Capacitors are an inexpensive little component on a PC motherboard, but they can be a costly headache for manufacturers when a whole bunch of them go bad. Last week, Dell announced it was going to take a $300 million financial charge on its earnings to cover costs associated with the replacement of <A HREF="http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-5942647.html?tag=zdnn.alert">motherboards with faulty capacitors</A> in some of its Optiplex workstations. The Dell system boards in question were manufactured from April 2003 to March 2004, according to several contract computer repair firms that are starting to replace the systems. At issue are faulty capacitors on motherboards that store power and regulate voltage. Defective capacitors found in the Dell Optiplex workstations, some Apple iMac G5s, HP xw-series workstations made in 2004 and PCs with the Intel D865GBF motherboard have been found to bulge, pop, leak and crust over, causing video failure and periodic system shutdowns.