I just bought a GX280 with swollen capacitors. Can someone point me in the right direction for a new motherboard? I found a couple on Newegg (LGA775) but not sure if the cpu and memory will fit. It's a small mini tower. I was looking at this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... But I wanted to be able to upgrade to 4 gigs of memory eventually.

what type of case is this, dell use same model numbers on different shapes / sizes. If it is the type that is designed to go flat under the monitor (but can also be stood upright if you dont mind the CD drive being vertical) then I believe only a DELL motherboard will fit, they are not standard size / fixing holes. Best thing to do is to replace the bulging capacitors. I have brought many of these Dells back to life by doing this. I am in UK, the cheapest was I can get the capacitors is to get them on ebay from Hong Kong. And I use a soldering iron which cost about two pounds (4 US Dollars). It's a bit fiddly but not really that hard. On the underside, hold the soldering iron on the soldered terminal and pull the capacitor out (alternating from one terminal to the other), then when you put the new one in, heat the blob of solder on the underside and push the leg of the capacitor through from the other side.

It is a small mini tower. Actually I bought 2 of them. I found a cap kit on badcaps.net. I was afraid it would be too hard for me too replace the caps. They talk about tubes breaking etc. I already have a soldering iron. You make it sound very easy. Thanks!

I just checked on ebay. There are a couple different kinds. Which kind should I get? I think I will try to replace them and if it doesn't work I'll try a new motherboard. thanks again.

Before you buy the replacement ask if the capacitors have an X or a K on their tops.... so you don't have the same problem down the road. X's are known to go bad. I would say you could replace the caps ,they run about 5 cents each but that board is hmmmm I think is 5 layers deep....need a pro to pull and redo. Or get a board that was made in the last two years. It is not just Dell but HP bought a lot of boards with bad caps as well.

i have fixed a few gx270 mobos with new capacitors (in fact I have sometimes taken old caps off other old mobos and reused them if I haven't got any new ones of the correct type handy- I know that most of you will think that reusing old ones is very poor). To get around the problem of the tubes breaking and pushing through the holes, I have also done it this way before I got a bit more experience: Pull the failed capacitor off with pliers. This leaves the legs sticking out of the mobo. clip them off so there is a few milimeters only left sticking up from the board. Now solder the new capacitor to the remaining bit of the old legs sticking up from the mobo. New capacitors have long legs on. You might need to cut them down a bit, but you need to leave some length on there to get the soldering iron in the right place. The result is something that looks untidy and you need to make sure the bare metal legs do not touch anything else, but it does work.