Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

[choffman41]

I like the old Dell optiplex GX's but hate the unreliability due to the bad caps issue. Are any of the more recent (but not newest) immune to this problem? Seems like they would have gotten a handle on it by now....

[Topcat]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

You can't even say you get what you pay for with Dell.... The Dimension is the low-end, Optiplex is the middle of the road, Precision is the high-end workstation, and the XPS is supposed to be the top-end in the desktop performance world for Dell.....all of which i've had to replace caps on. Dell poweredge servers are the only exception I've seen to this, they're most all polymer. The only model that was the exception to this was teh sc400, saw quite a few of those with bad wet caps.....but that's been a long time ago, they were older P4 systems.

My only guess would be that Dell really really likes obvious planned obsolescence.....most don't repair their bad cap dells, they replace.

[ratdude747]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

You can't even say you get what you pay for with Dell.... The Dimension is the low-end, Optiplex is the middle of the road, Precision is the high-end workstation, and the XPS is supposed to be the top-end in the desktop performance world for Dell.....all of which i've had to replace caps on. Dell poweredge servers are the only exception I've seen to this, they're most all polymer. The only model that was the exception to this was teh sc400, saw quite a few of those with bad wet caps.....but that's been a long time ago, they were older P4 systems.

My only guess would be that Dell really really likes obvious planned obsolescence.....most don't repair their bad cap dells, they replace.

exeption to the rule is laptops, these latitudes are very well built... you can't beat an all magnesium frame.

[Topcat]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

^
I guess I havent seen one of those.....but FWIW, I have an Inspiron 5100 that was given to me with a bad motherboard. The inside of that was all plastic... Bought a used motherboard off fleabay for 50 bucks, and I've used it since. That's been 5 years ago. it's a P4 2.6GHz 1gb RAM, and a 160gb ide hdd. Added a wireless adapter and it does what I need with power to spare. Not bad for a $50.00 laptop! Ohh, I did buy a couple batteries for it.....don't remember what those cost....but they weren't much.

[ratdude747]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

^
I guess I havent seen one of those.....but FWIW, I have an Inspiron 5100 that was given to me with a bad motherboard. The inside of that was all plastic... Bought a used motherboard off fleabay for 50 bucks, and I've used it since. That's been 5 years ago. it's a P4 2.6GHz 1gb RAM, and a 160gb ide hdd. Added a wireless adapter and it does what I need with power to spare. Not bad for a $50.00 laptop! Ohh, I did buy a couple batteries for it.....don't remember what those cost....but they weren't much.

inspirons are junk. latitudes are much better.

[Topcat]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

inspirons are junk.

Tell that to the one I've been running since 2005....and it was used when I got it.... it's circa 2003 I think. It doesn't owe me nothin if it died tomorrow....but this thread was about bad caps in Dell's, which omits notebooks...so I think that concludes that portion of the discussion.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

I have a poweredge 1800 with some KGZ's around the PCI slots :/

[Ami Sapphire]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

Tell that to the one I've been running since 2005....and it was used when I got it.... it's circa 2003 I think. It doesn't owe me nothin if it died tomorrow....but this thread was about bad caps in Dell's, which omits notebooks...so I think that concludes that portion of the discussion.

I had one since 2001, and it still runs today. It is an old Inspiron 8100. Just played some video games on it with my sis today. That, and Dad owns an Inspiron 1100 from 2004; still running. [The one that uses a desktop CPU. xD I only knew this because I tried its CPU out in my Dimension 8200.] /off-topic

On topic, though, I haven't heard much in relation to bad caps on more recent Dell desktops, not even on another forum I frequently lurk.

Poweredge 1800 is from mid-2000s, isn't it?

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

The toaster ovens [mini cases] will have trouble of one kind or other until they are 100% poly.
.

