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I remember many years ago a bad batch of dell small form factor machines that constantly failed to popped capacitors. It would always be near the power supply w

by ReC757 7y ago

I remember many years ago a bad batch of dell small form factor machines that constantly failed to popped capacitors. It would always be near the power supply where the heat was greatest. I guess in that certain area the capacitors were outside of their operating range... Nevertheless, as a bored 16 year old, I enjoyed ripping apart all the machines and calling the higher level support lines to order replacement motherboards. As time went on, they took my word on if a machine had failed due to this specific issue. I really enjoyed the responsibility and trust. Since I could fix the machines faster than Dells support turnaround, I just asked them to send the parts. After about the hundredth machine, I never wanted to seat a processor again. This was back when processors had hundreds of fragile pins too! It’s likely that those experiences really pushed me towards software development instead of IT. Good times...

syntaxing 7y ago
Totally agree! When Samsung first released their flat screen LCD TVs, ours kept failing after two years of usage and was out of warranty. Apparently a bunch of Korean TVs (including LG) had a bad batch of caps from their vendors. Getting it fixed would of cost $300. Buying my own cap and fixing with my dad cost $1. It was a fun bonding experience too.
MisterOctober 7y ago
Yep! System board part number 38HRF and equivalents -- if I never see another one of those doggone things, it'll be too soon!
logfromblammo 7y ago
I got a few of those Dells for free and re-capped the motherboards with a soldering iron and some desoldering wick. If I recall correctly, the replacement mobos had a chance of having bad caps, too, so re-capping one yourself was the only way to be sure. Bonus: I never had to re-seat any processors or swap out memory.
rolleiflex 7y ago
> After about the hundredth machine, I never wanted to seat a processor again. This was back when processors had hundreds of fragile pins too! They still have hundreds of fragile pins. I just bent a few on an AMD Ryzen 7 that got popped out of its socket due to too weak a socket clamp while removing the fan. You know the saying - ‘The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.’ Turns out, it applies to the past, too.
- jdsully 7y ago
  Intel went to LGA where we the pins are on the motherboard. In my experience they are much less likely to be damaged there as they get protection from the socket. I’m not sure why AMD stuck with PGA.
  - paulmd 7y ago
    Lower cost, and some people are really attached to it because it's easier to repair pins if they get bent. You can straighten out PGA pins with a razor blade or a mechanical pencil pretty easily, LGA pins are... "challenging". It can be done but it's not easy. (also, to be blunt, AMD processors undergo such extreme depreciation that they're practically disposable. After two years, AMD's flagship 1800X processor has lost 2/3 of its value, a nice high-end mobo like a C6H is literally more valuable than the flagship processor you had put on it. So it makes sense to have the processor be the one with the easy-to-damage sacrificial part on it. Intel it's the other way around, the processors are expensive and your mobo is probably the cheaper part to replace if needed.)
    - jdsully 7y ago
      WOW you aren't kidding. First gen Threadrippers are cheap now.
      - paulmd 7y ago
        I've seen the 1950X as low as $450 at Microcenter. TR4 motherboards are quite expensive, but right now the Taichi is around $260 after rebate at Newegg. Note that not all of the motherboards are designed to handle the higher-TDP 2970WX/2990WX, if you think that's an upgrade you'd make then look for one with a beefier VRM. Also, the cheaper ones lack 10 GbE or some other higher-end features. You can also find the 1700 as low as $130 if you watch around. Needless to say, if you have any batch-processing type tasks that don't need AVX2, that's a hell of a deal too.
tenebrisalietum 7y ago
Those were probably the Dell Optiplex GX280's. Horrible design, internally anyway. Caps near the power supply or CPU heatsink were prone to failure. At the beginning of my IT career I swapped many of these motherboards. Fortunately the power supply and motherboard were easy to remove and replace. I think this was a Pentium 4 machine which also was notorious for running hot.
- eitland 7y ago
  Saw it with Dell Optiplex GX 270 as well. I supported between 50 and 100 of those at some time and we had to swap 30 motherboards in 6 months. More info used to be available here: https://www.badcaps.net/ https://www.badcaps.net/, haven't verified recently. One thing I've heard recently though is that Dell still makes batches of bad hardware and their service is stil (or again) bad. In particular a recent xps batch has had a 50% failure rate while Dell support keep blaming the users IIRC. Source: sysadmin friend of mine. PS: once you get through, their technicians used to be great.

