Last week's story about one customer's frustration over Dell's replacement policies for motherboards plagued with leaking capacitors left us with a number of questions. Are other Optiplex GX270s faring the same as his? How can customers tell if their motherboards are among those that are likely to fail? Are other Dell systems also affected? And, given that the bad capacitors have been in use industry-wide, how do other computer manufacturers seem to be responding to the problems they cause?
As I heard from more and more readers, answers to at least some of those questions became clear. Yes, a number of GX270 customers have had almost uncannily similar experiences to our reader. One even sent me pictures demonstrating how one can tell the bad capacitors from those that are not likely to fail. Some other Dell systems have suffered from capacitors problems as well, including the GX280 models Dell suggested our original reader move to. And we at least have had a few suggestions that HP, Apple, and IBM are each handling capacitor-related problems in their own way.
Of course, some of these reader comments are already posted on the GripeLog for all to see, but often some of the most interesting stories are e-mailed to me. And while the responses would clearly make for a good "Reader Voices" follow-up story down the road, I was impatient to share some of the information readers had sent me. That's when it occurred to me that this would be a great job for the wiki.
While I'd already posted the Dell story on the Gripe Wiki, it was virtually the same story as I'd published on the GripeLog. But why should it be? The basic idea of a wiki is to let readers participate in writing and editing the stories themselves, so it makes sense the wiki story should start where I leave off. So I've now re-done the story, using the e-mails and posts of readers with relevant experiences. Take a look, and if you've got some bad capacitor experiences of your own to share about Dell, HP, Apple, IBM, or another manufacturer, click on the "edit" tab and find a place to start typing. With a little help, this one wiki story can turn into many, and maybe even a GripeLog story or two.
