PCs plagued by bad capacitors
Do you own a Dell Optiplex, HP xw series workstation, or iMac G5? Do you have video problems or random, but prevalent, Blue Screens of Death and shutdowns? If so, then you may be entitled to a motherboard replacement by these manufacturers. The aforementioned companies installed motherboards into these machines that had defective capacitors from a manufacturer known as Nichicon. These machines would have been produced from April 2003 to March 2004.
Last week, Dell announced it was going to take a $300 million financial charge on its earnings to cover costs associated with the replacement of motherboards with faulty capacitors in some of its Optiplex workstations. The Dell system boards in question were manufactured from April 2003 to March 2004, according to several contract computer repair firms that are starting to replace the systems. The Round Rock, Texas, computer maker is expected to provide more details during its quarterly earnings call on Thursday. As Dell executives deal with the fallout from the bad capacitors, they can at least take some comfort in knowing they are hardly the only big PC makers to have dealt with the problem. In fact, PCs from Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer and other PCs using Intel motherboards have all faced similar issues, according to the companies, contractors and several online bulletin boards. At issue are faulty capacitors on motherboards that store power and regulate voltage. Defective capacitors found in the Dell Optiplex workstations, some Apple iMac G5s, HP xw-series workstations made in 2004 and PCs with the Intel D865GBF motherboard have been found to bulge, pop, leak and crust over, causing video failure and periodic system shutdowns.
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