I don't know if anyone's heard of this happening, but after trying to repair a bunch of Dell GX270s at my dad's business, I got fed up and just Googled the model number... To my surprise, I found this: http://news.com.com/PCs+plagued+by+bad+cap..._3-5942647.html Seems that the GX270s were built with faulty capacitors that bulge, leak, and crust up. Because of this, Dell decided to replace all of the faulty mobos with new ones for free, even if the computers are no longer under warranty. I spent a good two hours on the phone with a Dell technical service agent getting it all sorted out (most of it being on hold). He made me turn on each computer to see if it would boot or had any video/sound problems. Then he asked me to check the capacitors on the motherboards. 1 of the 5 computers did not boot at all. It just shut off after POSTing. 2/5 of the computers I checked had capacitors that were leaking/crusting over. The others had swollen ones. He told me to tape up any openings in the computer (fan vents, creases, etc.). How nice... Now I've inhaled toxic chemicals from leaking capacitors but am getting 5 new motherboards out of it. Just thought I'd share that with you all (in case any of you have that specific model).