Common items you passed up that turned rare when you wanted

[Tony Duell]

> Other than checking for obvious shorts and opens, what's a good way to
> check a (safely discharged) capacitor for such problems?

Am EDR meter. Electrolytics tend to dry out, at which point the 
effective series resistace increases (and the cap is then pretty useless 
for most applciations) but the capacitance value doesn't change much (so 
you'll not spot it with a capacitance meter).

If you repair monitors, SMPSUs, or the like, you need an ESR meter. Period.

-tony