Hello
Around two years ago, I was given a Dell Precision 490 that wouldn't turn on. The problem was, like with most old Dells, the motherboard capacitors. As soon as I got it, we replaced its capacitors and I remember installing Windows XP and running Dell diagnostics. It passed all of the tests. I even remember playing some old games on it without any problems. After a week or so, I turned it off and put it in storage. It's been in storage until last week.
I decided to turn the computer on again and guess what, it beeps twice but there's no video. I've tried multiple PCIe graphics cards and none worked. So I figured if the computer is beeping, it's at least POSTing. I got an old PCI graphics card and actually got video signal but was greeted with two wonderful messages.
Message 1: Alert! Error initializing PCI Express NIC bridge.
Message 2: Alert! Error initializing PCI Express slot 2 (this explains why I wasn't getting video with the PCIe video cards).
I am unsure whether these errors are related to the capacitors. All of the caps *seem* to be fine, but I've noticed that in these motherboards, the crappy capacitors tend to dry up after a while, ultimately causing issues, even if they're not buldging. I once had a motherboard with capacitors that were barely buldging (they weren't even leaking) but still caused problems. I am also suspecting the ones we bought to replace the old ones with are of bad quality. I've snapped a few pictures of the motherboard. The circled capacitors are those which have been replaced.
Is there someone who happens to own one of these Precisions and had this same exact problem? Do you think it is related to the caps? Should I try replacing them again?
Thanks for reading.
Around two years ago, I was given a Dell Precision 490 that wouldn't turn on. The problem was, like with most old Dells, the motherboard capacitors. As soon as I got it, we replaced its capacitors and I remember installing Windows XP and running Dell diagnostics. It passed all of the tests. I even remember playing some old games on it without any problems. After a week or so, I turned it off and put it in storage. It's been in storage until last week.
I decided to turn the computer on again and guess what, it beeps twice but there's no video. I've tried multiple PCIe graphics cards and none worked. So I figured if the computer is beeping, it's at least POSTing. I got an old PCI graphics card and actually got video signal but was greeted with two wonderful messages.
Message 1: Alert! Error initializing PCI Express NIC bridge.
Message 2: Alert! Error initializing PCI Express slot 2 (this explains why I wasn't getting video with the PCIe video cards).
I am unsure whether these errors are related to the capacitors. All of the caps *seem* to be fine, but I've noticed that in these motherboards, the crappy capacitors tend to dry up after a while, ultimately causing issues, even if they're not buldging. I once had a motherboard with capacitors that were barely buldging (they weren't even leaking) but still caused problems. I am also suspecting the ones we bought to replace the old ones with are of bad quality. I've snapped a few pictures of the motherboard. The circled capacitors are those which have been replaced.
Is there someone who happens to own one of these Precisions and had this same exact problem? Do you think it is related to the caps? Should I try replacing them again?
Thanks for reading.
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