Warning: I nearly wrote off a whole laptop because of a bad $3 capacitor

Had a Dell XPS come in last week that wouldn't power on at all, not even a light. I was ready to call it a dead board until I spotted a tiny bulge on a single capacitor near the power jack. Swapped it out, and it booted right up. Anyone else had a simple part save a whole unit from the scrap pile?

3 comments

3 Comments

jones.mason2mo ago

Honestly, I used to think a dead power light meant a total loss. I'd just start looking for a new board right away. Seeing a fix that cheap and easy is a real wake-up call to check the small stuff first. Makes me wonder how many laptops I wrote off that just needed a new cap.

nancy_garcia632mo ago

Tbh @jones.mason, I get where you're coming from, but I've had the opposite happen way too often. You spend hours checking every little part only to find the main chip is fried. I had an old ThinkPad that showed zero signs of life, swapped the cap and it did nothing. Ended up being a huge waste of a Saturday. Sometimes that dead light really does mean the board is just gone for good.

the_beth12d ago

Man, this is exactly how everything works anymore. My washing machine was acting up, drum wouldn't spin and it was making this godawful noise. Looked up the error code online and it pointed to a bad capacitor on the control board. Twenty bucks and a soldering iron later it works better than it did new. Same with my car actually. Check engine light was on, mechanic wanted to replace the whole fuel pump assembly. Nope, just a corroded ground wire I cleaned with baking soda and water. People throw away so much stuff that just needs a tiny cheap fix. We've all been trained to replace instead of repair and it's costing us a fortune.