markper

We purchased 17 Dell Optiplex GX270 workstations several years ago as part of a system installation, and immediately, we started to see issues with the units locking up; screen goes black, no response. Dell service had us pop the hood, and look at the capacitors. On all these that malfunctioned, the capacitors were bulged on top, some were leaking this cool yellow substance. Dell said it was a bad bunch of capacitors, and has been replacing the motherboards without question. We have had to replace the boards twice on several. I called into Dell yesterday, and they said it might be the heat sink fan or power supply fan. Has anyone else dealt with this, and what was determined to be the problem.

Sazar

The cap issue was known and Dell was replacing affected systems, as they obviously did with yours.

Besides the bad caps, what other reason do you have for replacing the systems? Did you have repeat issues of lock-ups and blank screens? Or was it a different issue?

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markper

We are just replacing the boards as they fail. The question I was posting was, could the root of the problem be defective fans that are not providing adequate cooling, which is blowing the caps. On at least two occasions, we have noted the excess vibration with these due to a fan running at high rpm. I am concerned that we might be missing the overall problem.

kcnychief

I had seen this a lot with GX270's at a place I used to work at, the capacitors were causing the motherobards to overheat as a whole as the electronics were not circulating correctly. We had even more of a problem with the SX270 line.

Lucky you only had 17, we had several hundred

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Sazar

It was an issue with the caps as far as I had heard. The fans running too fast might be a sign of inadequate ventillation. Typically opti's are pretty durable little babies that also happen to be relatively quiet, they should not be vibrating.

If they are, refer that to the tech and they will be able to go over it with you.

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Electronic Punk

Got lots of these at work and it seemed the capacitors on the mobo were not good, check the tops and see if they are flat or have actually expanded at the top.

This affected alot of our GX270s

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kcnychief

Thank god the GX280's weren't affected much.

Off topic a bit, GX620's = FTW!!

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Electronic Punk

yeah we have a few 620s, would have been using one but was missing something I needed (can't recall what)

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Sazar

I have a 620 I am using right now.

My work folding machine lol.

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Electronic Punk

We are sending our current D620s back I think

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Sazar

Ah, I was talking bout the opti

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kcnychief

Optiplex 620's are definitely nice

I really dig the new case design with the diagnostic LED's infront. Also like how FDD's are no longer standard

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