One of my users here at work runs a Dell Optiplex GX270. It’s a good workstation. Plenty of RAM, processing power, and disk space for a plain old workstation.
Recently, it started getting all wonky (yes, that’s a technical term). It was weird. It seemed to be an Office issue – while sorting email or using Word, then system would just turn off.
No Blue Screen of Death, no error, no entry in the Event Log. Not a goddamn thing.
Well, I said screw it. He’s one of the last guys to be running Windows/Office 2000, so I figured it would be time to bump him up to XP/2003.
No deal. Still wonky. So I try reverting to earlier network / video drivers. Nope. Other nics/vid cards. Nope. All CPU/RAM/HDD tests came up clean. No overheating issues.
Finally, Google reveals unto me that this line of systems from Dell had bad capacitors. They apparently bulge. I open the case, and sure enough, thems capacitors are a-bulgin’.
So I hop on the phone yesterday with Dell, and next thing I know, I’m swapping out a mobo. It’s not new – it’s a refurb, which makes sense. The entire motherboard, minus the 5 bulging capacitors, is fine. I reckon they’ll just remove those 5 and replace them with good ones when they get the board I’m sending back and ship it off to some other poor bastard with bulging capacitors.
Those Maxtor thinline drives won’t last long either