[Coco] Off Topic but computer related

[Robert Gault]

While I still have my Coco3 running, I do most Coco work with emulators on a PC. 
The PC is running WinXP on an Asus A7V8X-X motherboard with an Antec true430 
430watt power supply.

Well for some time this system has been behaving strangely with one of the 
symptoms being that my USB Logitech mouse has the LED lamp turn off with Windows 
subsequently freezing. Finally I woke up and paid attention to the voltages as 
reported by the Motherboard Monitor program. The +5V, 36A line from the power 
supply was running anywhere from 4.7-4.2v.

To make a long story short, eventually I opened the power supply and looked for 
swollen capacitors. Three of the four +5V line caps were swollen.
I removed all four and measured the values. The 3 swollen were zip with the 
forth reading less than 1000uF. Spec is 3300uF, 10V, 105degC made by Fuhjyyu.
Well seems this company has a bad rep for caps and this power supply had been 
known to fail. I was just lucky that it lasted as long as it did, longer than 
reported by other users.

Now there may be caps available that match the original 10x25mm size but they 
weren't available locally. My local electronics store had some NTE caps with the 
same electrical rating but were more like 12x20mm. I managed to squeeze in four 
such caps even though they did not fit properly and the caps could not be set 
perpendicular to the circuit board. They hit each other and some other parts.

Current voltage is 4.9v on the +5V line, running with minimal overclocking of 
the motherboard!!!

Robert