Had a weird power supply issue on a 2015 iMac at my shop in Tampa

The screen was flickering and the machine kept shutting down after about 15 minutes. I thought it was the backlight, but after checking the usual suspects, I found a single bulging capacitor on the power board, a Nichicon 470uF 25V. Replaced just that one cap for less than a dollar and it's been running solid for a month now. Anyone else run into a problem that looked big but had a tiny, cheap fix?

2 comments

2 Comments

nora101mo ago

Man, I feel you on that - sometimes a single bad cap really is the whole story, and it's tempting to call it a win. But rowank69 has a point about the rest of them on a board that old, you know?

rowank691mo ago

Less than a dollar and it's been running solid" is a huge gamble. That's a band-aid on a ten year old board. You fixed one symptom but the rest of those caps are the same age and just as dried out. You're sending a time bomb back to a customer. A full recap of the board is the only real fix, otherwise you're just waiting for the next failure.