How do electronics eventually break? Do the connections on the motherboard get weaker or thinner over time?
In: Technology
Well, there’s a lot of reasons they can break but the most common ones I’ve come across are bad capacitors. They’re devices designed to temporarily store a charge or smooth out current. Many of them contain an electrolyte, a conductive, often acidic goo that can leak out overtime and cause corrosion that damages electrical connections on the board. Or sometimes they just pop and release the “magic smoke”. Or in the case of a lot of really old components, they can degrade and internally short circuit, which cause cause a chain reaction that damages other components. Which is why you shouldn’t turn on a vintage radio without checking the caps first, as these shorts can damage the vacuum tubes. Particularly the rectifier tubes used to convert AC to DC current. It’s not always easy to replace those components versus just replacing old caps with modern ones.
Vacuum tubes go bad due to air leaks which cause internal components to rapidly oxidize and burn out. They can also die due to contaminants in the manufacturing process leaching out. Overheating and electrically overloading tends to kill transistors pretty quickly.
Latest Answers