Comments on: PCs plagued by bad capacitors

Some Dell, Apple and HP computers with faulty motherboards are at risk for video failure and periodic system shutdowns.
Photos: Defective capacitors

[Linuxiac38]

A major issue here, is that millions of used PCs are donated to Non Profit organizations, such as GiftfromGodComputerFoundation.org, inOviedo Florida, for FREE recycling with Linux, to students from pre-k through college, About a third of the donations now received are diverted to the waste bin as un-usable.

Without warranty, non-profit organizations have great difficulty finding suitable components and skilled volunteers to repair these Intel, MSI, ASUS, and other maker's boards.

Visits to the Technical Support sites, and phone calls placed to their Support numbers are always answered with the comment that can best be summed up as "screw off, you have no warranty"!

As a computer engineer, I find this to be an un-ethical situation, which does affect the retail sales of those products, because word of mouth is the pre-eminent form of advertising, and "XXXXX-sucks" can affect both the bottom line, and the stock value, of major publicly traded corporations like Intel, Dell, Apple, MSI, ASUS, and others.

I am looking at about 1000 un-used computer donations this year, at GiftFromGodComputerFoundation,Inc., due do the failure of capacitors, and the ruin of motherboards, processors, memory, and Power Supplies.

Mouser, Digikey, and other sources seem to be "OUT OF STOCK" for replacement caps, even if we had the money to purchase them. The entire computer industry has earned a black eye.

[PDBTech]

Well, seems like I found out about this problem just today when my Optiplex gx270 from Ebay just arrived and I turned on and no video, and the power light is amber and blinking. Any suggestions?

[TheCapKing]

Try www.thecapking.com for the replacement capacitors and color coded guides of the affected motherboards. badcaps.net also sells the kits but they are overpriced.

[atran6]

Recently, thousands of used Dell PCs are sold on eBay from all over the country (USA). Most of them are Optiplex PCs, and amongst them, most are GX270. Most of the PCs are degraded or missing RAMs and Hard Drives. The price is about a hundred and fifty dollars each, and the price is declining for there are more used Dell PCs coming.
Used components from Dell PCs are also increasingly sold on eBay. This is a dishonest practice, and wee need to think about that.