Hello, I'm new to the forum so I'm not sure if this is in the right place, I apologize if it is not. I have a 5-year-old Gateway PC with a proprietary PSU which I believe has weak/dried out/dead caps. The system is used lightly and has ran fine without any issue for 5 years, but just a few days ago I took it apart to add a wireless PCI card. I unplugged power from the PSU, but the LED on the motherboard stayed on as it always does for a few seconds before power fully drains from the PSU. I don't know why, but just for the hell of it I pressed the power button to drain the power from the PSU. For a split second, the fans turned on and then everything died. Now that I think about it, this must have been bad for the PSU. Well anyway, installed the PCI card and plugged the computer back in and I got nothing, no power no green LED on the motherboard, lights out nobody's home. Uh-oh! I tried many power cables and outlets, but that was not the problem, however when putting in a known good spare PSU, the system booted right up so that meant the problem was with the PSU
I took the PSU apart, dusted it, looked for any cracked solder joints, nothing, so I put it back together and went to sleep. In the morning, I plugged it in again and it worked perfectly. I thought "WTF??" but the system was working fine so I left it like that. A few days later (yesterday) I accidentally unplugged the PSU from the wall. Upon plugging it back in, lights out nobody's home again just like last time. I let it sit overnight, but thsi time it didn't spring back to life the next morning. However, I tried it again a few hours later and it worked. It seems every time the PSU loses power, it must be left to sit for several hours before it will work again. Could this be dried out or dead caps? The PSU is 5 years old. I would just replace the PSU itself, but it is proprietary so any other PSU would have to be left hanging outside the case. So... dead caps?
I took the PSU apart, dusted it, looked for any cracked solder joints, nothing, so I put it back together and went to sleep. In the morning, I plugged it in again and it worked perfectly. I thought "WTF??" but the system was working fine so I left it like that. A few days later (yesterday) I accidentally unplugged the PSU from the wall. Upon plugging it back in, lights out nobody's home again just like last time. I let it sit overnight, but thsi time it didn't spring back to life the next morning. However, I tried it again a few hours later and it worked. It seems every time the PSU loses power, it must be left to sit for several hours before it will work again. Could this be dried out or dead caps? The PSU is 5 years old. I would just replace the PSU itself, but it is proprietary so any other PSU would have to be left hanging outside the case. So... dead caps?
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