[rescue] Slightly OT: Bad Cap Saga

[Curious George]

Hi,

--- On Sun, 8/17/08, Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at verizon.net> wrote:

> At $WORK we have a stack of *about* 100 Dell GX240-era
> machines (pretty decent P4 machines with a single on-board
> SATA connector) lying in wait for similar models to die with
> bad capacitors around campus. I wonder if the ones sitting
> idle are just as likely to fail as are simialr machines
> in-service?

What makes you think they *wouldn't*?  I.e., were they supplied by
Dell *explicitly* as replacements for machines with "problems"?
Or, did someone just run out and order an extra hundred to have
on hand "just in case"?

I *think* most of the capacitor failures that I have seen are
brought about by *use*.  I.e., sitting idle (unpowered) doesn't
harm the devices.

But, I can't be sure of that!  E.g., if the problem was caused
by something in the manufacturing process that *contaminates*
the components (e.g., a bad wash), then it's possible that
their actual service life *is* shortened despite being in storage
for that time...

(sigh)  This is just too complex an issue to dismiss as being
*all* tied to an "espionage event"...