--- On Sat, 11/12/11, Joe <[email protected]> wrote:
<clip>
> After it
> sits powered off for several hours and is turned on again
> the sound
> returns. It happens when booted from the internal hard
> drive or booted
> from a floppy so it appears to be a hardware issue.
> 
> Any ideas what it is or how to fix it?

Probably some filtering capacitors in the audio circuit need replaced. Pull the 
board out and closely examine the tops of all the capacitors, the small 
cylinders wrapped in plastic with a shiny metal end.

The metal ends will have some lines pressed in, usually in an X or a K shape. 
Those are blowout vents. If something happens like a power surge those lines 
are supposed to be a weak point to rupture instead of the capacitor exploding 
and sending tiny conductive shrapnel into other circuitry.

The problem is some capacitor manufacturers used an unstable formula for their 
capacitor electrolyte. (Google capacitor plague) Over time it decomposes and 
swells up. The tops of the capacitors bulge and eventually break. If the base 
plugs where the wires go in aren't good, the electrolyte can leak out there.

If you find bulged capacitors they need replaced. Bottom leaking ones can be 
hard to spot if they've only leaked a little and didn't bulge the tops. Bottom 
leakers are worse because the electrolyte can be corrosive and damage traces on 
the circuit board.

If you don't want to take a soldering iron to your Classic II's mainboard there 
are people who will do it for you. How much they charge for the service varies. 
Some will replace every capacitor known to fail, some take the tack that if a 
capacitor hasn't popped after so many years it's not going to, especially if 
others on the same board already have.

That's what makes the electrolyte problem even worse, millions of the bad ones 
were made and got mixed into the supplies that almost every electronics 
manufacturer used for several years in the late 90's through early 00's. Some 
things got made with most or all bad caps, some things got only a few or even 
just one. I have a circa 2005 PC power supply with a single leaking capacitor, 
which I need to get replaced to make it good again.

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