"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...
Tom Gardner wrote:

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...
Karl Townsend wrote:

My other computer just died... FWIW, it just completed a 2000 trip. Ran
fine
before the move. Nothing after.

When you push the button in front to boot the computer, the fans just spin
for a second and nothing else happens. Any suggestions on what might be
wrong?

Its an older Dell P4 2 Ghz model.

Karl

It's old enough that you may have defective electrolytic capacitors
on the motherboard. They caps near the CPU have to be low ESR, and a
lot of chinese caps were made with defective electrolyte. I am still
seeing flaky motherboards with bad or leaking caps.


Do you often see the caps split open?


Some split at the relief stamped into the top of the cans, others blow
the rubber seal at the bottom. Al lot stop working before they blow,
but dome the top of the can, instead of splitting on the relief lines.
some guys make a living repairing out of warranty motherboards:

http://www.badcaps.net/pages.php?vid=5


--
My sig file can beat up your sig file!

Thanks for the interesting site! I've had caps blow and sound like a gun shot.