Faulty power supply stopped card reader from working before failure

[japlytic]

On a client's Dell, I have noticed a problem with the card reader and a couple of months later, it would not start.
The motherboard Power light illuminates, so I decided to take a voltage reading of the +5VSB rail, which was way down at +3.3V and upon opening the Hipro power supply, I found most of the low voltage electrolytics have bulged (Teapo and LTEC).
Replacing the power supply fixed this problem, and surprisingly, the card reader started to work again as well.

Perhaps the card reader was a bit too sensitive to power supply noise (or the rail dropping over time)?

[ben7]

Re: Faulty power supply stopped card reader from working before failure

Definitely, I've seen first hand bad capacitors causing computers to run slow, but not crash. Then sometimes it happens the other way around. (not speeding up the computer, just crashing..lol)