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Optiplex GX280 Help

tempest

tempest

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Ok so this may be a little new for this forum given it's a P4 and all, but I'm at my wits end with this system and I really want to try and save it.

I got an Optiplex GX280 and I've been having issues with it from the get go. It's the full tower model and has 1GB of RAM in it (two 512MB sticks) and a 40GB hard drive. There are no cards or anything else in it. The first thing I did was put a new battery in it to get rid of the error message on the boot. After that I tried installing Windows XP on it and all was going well until the the system had to reboot to continue the install, after that I got a weird error (can't recall the exact message). I suspected that maybe there was some sort of motherboard error so I downloaded the Dell diagnostics and it confirmed that there was a "memory data bus stress test failure". I believe that means that I have some bad memory. So I ran Memtest86 but all the tests passed.

However during all of this I would run into random problems like the system not wanting to boot on occasion (it would turn on, but nothing came up on the monitor). Once I saw an error message that said the system shutdown due to a thermal event, so I then suspected that the thermal paste on the processor had gone bad and replaced that (it was indeed pretty much dried and caked on). Now however I can't get the system to boot at all. It turns on but gives me two short garbled sounding beeps then does nothing (these sound different than the regular diagnostic beeps). I would have thought that maybe I screwed up the re-thermal pasting (can't see how), but all the letter lights on the back are green so everything must be good. I have no idea what's wrong now, any ideas? Lots of people say that these models have bad caps, but I examined all of them and they look fine.
 
Are there bulging capacitors on the system-board?

edit: Also this is a Pentium 4, pretty off topic for a Pentium 1 forum.
 
The Optiplex GX2x0/SX2x0 series was one of the worst affected by the capacitor plague. The "Nichicon" / "Rubycon" capacitors on the board are counterfeit and have a 100% failure rate. I replaced 4000+ GX270/280 motherboards back in 2007 as part of a recall by Dell, where they lost a lawsuit over defective motherboards due to faulty capacitors.

But it goes further than that, the power supplies and monitors had these same garbage capacitors and failed just as often.

When capacitors fail in these machines (or in general), they don't always show physical symptoms of failure (ie. the domed top, leaking from the vent or blown out rubber plug in the bottom) They can and do fail without any obvious physical signs of failure.

In order to fix your machine, you'll have to completely recap the motherboard AND power supply. A generic ATX power supply can be made to work, but some hacking is required for the long power wire runs and weird connectors. You'll need to replace ALL capacitors, especially the tiny ones hidden between stuff because those can go very bad and cause all sorts of havoc.

I would say that your power supply may be the main culprit for the machine acting erratically, but it could also be the CPU. I'd remove it and check if you bent/smashed any of the pins in the socket, which would cause the machine to not boot.
 
Yeah unfortunately all those Dells from 2000-2005 (maybe longer) all probably have bad caps and need trashed. It was dark days. They failed only after just a few years.
 
rittwage said:
Yeah unfortunately all those Dells from 2000-2005 (maybe longer) all probably have bad caps and need trashed. It was dark days. They failed only after just a few years.
Click to expand...

I had brought a different GX280 home and that one seemed ok until the power supply failed after a few weeks. Out of the eight GX280's I had access to, all but two were dead on the spot and now both of the ones that were working at the time are dead. Not good odds...
 
My personal take which really doesn't mean much:

I generally do not care much for Dell products, however, IMO they did a pretty good job on some older LCD monitors and some of their PC cases were okay albeit outsourced. I'm not a a big fan of the Pentium 4 which is more or less doggy in the gaming arena. I have an Intel mobo with the P4, virtually NIB, and it been setting on the shelf for a very long time. Another thing; the P4 runs very hot. Depending on how you plan to use it, I would opt for at least something with a dual core set up. As far as installing XP, what exactly were the issues? As Gigabyte mentioned, you may want to check over your P/S very close or maybe just swap it out.
 
tempest said:
I had brought a different GX280 home and that one seemed ok until the power supply failed after a few weeks. Out of the eight GX280's I had access to, all but two were dead on the spot and now both of the ones that were working at the time are dead. Not good odds...
Click to expand...

Again, pretty much 100% failure rates. The recalled and replaced units also had 100% failure rates because Dell used the same counterfeit capacitors. They sourced the capacitors from the 3rd party supplier market instead of directly from the manufacturer and got burned again, but by that time, the warranty had run out on the affected systems and they washed their hands of the matter.

I've recapped dozens of these systems with quality known-not-fake caps, and never had an issue with them. The power supplies are the most irritating, especially the SFF models with the long brick PSUs. The control logic is on a daughterboard soldered to the main PCB and it has at least a dozen capacitors that have to be replaced.

