$40 and No Power - Let's Fix This OptiPlex 7010!

Hello there and welcome to my video. In today's video, I'll be fixing a Dell OptiPlex 7010 USFF that I bought off of eBay for $40. There's troubleshooting, soldering, splicing, attempted board repair, and part swapping in this one, so stay tuned to see the journey this PC took with me!
Music, in order:
Beyond - Patrick Patrikios
Luxery - Causmic
Sunny Days - Anno Domini Beats
Soul Searching - Causmic
Papov - Yung Logos

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

At 12:00 I accidentally put up a clip of the fixed cable before I shrunk the heat shrink tubing. I of course shrunk the heat shrink tubing before installing it into the system, and you can peep that in the next clip.

[@BanishedToEarth]

Great video!! Soldering is hard to do. It's awesome to see you try on that board. It was in such bad shape to begin with!! Those are surprisingly good little computers. Id love to see more of these diagnose repair/replace videos. Good approach and video style.

[@JimboTheJim]

Great video! I love your troubleshooting steps. I think it was smart to replace the motherboard with it being so cheap, it makes much more economical sense IMO

[@bryans8656]

I enjoyed your video. I have a SFF OptiPlex 7010 that I've built up to be a modest gaming PC, mostly because I like tinkering with it.

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

Glad to hear you enjoyed! Awesome to hear you're enjoying tinkering with that 7010, they are great machines to mess around with

[@stonent]

Your observation about the battery was interesting. I changed a ton of cmos batteries in this era of Dell computers but I never made the Mitsubishi connection. It seemed that after this era I never had to change one again. One of the Dells, I think the 790, they put the CMOS battery under the overhanging part of the heat sink on the back of the board, so you always had to remove the heatsink to change the battery, and of course, ideally you'd put new paste on it, which was an added expense.

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

I haven't had much experience with the 790, but that battery positioning does seem kind of annoying. And yeah, all of the Dells that I deal with from this era seem to have dead CMOS batteries, and the few that don't aren't using Mitsubishi batteries. Interesting how those specific cells die so quickly compared to others, I think!

[@JamesTenniswood]

Yay, finally a broken computer. Congratulations 🎉

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

Yep!! We finally got one!!

[@hanro50]

A good cleaner for this, in my experience, is actually some contact cleaner from an autoparts store. It basically desolves the oxidised metal, making it easier to clean.

[@Redstoneluchs]

Next video LETS go

[@Duncan-Donuts]

i love my 9020 usff but they are rare as in australia

[@EastAngliaUK]

good a new motherboard was pretty cheap good video

[@kotelstudios]

Hi, just a quick question. Do you know how to fix dell optiplexes that have amber light?

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

The solid amber light? Not entirely, in my case I'm pretty sure it was due to the liquid damage, and I couldn't repair that, so I needed a new motherboard to fix that issue. If it's a flashing orange light though, there are a few things: RAM issues CPU issues Motherboard issues Give reseating your CPU/RAM a try, as well as using a known good stick of RAM in all four slots if you have one. It's possible the RAM just needs a reseat, you could have a dead DIMM, dead slot, or dead memory channel. It's also possible that some of the contacts on the CPU which work with the memory, or another part of the board aren't making contact anymore and need to be reseated. For CPU issues, really the only things you can do are reseating the CPU and trying another known good CPU if you have one on hand. And for motherboard issues, it's a chance something's gone bad on the board, BUT try a fresh CMOS battery. I've had several of these older OptiPlexes give a flashing orange light because of a dead CMOS battery, so check that for sure! I hope at least some of this could be helpful, cheers!

[@user-cg5xv4zz2b]

I have an hp laptop that I patched and it will restart ( up and running and restart ). but if you let it powerdown - It will not power up. I have replace the battery and that did not work ( it was a hail marry move ). but based on your comments - that it looks like the cmos battery could prevent - even power on. so I will try that. thank you

[@Doomslayer151]

sometimes when RAMs broken your computer wont repond.i experienced removed a one ram and booted

[@erpejcaofrito]

I use vinager to take out the corrotion

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

I'll have to try that, thanks!

