Maintenance of rig capacitors

[vodafone228]

I have heard that capacitors (especially for mining rigs) are better off running at 24/7 , as opposed to on/off, or prolong idle time.  I have a friend burning one of the capacitors in his mining rig mobo after switching it off for a week.   I am about to go for a 2 weeks family trip, I won't be using my rig to mine with an empty house.  Is there anything I can do when I come back and start mining again? 

I am thinking to just turn it on for an hour without mining, then under clocking it and do some easy algo to warm up?

[1714776731]

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[fanatic26_]

You should be fine shutting your rigs off and turning them on. While yes technically 24/7 operation is ideal due to no power on surges etc these are just basic computer parts. They are meant to be turned off and on, you should have no issue. It sounds like your friend just had some bad luck.

[nc50lc]

Your friend probably fetched that idea from the internet where facts can turn into rumors.

Mechanical disks like HDDs are the ones that's better off running 24/7 than periodically shutting down and turning on, not Capacitors.
Heat is the major risk to your rig's capacitors' life, so turning them off during a hot climate or low/improper ventilating condition is better than running them 24/7.
Under good room temperature and proper voltages, there's no point on shutting it down to maximize your profit, just don't forget to do a maintenance.

[vodafone228]

Well he is running a IT company and 3 rental mining farms.  So I thought he knows what he is talking about..... or maybe not.

[nc50lc]

Well he is running a IT company and 3 rental mining farms.  So I thought he knows what he is talking about..... or maybe not.

I got a feeling that "that" idea wasn't your friend's idea. Seems like I've misunderstood the OP.

[smoolae]

Capacitors can go bad indeed, but like it has been already stated here, caps are influenced by heat and also physical damage. Capacitors, when from good a good manufacturer, can be really durable even when used 24/7 under high stress and heat environment.

I personally almost broke one of the caps when pulling off a heatsink from my R9 290. Pulled the heatsink off but a corner of it somehow managed to hit one capacitor so that one of the leads almost separated. Was really surprised and startled but just pushed the lead inside again. And voila, everything was working .

Good caps are pretty durable.

[vodafone228]

Well he is running a IT company and 3 rental mining farms.  So I thought he knows what he is talking about..... or maybe not.

I got a feeling that "that" idea wasn't your friend's idea. Seems like I've misunderstood the OP.

Not sure what you mean?  He sent me a photo of his fired mobo so thats definitely his experience.

[jkminkov]

capacitors are rated for 105 C temperatures, probably he dropped his jedi sword on them...

[vodafone228]

Capacitors can go bad indeed, but like it has been already stated here, caps are influenced by heat and also physical damage. Capacitors, when from good a good manufacturer, can be really durable even when used 24/7 under high stress and heat environment.

I personally almost broke one of the caps when pulling off a heatsink from my R9 290. Pulled the heatsink off but a corner of it somehow managed to hit one capacitor so that one of the leads almost separated. Was really surprised and startled but just pushed the lead inside again. And voila, everything was working .

Good caps are pretty durable.

I agree temp is the killer.  Usually prolonged high heat in most cases.  I did a search on google before posting here, and the results I found weren't conclusive.  One of the 'supportive' argument was the temp change causing capacitors to expand and contract, shorten the life of them.  

But I still yet to see a point explaining sudden failure in my friend's mobo, which happened just 2 weeks ago.

[Vann]

Correlation isn't causation. I have 3 mining rigs that over the past year have been shut down for maintenance and/or rearranging several times, including for over 10 days and have yet to have blown a capacitor. I also have a Dell XPS 700 from 2006 that I mined with for months on and off back in 2014 and I still use it as a test bench. Just cause your friend blew a capacitor when he turned the rig back on after an extended time off doesn't mean that's what caused it to go. More likely it was some other reason or was defective.

[Bazzaar]

capacitors are rated for 105 C temperatures, probably he dropped his jedi sword on them...

electrolytic capacitors come in a range a temperature ratings, commonly 80,105 and 130 C

capacitors are no more susceptible to failure during power up than any other component

[Kahooli]

capacitors are rated for 105 C temperatures, probably he dropped his jedi sword on them...

electrolytic capacitors come in a range a temperature ratings, commonly 80,105 and 130 C

capacitors are no more susceptible to failure during power up than any other component

I think the lesson here is don't make generalizations.