[ratdude747]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

Tell that to the one I've been running since 2005....and it was used when I got it.... it's circa 2003 I think. It doesn't owe me nothin if it died tomorrow....but this thread was about bad caps in Dell's, which omits notebooks...so I think that concludes that portion of the discussion.

i meant compared to a latitude.

better than most anyway.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

I actually find GX260's usually pretty cool with mostly good caps, though they're limited as far as memory (ddr 266 only) and cpu (max 533 2.8ghz)

[momaka]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

I actually find GX260's usually pretty cool with mostly good caps, though they're limited as far as memory (ddr 266 only) and cpu (max 533 2.8ghz)

+1
We have lot's of these at work (the regular desktops, not the small boxes). Some of them have good caps, others have Chemicon KZG and Nichicon HM/HN with bad date codes, but not one has let us down (okay, 1 did let us down, but that was due to a bad PSU).
And yes, they are indeed limited. Still good enough for office work, though.

The Dimension 3000 is also good (I'm sitting on one right now). Most of these were built after the Nichicon HM/HN fiasco, and they also have some polys around the VRM.
Of course these are even more limited than the GX260 - no AGP slot, 2 memory slots, and the motherboard won't take 1GB memory sticks.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

I actually find GX260's usually pretty cool with mostly good caps, though they're limited as far as memory (ddr 266 only) and cpu (max 533 2.8ghz)

SHH! - Don't tell the 64-bit guys. They'll have a hissy fit.
.

[ratdude747]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

SHH! - Don't tell the 64-bit guys. They'll have a hissy fit.
.

now, now, i only have 1 64 bit machine in my possesion (2 if you count an imac g5), there is another in the house being run as 32 bit.

64 bit is better but 32 is not useless by any means.

[smason]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

exeption to the rule is laptops, these latitudes are very well built... you can't beat an all magnesium frame.

I'll try to get photos this week. We had someone drop a new Latitude 6510 and it landed on the corner. Broke the magnesium case, looks very odd.


On the subject of Dell, just in the final stages of configuring one of our new servers. Dell PowerEdge R810 4 6-core processors (that's 24 cores) and 64GB of RAM. Holy crap does this thing perform.

The boss needed a new Windows Sharepoint server for testing, so I installed Server 2008 R2 in a VM, took about 15 minutes including patches and reboots.
He was like "how the hell did you get that done so fast?"
I had forgotten to allocate enough RAM, so when he said it needed more, I said log off for a sec. I shut it down, configured 4GB and an extra CPU, and fired it up again. That took about 65 seconds. I think I'm gonna like this box.
Gonna load it up with Exchange 2010, Citrix Xenapp 6, probably move our corporate Linux server to it as well.

[smason]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

I like the old Dell optiplex GX's but hate the unreliability due to the bad caps issue. Are any of the more recent (but not newest) immune to this problem? Seems like they would have gotten a handle on it by now....

The Optiplex 745 were a very solid performer. We've retired most of ours (4 year cycle on Desktops here, 3 on Laptops) but kept a few as utility boxes.
My second desktop (app testing, packaging) is still a 745, performs very well.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...t=Optiplex+745

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...t=Optiplex+745

[smason]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

Interesting. I should note that ours were all full-size, so that may be the difference.

[momaka]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

The Optiplex 745 were a very solid performer.

Now how did I forget about that one?... We have quite a few of those at work too. Still going strong and won't be replaced any time soon. I even did RAM upgrades on them last summer. All are nicely chugging along with 2 GB now. Their chipset runs really really hot though - enough to burn.
We also have some Optiplex GX520's - basically the same thing as the 745, but with half the memory slots and no PCI-E. Probably some other things too, I didn't pay that much attention.
Unfortunately, some of the above are getting replaced with HP Compaq DC5000, and those have failing capacitors of all sorts all over the place (even Rubycons). Ugh.

[gerg]

Re: Any Dells not notorious for bad caps?

I have seen bad caps on a couple of poweredge servers including 2600's 1800's 600's 700's and 800's. I would guess and say maybe only 3 or 4 boards with bad caps. Not bad when I have 350 of them in service....... Other then that I have around 200 gx270's and as they come back in i redo the caps on all of them and send them back into service after testing everything. I think every company is plagued with some issue or another but Dell I believe uses the lowest quality components.