exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

We got in late last night, gone midnight, so didn't do a lot other than go to bed and sleep.

I woke up this morning and headed down to make a cuppa, and on the way past my wife's study, went to power on her PC.

Or not as it turned our :pullhair: :pullhair:

The power light just flashed, the fan would spin up and down and the power light on the USB powered speakers was pulsing too. I'm thinking dead PSU, trouble is it's a slimline one in a low profile case.

OK, so I get a spare PSU and it powers up to the BIOS screen, so good.

I popped the top off the PSU and had a look for anything obvious and found this fella with a bit of a dome:


So pulled it out, and it's this:


So let's test:


OK, so you're not capacitoring as advertised then!

I'm assuming it was a 'starter' cap for the PSU, but had failed over time and didn't reveal itself until we went away and switched off, and since the machine is normally left running we wouldn't have noticed until we'd powered it off.

Luckily I had some identical replacements and replacing it did the trick. No obvious issues with any of the other caps, but this one looked like it was in a warm spot.

Anyway, she's happy now so that's all good.

Ah, yes. the great capacitor death isn't over yet.

stephen_usher wrote: 13 Jul 2024 18:18 Ah, yes. the great capacitor death isn't over yet.

No. No it isn't

I think electronics goes into a sulk when you don't use it for a few days. It gets jealous and makes sure you don't leave it unattended again..

exxos wrote: 13 Jul 2024 23:47 I think electronics goes into a sulk when you don't use it for a few days. It gets jealous and makes sure you don't leave it unattended again..

Very true in this case...