What kind of capacitors do Macs use?

[generik]

I just found this little image from another PC mainboard manufacturer:
Picture

The picture was originally referenced here.

Since I am a Mac user, naturally I believes everything span out by marketing, and likewise now I am all into these new big beefy looking capacitors even though I have no idea what they do! Has anyone actually had the experience of opening their Macs? Does Apple use the big one or the puny cheap ones?

 

[mattjgalloway]

Why does it matter?!

You generally don't get a PC dying because of it's capacitors dying. I've had a couple of leaky ones after many MANY years of use, but nothing too bad.

A capacitor is a capacitor.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

My new MacBook uses a flux capacitor.

 

[generik]

My new MacBook uses a flux capacitor.

Is a flux capacitor a good one?

 

[exsanguinate]

My new MacBook uses a flux capacitor.

Hahaha.

I hope mine does too!

 

[mattjgalloway]

HAHAHA! Seriously generik, you are joking right?!

A flux capacitor is what they used in Back to the Future and Busted's "Year 3000" song for time-travel!

"... Stood there, was my neighbour, called Peter and a flux capacitor ..." ... "... Oh I went to the Year 3000. Not much has changed but they live underwater. And your great great great granddaughter, is pretty fine. [is preeeety fiiine] ..."

 

[GimmeSlack12]

I hear Apple employs children from India to make cheap capacitors that only have a charge of 0.05 mH (micro Henry's).

I say "Why not exploit 3rd world nations!" we are talking about CAPACITORS people!

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Is a flux capacitor a good one?

Yes, once I get it up to 88 mph...

 

[mattjgalloway]

I hear Apple employs children from India to make cheap capacitors that only have a charge of 0.05 mH (micro Henry's).

You're joking too right?? 0.05 mH is milli Henrys, micro Henrys (no apostrophe aswell!) is uH (well, a mew symbol, but u will do)

And Henrys is NOT a measure of the charge stored! It kind of is, but it depends on the voltage across it as to how many coulombs of charge are stored on it!

Anyway, it's moot because the size of the cap is chosen, it's not like the size is dependant on how well they are made!!!

 

[mkrishnan]

Yes, once I get it up to 88 mph...

Do not, I repeat, do NOT let the Lithuanians steal back the bomb parts!!!!

For what it's worth, weren't electrolytic capacitors implicated in the rash of failures on Rev. A iMac G5s? There are definitely electrolytic capacitors in Macs... Linkety.

 

[gnasher729]

Since I am a Mac user, naturally I believes everything span out by marketing, and likewise now I am all into these new big beefy looking capacitors even though I have no idea what they do! Has anyone actually had the experience of opening their Macs? Does Apple use the big one or the puny cheap ones?

Are you seriously trying to tell us that you don't know the story behind bad capacitors and you are not trolling?

 

[yellow]

My new MacBook uses a flux capacitor.

Hehe.. kick ass!

 

[Chaszmyr]

Are you seriously trying to tell us that you don't know the story behind bad capacitors and you are not trolling?

People with almost 2500 posts don't usually troll. That said, this is kind if a silly thread, but I am reasonably sure that modern Macs use solid capacitors.

 

[generik]

HAHAHA! Seriously generik, you are joking right?!

A flux capacitor is what they used in Back to the Future and Busted's "Year 3000" song for time-travel!

"... Stood there, was my neighbour, called Peter and a flux capacitor ..." ... "... Oh I went to the Year 3000. Not much has changed but they live underwater. And your great great great granddaughter, is pretty fine. [is preeeety fiiine] ..."

Dang, I didn't have the slightest clue

 

[generik]

Are you seriously trying to tell us that you don't know the story behind bad capacitors and you are not trolling?

Well, IANAEE (I Am Not An Electrical Engineer) so quite honestly I don't really know what difference it makes. But I certainly do know that cheap resistors = *poof*, and back in the day when I used to frequent 2CPU.com, a mainboard manufacturers (iWill) will always use the fact that their boards have some kind of digital voltage regulator and have no capacitors, while the competiting board at that time (Tyan K8WE) has rows after rows of caps.

Heck, I still own a system with a K8WE in it, still works as it should, but in some sense iWill's marketing has gotten to me

Anyhow I spent some time looking at MBP "pr0n" shots and it seems like on its logicboard there don't seem to be any capacitors, does that mean Apple uses the newer digital regulators as well?

