Welcome to Hell.. I mean The Geek Squad Desk

[Bullitt]

Ok so the second Best Buy has apparrantly found the problem: two bulging capacitors on my motherboard, which means I need to replace it. I doubt Dell will just sell me one, so this may sound like a dumb question, but would I be able to buy one from say.. newegg, and install it myself with a little guidance? Or should I let a pro do it. I installed my own sound cards and video card and dvdROM with no problem, but I've never done anything with motherboards or memory, etc.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Bullitt

Ok so the second Best Buy has apparrantly found the problem: two bulging capacitors on my motherboard, which means I need to replace it. I doubt Dell will just sell me one, so this may sound like a dumb question, but would I be able to buy one from say.. newegg, and install it myself with a little guidance? Or should I let a pro do it. I installed my own sound cards and video card and dvdROM with no problem, but I've never done anything with motherboards or memory, etc.

Just as easy is to replace those capacitors. Important information is number of microfarads, voltage, temperature, and diameter of area that replacement caps can be installed. Possible to replace them even with a more robust part. Price could be $0.50 or under $3 each.

Dell most likely sells an exact replacement motherboard. Generally, these parts are stocked right in their overnight delivery company's hub which means you have it by 10am the next day if the order goes in as late as something like 7 PM.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by tw

Dell most likely sells an exact replacement motherboard. Generally, these parts are stocked right in their overnight delivery company's hub which means you have it by 10am the next day if the order goes in as late as something like 7 PM.

Spot on... they're ready to go...last time it was $150 including quick delivery for a refurbished board.

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by Bullitt

Ok so the second Best Buy has apparrantly found the problem: two bulging capacitors on my motherboard, which means I need to replace it. I doubt Dell will just sell me one, so this may sound like a dumb question, but would I be able to buy one from say.. newegg, and install it myself with a little guidance? Or should I let a pro do it. I installed my own sound cards and video card and dvdROM with no problem, but I've never done anything with motherboards or memory, etc.

Talk to Dell first. I know, but chances of shoehorning in an off-the-shelf board with all the existing components seems unlikely.

Having said that... will somebody explain to me how bulging capacitors would cause the problem described? I admit, I know nothing about such things (I came up on the software & systems admin side of things and learned just enough hardware to ask stupid questions in staff meetings) but it seems like bad capacitors wouldn't even get the system as far as booting.

[tw]

Originally Posted by SteveDallas

Having said that... will somebody explain to me how bulging capacitors would cause the problem described? I admit, I know nothing about such things ... but it seems like bad capacitors wouldn't even get the system as far as booting.

Imagine water flowing. It has ripples and haystacks, floods and droughts, etc. So what happens where the river ends? You get variation downstream. Computers don't like variation in their electricity stream flow. So computers have a reservoir usually just upstream. Sometimes the upriver streams flow major into the reservoir. Sometimes upriver streams are hardly running at all. But the reservoir maintains a constant flow farther downstream.

That is what a capacitor does. It’s a big electric reservoir. However when a capacitor is bulging, its 'reservoir' abilities are diminished. Eventually, the capacitor fails - the reservoir no longer exists.

Meanwhile, the computer is forgiving up to a point. It will work mostly when the electric stream varies somewhat. As that reservoir (capacitor) gets worse, and as the electricity downstream tends to ebb and flow, then the computer eventually hiccups on one of those ebbs or flows. We call that one hiccup a system crash.

There were many reasons for capacitor problems. One most published reason was a bad batch due to defective coating materials. Another was war in Africa where mines for tantalum were interrupted - forcing manufacturers to use other, less effficient types of capacitors. All of which is now irrelevant because the capacitors now must be replaced - at the component level or at the board level.