I was given an old cisco 48 port switch which I was going to use for some lab work.

Sadly when I switched it on there were 2 loud pops.

I opened the cover and found 2 caps blown open and some more that looked like they would let go soon.

I had heard that people had just replaced them in some kit with a good result.

So I ordered some off ebay and flexed my electronics muscle, stripped the board out and set to work with the soldering iron.

Wasn't too hard to replace them in the end but I believed it to be futile, surely something as complex and sensitive as a managed switch would have given up the ghost with the caps blowing.

However, its now booting up and working like nothing had happened! I am very surprised.

So a lesson there, don't write kit off immediately, it may be possible to repair it.

Anyone else replaced components and got their kit working again? Wondering if its a common thing.

Yes   Laptop screens with just a week light a replaced inverter often does the trick.

I snapped a capacitor looking thingy off my backup passive gpu, i kept the bit, i wonder if it would work if i resoldered it!

I have a really nice banker's lamp I need to fix but no soldering iron (I don't know where to get the right cap from either). knighty offered to take a look but I keep forgetting when I see him!

it can be a good sideline to a hobby. repairing circuitry & reselling the item.

My first PC I had 20 odd years ago, I managed to break the CMOS battery (proper battery back then! - not a cell button battery we have these days).
Managed to resolder it back in. Apart from that - done lots of small things - quite common on some things that just need the solder points reheating.

I removed a joystick port from an Atari 2600 and ordered a new connector. Hopefully have this working next week.

Fixed my parents 36inch Sony Bravia flat screen LCD. Cost was a £20 board, took 5 minutes to do and has replaced my lowly 19in sh*tronics LCD tv.

TV repair man wanted parents to pay for him to "take it away and dispose of properly" they were proper beaming when I got it working again with a Phillips screwdriver and a bit of googling.