[@laur6405]

That power cable hack job was pretty pointless imo,i mean you could get a sata splitter for less than 1$. I have one of those splitters in my sff optiplex which powers 1 ssd and a hard drive and also the dvd drive and it's no issue at all. You can also try car circuitry corrosion cleaners,that's what i use on my boards and it attacks the corrosion really heavy without harming the board. I actually saved one board from corrosion using that cleaner and it still works to this day

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

I agree, why they didn't just use a SATA splitter I have no idea. I'll have to try that cleaner sometime!

[@princess_ebony23]

If I find something like this I'd probably use it as a low powered gaming PC, just replacing the motherboard and other parts

[@clementnaze5645]

i have a optiplex 790 simmilar in this form factor

[@spillsndebris]

the 780 as well. I'm running my plex server on one.

[@clementnaze5645]

I'm using my optiplex 790 to run home assistant@@spillsndebris

[@peatmoss4415]

Use vinegar on the corrosion before IPA. Another mistake, installing Windows.

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

Thanks for the vinegar tip. Also yeah, Windows on these older systems certainly isn't the most ideal OS for maximum performance, but it's near impossible to flip a computer with Linux on it sadly.

[@hanro50]

Failing cmos batteries can sometimes just cause the most nonsensical issues.

[@potra29]

aye man do you play guitar?

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

I am working on learning it, what makes you ask?

[@potra29]

@@CompHwTipsAndTutorials i saw your left hand fingertips :) I just started playing guitar too (acoustic)

[@roysigurdkarlsbakk3842]

I can only guess that some of those caps on the old motherboard were bad…

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

It's possible, but I didn't see any obviously damaged capacitors sadly. Would have been nice to see an easy fix like that.

[@roysigurdkarlsbakk3842]

You don't necessarily see a bulge in those caps, but I noticed that some of the leakage was nearby one or two of them. Just unsolder them and check the capacitance and the equivalent series resistance (ESR). @@CompHwTipsAndTutorials

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

@@roysigurdkarlsbakk3842 That's a good idea, thank you!

[@roysigurdkarlsbakk3842]

Good luck! roy @@CompHwTipsAndTutorials

[@etow8034]

Miss leading title, this is not the 7010 MFF of 2023 ! ...LoL

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

Lol I do find it funny how Dell looped all the way back to the 7010 model number

[@etow8034]

@@CompHwTipsAndTutorials I guess they tried not to confuse Dell diehards from their series and numbering system. I mean the OptiPlex and the 70 series is their most high end product line geared toward commercial accounts. 70 series owners look down at 50 and 30 series owners ! ...LoL

[@stzokev]

Replacing a motherboard is not fixing, it's called replacing! You basically made 1 PC out of 2, congrats ....

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

Would you rather me have thrown it in the eWaste bin?

[@stzokev]

@@CompHwTipsAndTutorials no, just don't call it a fix. Other channels that do real repair would have cleaned the rust, restore missing paths, replace capacitors etc. to get the board working.

[@robbirobson7330]

@@CompHwTipsAndTutorials don't be a parts changer

[@robbirobson7330]

@@stzokev when i had my business i usually replaced the board for customers because its faster then i kept the old board if the customer didn't want it and when i had some time i fixed it and keep it for the next customer

[@CompHwTipsAndTutorials]

I would very much rather do that if I were skilled enough at this time to be able to complete that repair successfully. As you saw, I very much tried, but I wasn't able to get it working. I'm working on building that skillset. And I think we'll have to agree to disagree on whether or not it should be called a fix, because I'm looking at the system as a whole, and it went from non-functional to functional, which means the system was repaired/fixed. If we look at the board and only the board, you're certainly right about that being a replacement, but I'm not looking at just the board.