, and the cause of your problems.

Safe Mode will give you some more time... but ultimately even that wont help. Basically because Safe Mode disables several ATI extensions (graphics stuff) then it is less likely to crash... until the bad caps eventually effect other areas.

Go pick up a G4 iMac off eBay for a couple hundred bucks... or use it as an excuse to buy a new Intel Mac.

Or, call Apple, tell them about it, and pray you get someone on their birthday and they are feeling generous enough to offer a free repair under the old Repair Program that is now approaching 2 years expired...

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Bad capacitors