One of my computers has been behaving erratically. Not erotically, mind you, although it does get plenty “hot.” What will happen is that suddenly, for no apparent reason, the screen will go black, and at exactly the same time the CPU fan (or the case fan or some loud fan) will just explode in a perfect rage, and rev itself up into an insane crescendo which is alarming as all hell, and convinces me that if I don’t do a manual shutdown by pressing on the switch, the poor thing will fry itself. But after the forced reset, everything seems fine for awhile. Until the next completely random explosion. Naturally, this is intolerable in any computer used for work, as there is no way to save whatever data you might have been working with.
It’s a Dell Optiplex 745. Googling the issue, I kept seeing recurrent complaints that these machines have a problem (which Dell has admitted). It is serious enough to merit a Wiki entry titled “Capacitor Plague.” Most people replace the motherboard or buy a new machine, but some stubborn cheapskates (and I fit in that category) are bound and determined to replace the capacitors and fix the problem.
I don’t like to throw good money after bad, and time is money, but I looked further and to my utter astonishment, I found a number of YouTube videos carrying on at length about computer capacitor problems. One techie guy maintains that they are not only easy to identify, but easy to fix, and he demonstrates how to do it on my machine:
In another video, he shows how to identify the bad caps:
The chance that my capacitors might actually look bad enough to be spotted as the problem seemed very slim. Feeling extremely skeptical, I figured what would I have to lose by cracking the case and pulling things apart? It wasn’t that hard to remove the hard drive, then unscrew its mounting bracket. And to my utter amazement, I immediately saw that one of the capacitors had a brown deposit on top. When I looked further I saw that the one just next to it was bulging at the top in exactly the way the tech guy explained, plus there was a telltale brown dot on it.
I took a picture:
While there are lots of sellers who advertise Dell capacitor fix-it kits for $39.95 on Ebay, I simply looked at the bad ones, which are labeled. They are 6.3 volt 2200 microfarad capacitors and are not a high ticket item.
So I ordered a few, and I’ll see what happens.
Comments
8 responses to “Late night mad cap adventures”
Good story. I am eagerly awaiting the followup.
The capacitor snafu was a rare Dell mishap. I bought a Dell Dimension seven years ago and with some hardware upgrades has done very well. In general, Dells have a reputation for durability.
Another Dell snafu was the HD Zino, which was a very small scale desktop. I was considering purchasing one, but it is now off the market. The reason Dell dropped it was hard drive failure due to overheating.Because a redesign did not solve the problem, Dell took the HD Zino off the market. Apparently Dell did not sufficiently test the HD Zino before putting it on the market.
Be sure to order capacitors rated for 105°C.
Send me an e-mail if you need any more technical advice.
And don’t buy crap from eBay. Use Mouser.
http://www.mouser.com/
This might be a good one if the lead spacing is correct (5 mm or about .2″)
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Nichicon/UPS0J222MHD/?qs=LVhiz6WniCnTe3vyKND90PGBHlFY%252bcpw2p2ykTWMjis%3d
When you do the work proper grounding procedures are a must. Also make sure the humidity is high (above 80%) in your work area as a backup to the grounding. Give me a call. This may take some discussion.
How about these?
http://www.thecapking.com/63hz2200.html
I really appreciate these comments and Simon’s offer to help! Also, Gringo, I am a Dell loyalist and have been for years. This was an industry wide issue which isn’t fair to blame on them. Plus, this machine is out of warranty and I got it used bare bones for 80 bucks then built it, so I can hardly complain.
The capacitor issue is definately not just a Dell problem. Lost a few motherboards years ago to the bulge, including a dual-CPU-socket PIII,
There was a story years ago about someone stealing the formula for a new capacitor from his company, then moving to another company. Think it was either China or Taiwan. However, the formula was flawed, meaning they pumped out inherently bad capacitors. And, of course, that means a lot of electronics would bite the dust as their capacitors were no longer doing the job they were supposed to do.