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Dell SC400 Locking up

T

Thunderbirdaholic

Member
I have recently started having trouble with my Dell SC400 locking up. It is the one with the P4 3.2ghz processor, it has an ati x800xt video card that it has had for a long time, 60gb maxtor hard drive, 4gb of memory (recently switched to 4x1 from 4x512), and is running Windows XP Pro service pack 2. I ran memtest for 24 hours plus and it ran showing no errors on the memory. I ran Maxtor's hard drive utility (advanced portion) and it showed no errors. Usually I believe this is caused by a heat issue, memory, or bad power supply if I remember right. I believe I've narrowed it down from the memory testing coming up fine. Am I heading in the right direction here? I'm just looking for some input on if I'm missing something obvious or not.

Thunderbirdaholic
 
Your symptoms are typical of motherboard power capacitor failure. Lockups, self-reboots, and failure to boot reliably are typical symptoms.

About 1/3 of all Dell 400SC servers have "bad" power capacitors, located in a row between the CPU and the big fan. Check them for bulges or leakage.

The 400SC would start failing after one to two years of powered-on time. About a year ago, Dell said it'd do a one-time replacement of defective, out-of-warranty motherboards.
 
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