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That day I fixed 3 identical Dell Optiplex power issues in a row
Last Tuesday I had three Dell Optiplex 3020s come in from the same office, all with the 'no power' symptom. First one I swapped the PSU, easy fix. Second one turned out to be a swollen capacitor on the motherboard, had to recap it. Third one? A tiny piece of foil was shorting the power button header. Weirdest streak of my week. Anyone else run into a weird run of identical problems that turned out to be totally different causes?
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the_olivia14d ago
That first one with the bad capacitor reminds me of a run I had with some old HP Compaqs. Three of them came in from a school, all dead. First one was a bad PSU, second one had a blown cap on the board near the CPU socket, and the third one had the power switch wire completely chewed through by a mouse. The school had a mouse problem in that storage closet. I had to solder in a new switch wire and patch the case with electrical tape.
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the_sam14d ago
Yeah @the_olivia that third one takes the cake, a mouse chewing through a power switch wire is some next level pest control problem. Makes me wonder how many other machines in that closet had hidden surprises waiting to short out.
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taraross14d ago
That mouse chewing through the switch wire is honestly the most creative failure I've ever heard of.
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