I just had a bit of a scare with my Audio Precision analyzer. The 2004-era Dell OptiPlex GX270 which drives the AP hardware decided it would refuse to power up – just flashing the “ON” light for a fraction of a second, then back off again. Since that analyzer is pretty central to what I do in the shop, this was a major problem.

It’s not the easiest piece of gear to get running, either. If you have an APIB interface card, the legacy APWin software will work in Windows XP – but if you’re using the parallel port redirect VXD, you’ll need Windows 98 because VXDs aren’t allowed on any later OS.

A quick inspection inside the old PC showed the problem immediately…bad caps on the motherboard.

Fortunately, Dell made a large number of these OptiPlex GX270s. I picked up another one on eBay, swapped the hard drives, and fired it up. 

Fortunately, it worked the first try! Everything is as it should be. I’ll probably make an attempt at replacing the capacitors on the old motherboard, just to ensure I have a backup PC around if there’s any trouble, but for now the problem is solved.