Dead Hardware...

[Tom]

I've just did a tally of the hardware I've had die after I moved into that last apartment.. 2 80GB hard drives, 2 256MB DDR DIMMs, and now a DC-DC board in my mini-itx box. I just found a partially melted power receptacle, and a rather scorched plug.



That place has not only cost me a little sanity, but at least $300 in PC hardware... I have to say, make sure your hardware isn't running for long periods of time unsupervised in an environment that may allow the said hardware to reach unstable temperatures



I swear the room temperature in that place hit and exceeded at least 30c on several occasions.



Now I get to replace a dc-dc board, at least its an excuse to install a beefier board. (currently, its a 60W )

[Mr. Analog]

It sometimes depends on the parts too, my old dual celeron BP6 has had nearly constant uptime since spring 2001, nothing huge or overtly intense in it mind you I crammed it full of fans and clean it out four or five times a year. I've had to change the power supply twice and I burned out a UPC (dang brown power!). Hardware failure always sucks.



Co-incedentally that year I burned out two vid cards on my day-to-day PC (that summer was the heat wave summer...).

[Tom]

Guess what I think I found on my via EPIA M 10000 Nemiah board?





If you guessed two bulging capacitors, you guessed right!



And yes, this is the same system with the melting PSU. And I also figured out that if I plug in the rear fans, it'll put enough stress on the already damaged psu, that the plug starts glowing! And this is the same psu I've had since I got the case.. So now I'll have to RMA the board (worth $200), and get a new PSU kit (worth $100+). So yay. I hope I'll have some money to burn on this.

[Mr. Analog]

I have a 240 watt psu sitting on the floor if you want it...

[Tom]

Would it happen to fit in my Morex 2699R case?



I'll have to look around to see if I have a spare ATX psu, and see if I can temporarily put it in my spare ATX case.



I appreciate the offer though, and might snag it, if it turns out if I need it



I really do like that Morex case though. Spent through the nose for that system.. 100 for the case, 100 for the slim line DVD Drive, 200 for the motherboard, etc.

[Tom]

I'd actually love to replace my current DVD ROM in that box with something like this. Wish I had 150 for that and 100 for the new PSU...

[Tom]

Just got RMA confirmation for my board. Seems this is a VERY common problem for via mini-itx boards when they still used "GSC" capacitors. And by "very", I mean EVERY SINGLE via EPIA mini-itx board has failed within a year or two due to it.



So if you have a EPIA board, and bought it more than a few months ago, check it for even slight signs of bulging, or if you've had odd issues with the ethernet port not initializing correctly, or the bios not POSTing, send it in, or if you dont feel like it, just replace all the 1000-1500mF caps.



Good news though, seems all new EPIA boards use a different vendor's capacitors. Should be fine now.