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Electrolytic Capacitor Aging

W

WasntMe

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 7, 2007
Messages
1,457
Anyone have any opinions on this? Is it really 20-30% for 1+ years? Wouldn't there be an eventual leveling out? I was doing some calculations to see if I could use my existing 2 year old 650 watt PSU to add another 5850 to crossfire. Never heard of the aging of capacitors before but it sounds like it makes good sense.

From the PSU Calculator linked below, "Electrolytic capacitor aging. When used heavily or over an extended period of time (1+ years) a power supply will slowly lose some of its initial wattage capacity. We recommend you add 10-20% if you plan to keep your PSU for more than 1 year, or 20-30% for 24/7 usage and 1+ years."

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
 
For a good quality power supply, maybe 10% in 15 years. That is just BS.
 
Yeah, If you buy a decent supply, this is likely a non-issue. You can get bad caps on anything, defects happen. But on a solid unit, it shouldn't matter.
 
The experts at http://www.BadCaps.net will know.

I didn't see anything mentioned in the data sheets and applications notes from some Japanese cap makers (BadCaps.net has links in one of the forums), except that the parts are supposed to meet all specs for the rated lifetimes.

I think the brand matters more than the specs, considering how fast some brands fail. For example, had a 2-3 year old Antec that ruptured most of its caps, but the vintage 1999 PSU I still use has caps that tested fine when I measured some of them for capacitance and ESR, about 3 years ago. They were all high quality brands, like Nichicon and Rubycon.
 
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