The Dell GX 6 and OptiPlex 7 series of small form factor (SFF) desktop systems (and even some mini and full towers) are notoriously bad for experiencing bad capacitors after a few years of use.  I should know – I’ve lost count of how many we’ve tossed out over the past couple of years.

This morning I took at the latest stack of a half-dozen or so GXs and noticed a 745 in there.  It’s a bit on the old side, but still serviceable as an HTPC.  The case is nice and it has the Intel Q965 Express chipset, which supports Core 2 Duo processors.  This particular 745 came with a Pentium-D 915 (2.8GHz), but I have a Celeron E1500 available that would be a nice fit for this…if I can fix it.

On this particular board, there are three caps that have swelled and leaked due to long-term exposure to high heat.   The ones on this board are Rubycons – two 6.3v 2200μf and one 6.3v 1800μf are blown.  I’ll probably head over to Fry’s during lunch and pick these up.  They carry NTE-branded components, but they should work as long as they fit specs.  I wouldn’t go with anything there for quality system repair, but for a used work system stepping in as an HTPC for a while, I think it will suffice.

This system is intended to replace my son’s bedroom HTPC which is also an old GX SFF from work.  I didn’t need to repair it as it worked fine, but it’s still old.  The Pentium 4 in it is just too slow and browsing Media Browser is often a pain.  It performs video playback well, however, but that’s primarily due to the ATI HD2600 card I put in there.  If I’m successful in repairing that 745, I’m pretty certain I’ll just transfer the critical internals and skip reinstalling Win7 altogether.  Intel chipsets are nice that way :)

Assuming I find the necessary parts, I hope to try this in the next day or two, so check back to see how it went!

Update:

Fry’s didn’t have what I needed…didn’t even come close.  I did grab a GX260 that had some good caps I can use, however, so I may try and transfer them.  Not ideal to do it that way, but I’m not out anything if I fail.  It’s really not worth it to me to spend any cash on this project.  In fact, I’d rather try and fit a good board into that case first…which I may still end up doing.