Finally got around to figuring out why my compaq portable 1 wouldn't turn on, and ended up being a bad tantalum cap in the floppy controller. Took it out, machine powered on. Put the controller back in, the cap blew up and spewed molten cap guts everywhere. Nothing was damaged but it sure was quite the sight to see. I replaced the cap, but shortly after another one seemed to fail on the controller as the whole system locked up when i was running some tests in checkit. Wouldn't come back up until i removed the floppy controller. I replaced every cap on the controller and seems to be good now though.

It got me thinking though, would it be worth while to replace all of the tantalums on the compaq? From what i've read tantalums are for the most part pretty reliable, and generally don't fail. having said that i'd prefer to not have another one pop and potentially damage other components. I'm really on the fence about it, as i've still got about 11 more tants and i'm going to be taking the system apart anyways for a cleaning and to replace the cpu and install a socket for the 8284. At the same time though it's a rather tiem consuming process, especially with the equipment i have to work with so if it's not really deemed necessary i'd rather not do it. What are you guys' opinions?