 

[mduser63]

I am a 4th year EE student (and work as one), and I think that's just marketing hype on the part of GIGABYTE. Things can't be simplified so much. Electrolytic capacitors are in use in just about every electronic device, and with a proper design and good quality suppliers (ie. non-defective parts) they'll last for a long long time. Capacitors are used for many many different things in a typical circuit from reducing noise on a power supply line, to creating an oscillator, to being used as a temporary RAM backup for battery swaps in a laptop.

There are MANY other types of capacitors besides electrolytic and "solid" (which is just a type of electrolytic actually). It's just that non-electrolytic caps are typically not very large and don't stand out on a circuit board, so no one notices/thinks about them.

All in all, electrolytic vs. solid isn't going to make a big difference.

 

[mattjgalloway]

Well put. I too am a 4th year EE student and so I was finding it quite hard to beleive what was being said here about capacitors.

Are they really used as RAM backup when battery swapped out? I've never seen that before! I find it strange to beleive a cap can hold enough charge for enough time to allow a stick of RAM to hold its data... you got a link?

 

[emotion]

Do not, I repeat, do NOT let the Lithuanians steal back the bomb parts!!!!

Libyans?

 

[emotion]

There was a mass recall of Dell Optiplex machines recently due to capacitors burting and causing disk failures.

I know because I had a disk failure in my Dell (all my dell hardware is bought by my employer...not me!) and they nearly blamed that.

 

[atszyman]

I just found this little image from another PC mainboard manufacturer:
Picture

The picture was originally referenced here.

Since I am a Mac user, naturally I believes everything span out by marketing, and likewise now I am all into these new big beefy looking capacitors even though I have no idea what they do! Has anyone actually had the experience of opening their Macs? Does Apple use the big one or the puny cheap ones?

Apple like most PCs probably use almost every type and value of cap on their motherboards. The reason for the vast majority of the capacitors is to smooth the power supply which can be affected by any oscillating signal on the board (read:clocks). Since computers have the processor clock, FSB clock, FSB data signals, PCI(X)(Express), Firewire, etc. all running at any given time there is a wide range of frequencies bouncing around all the time on the MB. The type and size of the capacitors that are used determines which frequencies it filters and how well it filters them. With large enough capacitors you could easily hold ram contents while swapping batteries but that's limited to only a few seconds that they need to hold a charge.

It is extremely rare for a capacitor to fail by exploding unless it is an electrolytic capacitor installed backwards. Most other failures are going to be due to cracks and age which will probably never be noticed since most are chosen to handle worst case conditions which rarely occur.

 

[emotion]

All manufacturers seem to be affected by recent manufacturing faults in capacitors (Apple included):

http://news.com.com/PCs+plagued+by+bad+capacitors/2100-1041_3-5942647.html

Interesting.

 

[mmmcheese]

I am a 4th year EE student (and work as one), and I think that's just marketing hype on the part of GIGABYTE. Things can't be simplified so much. Electrolytic capacitors are in use in just about every electronic device, and with a proper design and good quality suppliers (ie. non-defective parts) they'll last for a long long time. Capacitors are used for many many different things in a typical circuit from reducing noise on a power supply line, to creating an oscillator, to being used as a temporary RAM backup for battery swaps in a laptop.

There are MANY other types of capacitors besides electrolytic and "solid" (which is just a type of electrolytic actually). It's just that non-electrolytic caps are typically not very large and don't stand out on a circuit board, so no one notices/thinks about them.

All in all, electrolytic vs. solid isn't going to make a big difference.

I think they are just taking advantage of the fear people have of getting a board with bad capacitors on them because of the bad batches that were out there a few years back. Since all of them blew out the top, I guess they figure buy showing ones that don't have soft tops, that people will somehow think these are better (which they may or may not be for this application).

 

[GimmeSlack12]

You're joking too right?? 0.05 mH is milli Henrys, micro Henrys (no apostrophe aswell!) is uH (well, a mew symbol, but u will do)

And Henrys is NOT a measure of the charge stored! It kind of is, but it depends on the voltage across it as to how many coulombs of charge are stored on it!

Anyway, it's moot because the size of the cap is chosen, it's not like the size is dependant on how well they are made!!!

You're right, milli-Henry's.
You're right, I'm joking (making fun of this thread).

 

[generik]

I think they are just taking advantage of the fear people have of getting a board with bad capacitors on them because of the bad batches that were out there a few years back. Since all of them blew out the top, I guess they figure buy showing ones that don't have soft tops, that people will somehow think these are better (which they may or may not be for this application).

So... basically what Gigabyte said is bullsh1t? That those big capacitors are no better than the smaller ones?

 

[mattjgalloway]

are no better than

What do you mean by that though? The two types of capacitor do the same job - maybe one has a longer lifecycle, but that's about it...