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Had a weird power supply failure on a 2015 iMac yesterday
The machine would just click and not turn on, no lights at all. I opened it up and found the main filter cap on the PSU board had a tiny crack in the top, which I've never seen before. After replacing that one 470uF cap, it fired right up. I mean, I've seen bulging caps, but a clean crack? Maybe it's just me but that's a new one. Has anyone else run into a capacitor failing like that, or know what causes it?
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allen.ivan2mo ago
Ever seen a cap just split open like that? That's a pretty wild failure mode compared to the usual bulge. Good catch finding it and fixing it with just the one part.
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fox.derek2mo ago
Spot that kind of single-point failure all the time in regular stuff, like one blown fuse killing all the lights. It feels like modern things are built so close to the edge that one tiny part giving up just takes the whole system down. Makes you wonder if they design for that anymore or just hope nothing ever breaks.
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evan_burns952mo ago
Honestly, that sounds like you just got lucky. A single cap wouldn't cause a total no-power click like that, there had to be something else wrong with the board.
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