Boris wrote:


BINGO!!!

I have 6 bulging, and some starting to leak, capacitors. Here's
pictures of 5 of them:

https://postimg.org/gallery/2kvyq5leo/

Yes, I do remember reading about the capacitor scandal many years ago.
And I remember being a little reluctant to purchase any desktop at that
time, but I did. I bought the E510 in March 2006.

I hadn't thought about this issue until you brought it up. Even when I
thoroughly cleaned out the interior of the machine, I didn't notice the
bad caps. The closeups clearly show the bulging and leaking, but
because I wasn't looking for this issue, and I didn't look closely, and
therefore I didn't 'see' it. My fault.

I also just resurected an E520 (bought June 2007) last week that
belonged to my dad. I had no problems with it, but I just went and
looked at all of the caps, and all is well.

Funny thing, I originally bought this E510 for my wife, but when she
went to a laptop, it got passed around the family.

I've spent lots of time the last week or so on desktops/laptops (I
thought it would be a day), and I've got to get back to other things,
since the holidays are coming fast. I'm going to put repairing this
machine on the list of things to do, and will try to get to it after the
new year. I've never done solder work on a motherboard, but I'm will to
try. I've got nothing to lose.

Thanks much for the tip.

Even if you're good with a soldering iron,
you will still have trouble replacing those.
The holes for the capacitor legs are only
5 thou larger than the legs themselves.
And if you pull too hard on the capacitor
leads, you can pull the solder fillet right
out of the motherboard.

I worked on some at work, with a vacuum desoldering
station, and after two hours of work, I was still
not making any progress.

The ease of removing them, is a direct function
of how much bigger the holes are, than the legs
of the capacitor. If the holes are "sloppy", the
caps come out easily. I've worked on stuff like
that too.

Paul