tellietubbie

Thanks for your reply Dalo. I agree with what you say...I just try to make things last as long as possible and if replacing the caps does solve the issue then to me thats preferable to slinging it on a dump somewhere. Farnell want £8 for the caps so there's little to lose by trying it.I'll post again once the machine is reassembled. Thanks again for your comments. tt

Hi all. A couple of days ago while surfing the net my pc froze,(mouse no response) so I tried ctrl alt del in the hope that taskmanager would appear and let me close the browser.no response and then the whole thing died.It wouldn't switch back on so I decided to take a look inside suspecting the psu.PSU fan wasn't working so I removed the unit from the pc case then put a link from the green to black on the 20 pin plug.The fan started up ok and all voltages measured correctly using a dvm.I then turned my attention to the on/off switch on the front of the pc case, this operated correctly using the continuity setting on the dvm. Its at this point that I'm unsure as to what the fault is but I suspect there must be a latch of some type on the motherboard which is operated by the main switch I tested.(just a wild guess!) Given that the psu operates and the on/off switch operates I started looking at the motherboard and saw a total of 5 electrolytic capacitors which are bulging at the top, a problem I've met before and now the focus of my attention.All of these components are in the same area and suggest to me "power supply components". My plan at the moment is to replace these capacitors in the hope that the fault will disappear and to that end I now have the motherboard out of the case. My first problem concerns the values of these components because the writing is very difficult to read (I have vision problems). There are 2 values which appear to me to be ; 1. 16v 1500uF 2. 63v 3300uF My concern is with the 63v which I am aware could be 6.3v. Is it likely that pc makers would use a capacitor with such a high voltage rating? My second problem is the logic of assuming that the fault lies with these components, am I on the right track or am I potentially disgracing the good name of the species? The system specs are as follows. American Megatrends M825 on motherboard AMD 2400 processor. A crap video board.But good enough! 512 meg memory Floppy drive. dvd rewriter (sony) cd drive. First hard drive 160 Gb (maxtor) Second drive 80 Gb (maxtor) Operating system is Win XP pro sp3 This is a system built some 8 years ago so no manufacturer as such.Other than me! I looked for the capacitors online and found them at Farnell's site but won't order them until I'm a bit more confident with the "plan of action". So if anyone could help me with this I would be very gratefull and of course....virtual beers on me!!! tt, ( Peter)

Hi everyone. Name's Peter.(tellietubbie 'cos viewed from the side I'm told thats what I look like):D