DELL GX270 Nichicon boards

[kfs0jf5]

Hello all - I'm a newbie here and need some help regarding Nichicon system failuers... I figured where else but 'BadCaps' could I get this info from.. I want to ask a couple of questions.. apologize in advance if you've answered these questions a hundred times before:

1) Our office environment is pretty much exclusive to the DELL Optiplex line (Gx260, Gx270, etc etc).. We were advised by DELL (2 weeks ago) of a Nichicon system board issue on the GX270 model.. Reading message boards, it sounds as if this has been a known issue for a number of months (years even) throughout the industry. Can anyone out there confirm for me when this issue was brought to the attention of DELL Inc?

2) My second question.... My DELL acct rep is telling me it's an "industry-wide" issue affecting all Tier 1 PC companies such as HP, Compaq, IBM etc.. But I have not seen anything out on the boards supporting this argument.. Can anyone confirm that it is affecting companies other than DELL? If so, where can I read about it please.. Has Gartner released any white papers on this issue?
Thanks in advance guys
Much appreciated.
kfs

[willawake]

sorry i moved your thread to an appropriate section

the issue is to do with Nichicon HN(M) and HM(M) series capacitors which fail early. Previously Nichicon was known to be a trusted brand. It has been indicated by posters here that the failures were from caps with date codes of early 2003 and that later Dell boards and also the replacement boards used good quality Rubycon capacitors instead.

the same issue is affecting various intel original motherboards which use the same capacitors. I believe that Intel like Dell did not expect to see fails from Nichicon caps. There is an intel document on the issue but it does not name nichicon. No Dell document has been brought to our attention here.

There have been reports here of HP/Compaq and IBM boards using well known crap caps so i would not put them in the same category as Intel or Dell.

[DogPatch1149]

For what it's worth...

KFS, I'm a contract technician with Qualxserv that does warranty repair on mostly Dell and IBM machines. I know that at least two models of IBM - one of the ThinkCentres and the NetVista A40, if memory serves - had some problems back in 2004 with caps dying.

About the GX270s - since mid-December 2004, I've replaced 39 of them at a single site, and there are 11 more known bad that are awaiting service calls to be generated. What's really scary is that the site has about 300+ machines...and they're all GX270s purchased at exactly the same time as the ones I've fixed.

On a slightly different tack - didn't FIC (1st Mainboard) have some problems back in the late 90's/early 2000's with AGP power regulation that were caused by bad caps? I'm thinking of the PA-2013 board when certain Voodoo AGP cards were installed...the large amount of smoke that would leave the case was pretty cool to look at...

[Baywatch Material]

Cheap Shit

Seems to be the same problem in the UK.....

Again another I.T contractor who never seems to have a day off ringing the "Dell Golden Support" for a GX270 motherboard due to blown caps!

I'm thinking Dell have found themselves a very cheap supplier and love to cut corners!

Anyone who is reading this. This is why dell can do such cheapo machines and no-one can beat them on price.

If you want the cheap option then you know where its at!

[Baywatch Material]

It's gonna be alright!

Dell seem to be stood in the darkness, afraid to step into the light!

Here in the UK.....Don't you worry, it's gonna be alright....coz we're always ready we wont let one blow up onsite!

[CihaPet]

Small Form Factor

Has anyone noticed a trend if it is seen more in SFF models as opposed to towers?
The SFFs seem to run a bit hot for my taste. And if they have bad caps on top of that, this is definitely NOT good!

[Topcat]

Has anyone noticed a trend if it is seen more in SFF models as opposed to towers?
The SFFs seem to run a bit hot for my taste. And if they have bad caps on top of that, this is definitely NOT good!

SFF systems do obviously run hotter than a full tower system, obviously because there's FAR less airflow in the case. Of course this will make all the caps run hotter as well. If they're shoddy caps to begin with, the extra heat just hastens the inevitable, and they fail sooner than later. The system would have failed eventually though. Even high quality caps that are overheated will fail. With high quality caps, a SFF case won't retain enough heat to cause this on its own, unless you have it stuffed in a drawer, and it absolutely can't breath. Shuttle seems to be the worse of the SFF failures, I have an endless stream of them flowing through here.

[japlytic]

Re: DELL GX270 Nichicon boards

I've found a later build GX270 system unit (It was ordered because they needed another in the room I have my class in at TAFE), which had Rubycon capacitors (not bulging! ) The GX270s with Nichicon capacitors have a certain number in the Service Tag (when I get a chance, I will list that number in the Service Tag).

Why didn't Dell announce a product quality recall?

[japlytic]

Re: DELL GX270 Nichicon boards

One of the service tags in the Nichicon boards should contain "Y791".
(They were all padlocked today since someone stole some memory from one in another room)