At 17:55 11/05/2005, Shane Taylor wrote:

I'm quite happy with. Gigabyte boards used to have a tendency to blow capacitors, but the 2 year warranty means you've got a good chance of getting it fixed anyway :)

That was due to the manufacturer of the resistors using a cheaper (and apparently stolen) process/recipe for the goop in their resistors. Can't remember the exact details now as I have problems remembering what I had for lunch yesterday let alone something 3 years old.

Daniel was correct when referring to the capacitors. The problem that occurred starting in late 2001 is well documented.
IBM was the first major PC maker and ABIT was the first motherboard manufacturer to publicly state that their products were affected by the rogue capacitors.

The IEEE have a good write-up called "Leaking Capacitors Muck up Motherboards" at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/feb03/ncap.html
Excerpt: It has all the elements of a good thriller: a stolen secret formula, bungled corporate espionage, untraceable goods, and lone wolves saving the little guy from the misdeeds of multinational corporations. In this case, a mistake in the stolen formulation of the electrolyte in a capacitor has wrecked hundreds of PCs and may wreck still more in what is an industry wide problem.

David