Bad cap?

[gamerman1233]

Hi everyone I have a dell e520 and I think it has a bad cap on the motherboard. I have been getting bsods on it every few days. I have tried swapping out the ram and hard drive, and I still get them. I was looking over the motherboard today and I think I see a cap that is leaking. I took a few pics of the cap in question. Thanks for any help.

[dmill89]

Re: Bad cap?

Yep that cap is definitely bad. That looks like a UCC (United Chemi Con/ Nippon Chemi Con) KZG or KZJ. In general UCC makes good caps unfortunately these two now discontinued (though still somewhat available) series of caps have a known flaw in the electrolyte formula that causes premature failure. Nichicon HM/HN would be a good choice for replacement (HM for KZG HN for KZJ). You should replace all UCC KZG and KZJ caps on this board since if one failed the others will likely fail in the near future.

[mockingbird]

Re: Bad cap?

That's a KZG. KZJ has black gold case. It's also worthwhile opening up the power supply. Dell likes to use Delta PSUs with cheap LTec caps.

[c_hegge]

Re: Bad cap?

^
Delta actually get away with it. They seem to be very good at getting junk caps to last forever. That's not to say that Rubycon wouldn't be preferable, though.

[mockingbird]

Re: Bad cap?

As the LTec caps age in the Delta PSUs, the system starts to really bog down and is noticeably slower... They "last", but you're not really getting to use the full potential of the system.

[gamerman1233]

Re: Bad cap?

Thank you for all of the replies I have been trying to figure this out for months. I even looked for a bad cap a few months ago and didn't see that. So I don't know if I missed it or what. Just glad I finally found the problem.

[jamesfreddie]

Re: Bad cap?

^
Delta actually get away with it. They seem to be very good at getting junk caps to last forever. That's not to say that Rubycon wouldn't be preferable, though.

I have a Dell PSU from the same machine sat in my office waiting for a recap has about 10 bad caps.