Xbox 360 capacitors

[jwill1979]

Hi guys this is my first post. The question that I have is. Does anyone know or have any thoughts on if fujitsu capacitors are any good? I have worked on a lot of Xbox 360s and I have noticed a huge occurrence of blown caps on the first gen motherboards. They are all fujitsu caps that are blown and usually located right behind the heat sinks within the air flow of the fan. I do replace these caps with the same make and model caps that are on the board. I guess what I’m really asking is am I really fixing the problem or is the problem the caps made by fujitsu?

[mariush]

Fujitsu (now Nichicon FP-Cap) are good capacitors.

Any capacitor will die in the wrong conditions ... Xbox 360 is just hot inside so the capacitors overheat. Those Fujitsu polymers are rated for 1000-2000 hours @ 105c, and you double that with each 10c decrease.. so let's say 4000h@95c, 8000h@85c, 16k@75c ... what do you expect when the temperature inside is 60-70c all the time, to last years?

[jwill1979]

No I know that the heat kills the caps and it doesn’t help that Microsoft put them in the air flow between the heat sinks and the fan. I just wanted to make sure that it was a quality part there are a lot of really bad parts out there and I wouldn’t put it past Microsoft to use them.

[T4P]

Doesn't matter if it was bad or good, it is still going to go very soon.
The first gen X360s get so hot it was unbelievable  My friend had one and it nearly burned my hand when he was playing (I was touching it for testing sake)
It was about 90C ...

[MacAttak]

The heat dissipation was a huge problem in the older xbox 360 consoles - the "3 red rings of death" problem that plagued them was due to overheating so bad that it fouled the solder connections of one of the BGA packages.

All three of my first and second generation xbox 360 consoles eventually had to be sent in for repair due to that problem (and my consoles were kept in very well ventilated areas).

They generated a lot of heat, and were very inefficient at removing that heat. It doesn't surprise me at all that the older a unit is, the more likely that you will find failed caps in it - no matter what brand they used.


I believe that the newer layout revisions have fixed the overheating problems, so your chances of finding dead caps due to heat stress is going to be a lot lower. The newer machines certainly run a lot more quietly, and seem to have much lower exhaust temps, so presumably there is higher efficiency hardware inside and probably better board layout too.