How do I know if a product has "bad caps" (without taking apart)?

[jmetrail]

Hi all,

We all know what brands of capacitors are bad and which are good.

But is there any "go to" way of finding out what capacitors are in a product without having to take it apart and look ourselves?

Owners manuals are practically useless. Even service/repair manuals obtained from the manufacturer usually only tell the capacitor specs, but not the brand. Rarely does a manufacturer advertise using a particular brand of caps in their products.

Are there readily available parts list for electronics that I am missing?

I'm particularly interested in knowing which electrolytic caps are in the Dell Optiplex 7010 motherboard, and in its power supply. I know previous models of Optiplex had problems with Nichicon caps, but I haven't been able to find anything that will tell me the brand used in the 7010.

Thanks in advance for your tips!

[stj]

Re: How do I know if a product has "bad caps" (without taking apart)?

dell uses a number of different company's to make psu's - so you cant tell without looking.

[petehall347]

Re: How do I know if a product has "bad caps" (without taking apart)?

removing the covers is the exciting bit

[ReeceyBurger123]

Re: How do I know if a product has "bad caps" (without taking apart)?

removing the covers is the exciting bit

+1

[dmill89]

Re: How do I know if a product has "bad caps" (without taking apart)?

removing the covers is the exciting bit

^This, The OptiPlex 7010 is new enough that it uses polymer caps on the VRM and most other "critical" areas on the motherboard (the SFF systems use more polymers than the mini-towers). With a mix of Panasonic, UCC (including potentially the problematic KZG/KZJ series), Rubycon, and Nichicon electrolytics in other areas. Dell uses these pretty interchangeably (depending which supplier offered the lowest price on the specific spec/value at the time) so the only way to know what is in yours is to open it. Same goes for PSUs, dell uses Delta, Lite-On, Flextronics, HiPro (Chicony), and sometimes Bestec, and again has been known to uses different brand PSUs in the same model/series of PC, so you have to open it to find out which you have.

[diif]

Re: How do I know if a product has "bad caps" (without taking apart)?

removing the covers is the exciting bit

Unless it's a plasma TV, then you might as well just juggle knives and broken glass.

[televizora]

Re: How do I know if a product has "bad caps" (without taking apart)?

Some of the best SFF PSU-s are made by Delta Electronics.
By the way, most of the time, if there is a problem with capacitors, the device as a whole works unstable. Sometimes it may switch on, but when it's cold - to refuse to work.
I used to use and I am still using hot air gun to diagnose capacitors that are not bulging. When you heat the capacitor, because it has temperature variation of the parameters, the device begins to work properly. Then you know which you have to replace.
Without taking off the covers - you can only guess.

[cpt.charlie]

Re: How do I know if a product has "bad caps" (without taking apart)?

As a general rule, all consumer grade electronics are suspect of using cheap capacitors.

[dmill89]

Re: How do I know if a product has "bad caps" (without taking apart)?

As a general rule, all consumer grade electronics are suspect of using cheap capacitors.

Yes, but an OptiPlex 7010 is not "consumer grade" electronics, those are business systems. The only place I've really seen "cheap" (well mid-tier) capacitors in a business grade Dell are in some of the Power supplies (L-Tec in Deltas, Teapo/Capxon/Elite in the Lite-On, Flextronics, and HiPro units), though since these are well-built PSUs aside from the caps they still usually last the standard 3-5 year business replacement cycle (so they're generally only an issue if you're buying used equipment). The caps on the motherboards tend to be from good brands, but sometimes bad series (older Nichicon HM/HN, UCC KZG/KZJ).