Capacitors of some types are very vulnerable to damage from surge currents ie solid tantalum and aluminum electrolytics. Power on events can, in poorly designed systems, result in large surge currents.


https://nepp.nasa.gov/files/14429/07_270_Teverovsky_%20Reliability%20Effects%20of%20Surge%20Current%20Testing%20of%20Solid%20Tantalum.pdf

[adaseb]

Did your friend have old gpus like the Gigabyte Radeon 7950/7970 ?

Because from the LTC days many had issues with those GPUs due to exploding capacitors. Basically they were ceremic capacitors and they had a very high failure rate due to the way they were designed. If you sent your GPU into Gigabyte they basically just desoldered them and the GPU ran fine. This was an isolated incident because it was a design fault.

By turning your rig on and off too many times, its possible to get a slightly higher failure rate. The reason being is because your components heat up and cool off and they experience many of these cycles. One of the problems is that the huge metal heatsink that some GPUs have it expands during heating up and it might stress the solder joints of the GPU chip, and after a while might develop cracks.

However this won't happen after a few power cycles, you would need to do it for months or years.

[vodafone228]

Did your friend have old gpus like the Gigabyte Radeon 7950/7970 ?

Because from the LTC days many had issues with those GPUs due to exploding capacitors. Basically they were ceremic capacitors and they had a very high failure rate due to the way they were designed. If you sent your GPU into Gigabyte they basically just desoldered them and the GPU ran fine. This was an isolated incident because it was a design fault.

By turning your rig on and off too many times, its possible to get a slightly higher failure rate. The reason being is because your components heat up and cool off and they experience many of these cycles. One of the problems is that the huge metal heatsink that some GPUs have it expands during heating up and it might stress the solder joints of the GPU chip, and after a while might develop cracks.

However this won't happen after a few power cycles, you would need to do it for months or years.

I think he has a mix of 1070 and 1080.  And that was his mobo that was fired up, to my understanding he has been running it 24/7 for 1-2 years and last month he has to fix something on his rig so he left it off for a week.

[VasilyS]

The only thing that you have to do it is don't overheat rigs and sometimes clean them from dust. Also check capacitors for swellings due to the buildup of internal gases.

[vuli1]

caps, the hotter they run shorter lifespan they have, so it is good to keep them cool.

[edwardceng]

Did your friend have old gpus like the Gigabyte Radeon 7950/7970 ?

Because from the LTC days many had issues with those GPUs due to exploding capacitors. Basically they were ceremic capacitors and they had a very high failure rate due to the way they were designed. If you sent your GPU into Gigabyte they basically just desoldered them and the GPU ran fine. This was an isolated incident because it was a design fault.

By turning your rig on and off too many times, its possible to get a slightly higher failure rate. The reason being is because your components heat up and cool off and they experience many of these cycles. One of the problems is that the huge metal heatsink that some GPUs have it expands during heating up and it might stress the solder joints of the GPU chip, and after a while might develop cracks.

However this won't happen after a few power cycles, you would need to do it for months or years.

I think he has a mix of 1070 and 1080.  And that was his mobo that was fired up, to my understanding he has been running it 24/7 for 1-2 years and last month he has to fix something on his rig so he left it off for a week.

it makes sense if see mining already 1-2 years because not for all capacitor on mobo or GPU can survive for specific times although many things can be influencing it.

[philipma1957]

mobos can last for many years  if you run at lower then 100%  and keep the heat down.

maybe your buddy ran gear hard  say at 85% tdp

maybe he had a bad cap to begin with

maybe  his boards did not have good air circulation  so while the card temps were < 70  the board temp was close to 100c

[Comino]

I have heard that capacitors (especially for mining rigs) are better off running at 24/7 , as opposed to on/off, or prolong idle time.  I have a friend burning one of the capacitors in his mining rig mobo after switching it off for a week.   I am about to go for a 2 weeks family trip, I won't be using my rig to mine with an empty house.  Is there anything I can do when I come back and start mining again? 

I am thinking to just turn it on for an hour without mining, then under clocking it and do some easy algo to warm up?

Capacitor is the most suffering element in hot temperatures. Especially budget electrolytic capacitors. If anything kills them, that’s probably the temperature (Optimal temperatures - from the dew point (the lowest temperature at which condensation condenses) and up to 21-26C (usually, indicated in the passport).

 Switching it off and back on, can influence other spare parts.

[vodafone228]

Well I am happy to say my rig survived the vacation