Unless you are really young, you probably remember a spate of capacitor failures in electronic devices of all sorts including computer motherboards. This was around the turn of the century. One of my family members practically had a production line going where he unsoldered a broken capacitor and put in a good one that he happened to have around. He wasn’t even all that particular about the farad rating but everything always worked fine afterwards. It was a real pain for a while but then it went away without me—at least—noticing. Here’s a hint at the backstory:
Capacitor Plague: a remarkable period of very high capacitor failure rates during the '00s. It's believed to be a result of manufacturers trying to steal electrolyte formula but missing important parts.https://t.co/kOE1RXSMPs
— Wilfred Hughes (@_wilfredh) December 26, 2017
If you follow the link at the bottom of the tweet, you can read the whole story including what was going on. It’s pretty interesting if you’re Geek 30, say, years or older.