A power supply died this week, sort of. Not the dramatic bang-and-smell kind, the worse kind: it ran for ten minutes then dropped the machine, ran for five, then wouldn't post at all. A flaky PSU is the most annoying fault in computing because it impersonates every other fault on the way out.
I nearly binned it. Then I unscrewed the lid, because it costs nothing to look, and there it was: a row of electrolytic capacitors on the secondary side with domed tops where they should be flat. Three of them visibly bulged, one weeping a little brown crust. Classic capacitor plague, the same failure that killed a generation of motherboards two decades ago and still turns up in cheaper PSUs today.
The fix was four caps at about thirty pence each, matched on voltage and capacitance and rated 105°C because anything less in a PSU is asking to do this again next year. Desolder the old ones, mind the polarity, drop the new ones in, reflow. The hardest part was the desoldering braid versus a ground plane that wicked heat away faster than my iron could deliver it.
Standard caveat, and I mean it: a PSU holds a charge on the primary capacitors that can genuinely hurt you long after it's unplugged. I bled it through a resistor and checked with a meter before going anywhere near it. If you're not comfortable with that, this is a fine job to not do.
It's been running steady for two days now. A couple of quid and an evening against a tenner and a trip to the tip, and one less brick of e-waste. That's a good trade.