[time-nuts] 5070B once more.... (actually electrolytics)

[g4fre at g4fre.com]

I just got hit by this issue in my Dell GX270. Its the one i use for HPIB 
instruments/Heather. The video output disappeared. Doing a web search i 
found lots of posts on they used faulty capacitors. They didnt do a recall 
as it would lead to "bad customer perception of Dells quality" (they had 
just done a battery recall). 

Upon examination 2 had "bulged" You can get kits to replace all 18 
electrolytics. It may explain why there are a lot of gx260/270/280 unsold on 
ebay recently 

Dave 

 

> 
> Message: 5
> Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 23:01:38 +0000
> From: Mark Sims <holrum at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [time-nuts] 5070B once more.... (actually 5370A fans)
> To: <time-nuts at febo.com>
> Message-ID: <BLU125-W32EB9626ACF899C8949FFCE560 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" 
> 
> 
> Many failed electrolytic caps on PC motherboards and in PC power supplies can be traced to a case of industrial espionage gone wrong.  Somebody sole the formula for the caps from a Japanese company and sold it to a competitor.  That competitor allegedly cranked out over a billion of the caps and cornered the market with their cheap prices.  Unfortunately the formula that was stolen was missing a key ingredient...  voila,  over a billion capacitors in a zillion PC's...  and every one of them is destined to fail.  The failure mode is goo oozing out the top of the cap. 
> 
> ----------------------------------------