Question about original Xbox clock caps

[ChiefReginod]

Was the clock capacitor problem caused by a bad batch of caps or to a design flaw on the motherboard?

I ask because ALL of the leaky clock caps I've encountered have had black casings with grey trim. The clock cap in my Xbox (v1.4) is black with gold trim and has never shown any signs of leaking. I check it every now and then to be sure, but I'd like to know if it's bound to the same fate as the black and grey ones.

Picture below. It's cleaner than it looks. (Big white cable goes to a USB port I added.)

 

[tech3475]

My GUESS was that it was related to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

 

[master801]

According to this, just bad design (and of course Microsoft cheaping out on parts.)

https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox:Clock_Capacitor#Background_and_Technical_Information

 

[SylverReZ]

The story goes is that a capacitor formula was stolen, resulting in a shipment of faulty Nichicon capacitors to major computer hardware manufacturers.

Post automatically merged: Oct 26, 2022

One of those manufacturers, Dell, had to pay $300M in damages to cover the costs of replacing all of the machines that were affected.

 

[ChiefReginod]

I wonder if there's a way to find out the manufacturer for the specific caps, because it's usually the same ones that go bad (the clock cap and a few on the power board) and the rest are always fine. I'll have to dig up my magnifying lens.