System freezing frequently

[Robin Laing]

Paul Johnson wrote:
> On 8/7/07, Tim <ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> 
> I've been watching this thread thinking about a whole bunch of PCs
> here that have had the exact same symptom.
> 
> My research group had 5 Dell  Optiplex 270 that worked fine for 2
> years, then randomly locked up.  There was no pattern to the problem,
> systems passed memtest86.  The temperature was fine.  Sometimes we
> went 2 weeks without a lockup, then they would lock several times in a
> day.
> 
> Finally discovered problem was faulty capacitors in motherboard.
> Instead of looking like flat topped cylinders, their tops were swolen,
> so they looked sorta like the tops of cupcakes.  Then I found out that
> people at the Dell company were just waiting for repair requests.
> Because they sold a hell of a lot of those PCs.
> 
> After replacing one motherboard, a machine worked great 8 months, one
> of the machines started to do it again.  I went through the usual
> crap--all that stuff you have been doing.  I got to the point where I
> could not depend on it to do anything.  Discovered problem was the
> main power supply was failing.  It supplied enough power to boot and
> run, but apparently not enough for the bursts of energy needed by one
> of the IDE drives, and when that drive freaked out, it made the whole
> system lock up.
> 
> Maybe this info does not fix your pc, but it may let you know you have company.
> 
> 
> 

We had a notice come around work about Dell computers and capacitors 
some time ago.

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Robin Laing