I used to think you had to replace every single bad capacitor on a board

I was fixing an old Dell Optiplex from 2012 last week, and I spent an hour swapping out 5 bulging caps. The machine still wouldn't boot. My buddy Mike, who's been doing this since the 90s, came over, looked at it, and just said, 'You know the power supply is shot, right?'. He was right. I was so focused on the obvious board fault I missed the simple supply check. How many other simple things have I been overcomplicating for years?

3 comments

3 Comments

uma_baker9910d ago

Is it really overcomplicating things, or is it just learning the job? You saw a real problem and fixed it. The power supply was a separate issue. That's just two problems on one machine.

riley_price10d agoMost Upvoted

Sounds like you and @uma_baker99 are both missing the point. Classic case of not seeing the forest for the trees, man.

verafoster9d ago

Totally get what Riley's saying. Sometimes you get so focused on each little broken part that you miss the bigger picture of why the whole system is failing. Like if you keep replacing individual bad cables but never check the main breaker that's frying them all. You fix the symptom but not the actual cause.