About to purchase Caps for Dell SX280

[OwlServ]

Hey,

Just about to purchase some Rubycon 6.3v 820uf capacitors for a Dell SX280. The problem is that most of the time the hard drive is detected in the BIOS, but Windows XP and Ubuntu setup won't detect the drive, even in SATA compatibility mode. Additionally, the hard drive is often not listed as a boot option and when it is, it hangs for a few seconds and displays a disk read error, with the drive light remaining solid. The IDE controller for the DVDROM drive seems to work fine.

I've found one or two capacitors of the same rating that may be the cause of the problem. Is it possible that a bad capacitor that is bulging very slightly would cause a problem like this, or is the problem related to the drive controller itself? All of the other capacitors visually seem fine and are mixed Rubycon and Nichicon, if that means anything. Could it have been recapped at some point?

Just want to make sure there isn't an underlying problem before purchasing the capacitors.

Thanks!

[severach]

Re: About to purchase Caps for Dell SX280

On this SX280 Phrizbee there are 3 bulged Nichicon HM 2200uf 6.3 and 1 bulged Panasonic FJ 820uf 6.3v. All are in the vicinity of the north bridge and south bridge. A flaky SATA controller is possible. Other boards where the only bad caps are in Vcore by the CPU should not have SATA problems.

The amount of bulge doesn't correlate well to the degree of failure. Caps with large bulges can still show pretty good on a meter and caps with small to no bulges can be completely gone. Only an ESR meter can tell with any certainty.

Mark this day in history. That's my first ever Panasonic failure from heat. I thought it would desolder itself before bulging. If an SX280 is packing enough heat to cap a Panasonic, capacitors nearby should have been vaporized. No doubt others will lose their Panasonic virginity viewing this picture.

[momaka]

Re: About to purchase Caps for Dell SX280

Is it possible that a bad capacitor that is bulging very slightly would cause a problem like this, or is the problem related to the drive controller itself?

Bulging (regardless of how little or how much) indicates the capacitor is about to fail or has already failed. Better get it replaced soon.

Mark this day in history. That's my first ever Panasonic failure from heat... No doubt others will lose their Panasonic virginity viewing this picture.

Just did. I thought Panasonic were indestructible. Dell really must have worked hard on the design on those GX280 in order to make it cook Pannies.
Is it the picture, or has the Panny really blown its bung from the bottom?

[OwlServ]

Re: About to purchase Caps for Dell SX280

I'm attaching some pictures of the probably bad capacitor over the 3v battery with this message. I did not see the other capacitor when I took this photo as I had not disassembled the computer. The other capacitor is over the southbridge(?), same voltage and capacitance as the one around the 3v battery.

I think I'll go ahead with purchasing some new capacitors for this unit. Should I also replace the large ones just under the southbridge (when looking from the front of the computer) ? They look perfectly fine but there may be something wrong with them that I don't know about without taking a reading.

[Uranium-235]

Re: About to purchase Caps for Dell SX280

the one next to your cmos battery? looks like the vrm for your southbridge, Id imagine that could be your hard drive detection issue right there

[TBoneit]

Re: About to purchase Caps for Dell SX280

Just a thought, I had one of these SX280s here at work where I had to pull the motherboard and I re-soldered the 4pin drive power connector and the SATA socket on the motherboard then the hard drive worked again.

As long as it pulled to do the capacitors why not hit those failure points too? The 4pin gets a bit of wiggling pulling the power cable if it is stiff.

[tss1961]

Re: About to purchase Caps for Dell SX280

I have not read this entire forum, so excuse me if this has been answered...

Where is a good "one-stop-shopping" place to buy the best rated caps?

I need 2 each of the following for my Jacuzzi Spa control board: 3300uf25v, 150uf35v and 10uf50v. All but the 10uf caps are bulging and of the CapXon brand (black w/white lettering).

I am a computer tech but my main expertise is hardware diagnosing and replacement, and fixing OS glitches. My co-worker is the shop's micro-mini board fixer, he will do the job for me.

[tss1961]

Re: About to purchase Caps for Dell SX280

Nevermind, I have now found the answer to my question in the "READ FIRST" section. My bad.