If you need a Pentium 4 system, I have a Dimension 4600C and an Optiplex 210L that I've recapped, you wouldn't have to faff with them replacing caps for awhile.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
If you need a Pentium 4 system, I have a Dimension 4600C and an Optiplex 210L that I've recapped, you wouldn't have to faff with them replacing caps for awhile.
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I might take you up on that. I'm going to see if I can find something in the junk pile at work first though. I'm pretty sure there's an IBM Intellistation Model M which is a P3 1GHz which wouldn't be bad for the era of gaming I'm into.
 
tempest said:
I might take you up on that. I'm going to see if I can find something in the junk pile at work first though. I'm pretty sure there's an IBM Intellistation Model M which is a P3 1GHz which wouldn't be bad for the era of gaming I'm into.
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Careful with those late 90s/early 2000s IBM systems, they were horrible as well. IBM was embroiled in lawsuits over their PCs at the time because of the capacitor plague, but it was eclipsed by their "Deathstar" drives.

It's why IBM eventually sold their PC division to Lenovo, because the liability was too great. In one of those years, they lost like a billion dollars to lawsuits and being crushed with RMAs.

I had a pile of IBM Aptiva mid towers given to me I think in 2005, and they all had blown caps on the board and PSU. They were PIII 1000s, but they weren't really worth fixing at the time and I just scrapped them. I saved the CPUs though and have like 5-8 of them left.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
Careful with those late 90s/early 2000s IBM systems, they were horrible as well. IBM was embroiled in lawsuits over their PCs at the time because of the capacitor plague, but it was eclipsed by their "Deathstar" drives.

It's why IBM eventually sold their PC division to Lenovo, because the liability was too great. In one of those years, they lost like a billion dollars to lawsuits and being crushed with RMAs.

I had a pile of IBM Aptiva mid towers given to me I think in 2005, and they all had blown caps on the board and PSU. They were PIII 1000s, but they weren't really worth fixing at the time and I just scrapped them. I saved the CPUs though and have like 5-8 of them left.
Click to expand...

Huh. Well that's disturbing. Maybe I'll grab a spare just in case.

Actually the PC I'd like to have back is my Dell XPS Gen 2. I should never have given that one away.
 
Those IBM, specifically the Netvista, were the first bad capacitors I ever saw from this whole counterfeit or espionage. A couple of years before the Dell issues, maybe 2002-2003 we had a bunch of PIII systems at a place I was working.
 
Always had no issues with the Optiplex GX110 (a few years before the capacitor malaise). Solid machine with an 866MHz PIII. Only limitation was the 512MB maximum on RAM, but it ran WinXP for years flawlessly and burned many a CD/DVD with that one.
 
Shame about the 280 picture. I never used them, but serviced a couple. They seemed to be well-contstructed mechanically, but the electronics were sort of meh.
 
Oh those old Dells and their bad caps :D My workplace bought a load of SFF GX260s around 2002, during 2004 added a load more USFF SX270s. About half had failed in service by 2006 and were chucked and replaced with Optiplex 745s which proved far more reliable.

I took the lot off the company's hands in 2011 when a new IT system was installed which needed newer hardware (and notably the new solution didn't use Dell - not the only workplace I know of that never bought Dell again after the early 2000's caps debacle). Thought I'd make a fast buck - I bought them for £20/unit (sans hard drive) and then planned to pick up cheap secondhand 40GB drives to go in them before flopping them out on eBay. Didn't quite work out - I stored them (well) for a year and when I got them out in 2012 every single GX260 went bang on attempting to power up, every single SX270 was either dead or wouldn't post. All the 745s were fine and were sold off, but with only them to shift I just about broke even. I kept one of the 745s which still works today.

A real shame about the caps plague on these - they were well built well designed machines. Just badly let down in components sourcing. For retro computing they would have been perfect for small format yet high performance Windows 98 rigs if they hadn't all died off with bad caps.
 
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I must have repaired a dozen or more motherboards (retail brand name) that just needed a few capacitors replaced being sold for barely over shipping so its not just OEM systems. Pretty much every board maker got burned with bad capacitors during that time even Apple.

If you don't want to deal with capacitors there are whole generations of hardware you have to pass on collecting.
 
Unknown_K said:
I must have repaired a dozen or more motherboards (retail brand name) that just needed a few capacitors replaced being sold for barely over shipping so its not just OEM systems. Pretty much every board maker got burned with bad capacitors during that time even Apple.

If you don't want to deal with capacitors there are whole generations of hardware you have to pass on collecting.
Click to expand...

That may be true. What are the worst years for this?

I did find a working GX260 that doesn't seem to have any bad caps. Then again, that 280 seemed fine until I tried to load XP on it. It's only a 1.8GHz P4, but there was another 260 with blown caps that had a 2GHz P4 chip in it that I salvaged so hopefully I can upgrade it. I'm sure I'm on borrowed time with it though, but I heard the GX260's weren't hit as bad as the 280's by this.
 
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