by ReC757 7y ago

syntaxing 7y ago

Totally agree! When Samsung first released their flat screen LCD TVs, ours kept failing after two years of usage and was out of warranty. Apparently a bunch of Korean TVs (including LG) had a bad batch of caps from their vendors. Getting it fixed would of cost $300. Buying my own cap and fixing with my dad cost $1. It was a fun bonding experience too.

MisterOctober 7y ago

Yep! System board part number 38HRF and equivalents -- if I never see another one of those doggone things, it'll be too soon!

logfromblammo 7y ago

I got a few of those Dells for free and re-capped the motherboards with a soldering iron and some desoldering wick. If I recall correctly, the replacement mobos had a chance of having bad caps, too, so re-capping one yourself was the only way to be sure. Bonus: I never had to re-seat any processors or swap out memory.

rolleiflex 7y ago

> After about the hundredth machine, I never wanted to seat a processor again. This was back when processors had hundreds of fragile pins too! They still have hundreds of fragile pins. I just bent a few on an AMD Ryzen 7 that got popped out of its socket due to too weak a socket clamp while removing the fan. You know the saying - ‘The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.’ Turns out, it applies to the past, too.

jdsully 7y ago
Intel went to LGA where we the pins are on the motherboard. In my experience they are much less likely to be damaged there as they get protection from the socket. I’m not sure why AMD stuck with PGA.
- paulmd 7y ago
  Lower cost, and some people are really attached to it because it's easier to repair pins if they get bent. You can straighten out PGA pins with a razor blade or a mechanical pencil pretty easily, LGA pins are... "challenging". It can be done but it's not easy. (also, to be blunt, AMD processors undergo such extreme depreciation that they're practically disposable. After two years, AMD's flagship 1800X processor has lost 2/3 of its value, a nice high-end mobo like a C6H is literally more valuable than the flagship processor you had put on it. So it makes sense to have the processor be the one with the easy-to-damage sacrificial part on it. Intel it's the other way around, the processors are expensive and your mobo is probably the cheaper part to replace if needed.)
  - jdsully 7y ago
    WOW you aren't kidding. First gen Threadrippers are cheap now.
    - paulmd 7y ago
      I've seen the 1950X as low as $450 at Microcenter. TR4 motherboards are quite expensive, but right now the Taichi is around $260 after rebate at Newegg. Note that not all of the motherboards are designed to handle the higher-TDP 2970WX/2990WX, if you think that's an upgrade you'd make then look for one with a beefier VRM. Also, the cheaper ones lack 10 GbE or some other higher-end features. You can also find the 1700 as low as $130 if you watch around. Needless to say, if you have any batch-processing type tasks that don't need AVX2, that's a hell of a deal too.

tenebrisalietum 7y ago

Those were probably the Dell Optiplex GX280's. Horrible design, internally anyway. Caps near the power supply or CPU heatsink were prone to failure. At the beginning of my IT career I swapped many of these motherboards. Fortunately the power supply and motherboard were easy to remove and replace. I think this was a Pentium 4 machine which also was notorious for running hot.

eitland 7y ago
Saw it with Dell Optiplex GX 270 as well. I supported between 50 and 100 of those at some time and we had to swap 30 motherboards in 6 months. More info used to be available here: https://www.badcaps.net/ https://www.badcaps.net/, haven't verified recently. One thing I've heard recently though is that Dell still makes batches of bad hardware and their service is stil (or again) bad. In particular a recent xps batch has had a 50% failure rate while Dell support keep blaming the users IIRC. Source: sysadmin friend of mine. PS: once you get through, their technicians used to be great.