Had Accident, Need Help :(

[arnzzz]

I need help identifying a component on my motherboard as I had a little accident today.

I was trying some different fan configurations and made an extension cable for one of my fan's, something I have

done before and I am a proficient solderer so was confident nothing would go wrong. It was the first time I had

used the motherboards on board fan headers as my case, the Coolermaster Storm Trooper has a fan controller.

How wrong was I !!!!!!!

When I turned my pc back on I heard a little noise, I cant remember now what it sounded like, all I remember is

the smell of a burning component on the motherboard, that was obvious

The motherboard seems fine, I think. Everything seems to work OK so far.

As I said I am a pretty good solderer and I have a really nice mini 12w soldering iron, which is why if I can find

someone who can identify the part for me I can replace it myself without paying some sod like £40 to do it for me.

I will post some pictures here, sorry if the quality is not amazing, all I have for taking photo's is my HTC

Wildfire lol.

Here's some pic's

 

[mArTyN]

I'm no electrical genius by any stretch of the imagination, but it looks like some type of "Thyristor" .

 

[jamesriley94]

We have the same motherboard!

If you say it is working ok, then I would strongly advise against soldering yourself. Most components on motherboards are soldered in by Surface Mount Technology - ie - the solder points are on top of the motherboard, meaning you would struggle to get the component off, let alone be ale to replace the component with an identical one. SMT has to be done by heating the solder points from the top, then just dropping the chip on - so they have to be done by machines.

However.....

No retailer would be able to tell what was actually wrong with it, meaning you can try and get a new one under warranty. It is highly likely you'd get another one without any questions, just say you tuned it on on say and you smelled burning if they do ask. Just send it back while yo have the chance.

Hope this helps

 

[arnzzz]

Yes, ill most likely send it back to retailer. It was from Amazon and its past there usual 30 day return policy. but Asus have a 3 yr warranty

so either way it should be covered by one or the other.

@jamesriley94

Your right, the thought of trying to get the broken component off without causing more damage was starting to look like a stupid idea

@mArTyN

I had an idea that it may be something to do with the power control going to the fan header, and after reading about Thyristors i think this

is the case, so hopefully all things considered i may only have lost a mother board fan header, not anything more important,which

really is no big deal

 

[jamesriley94]

If it's no problem for you, I'd probably just not care with the RMA and just carry on if it's working fine. Could always plug a fan in and see if it works though, not gunna make anything worse

 

[Pr3d4t0r]

id RMA it since you cant fix something like this.

have same board but no clue what that thing is for lol

 

[tmcthree]

I'm no expert, but given the landing-pad on top, I'd say it was a hospital.

 

[arnzzz]

I'm no expert, but given the landing-pad on top, I'd say it was a hospital.

lolz i like that

 

[airdeano]

that is called a MOSFET. and since the vicinity of that fan header is near,

you might try to see if it functions. also look to the under-side of the motherboard

and see if there is any "scorching" the traces look to crawl towards the fan header.

airdeano

 

[S_I_N]

it amazes me that alot of you are saying RMA it. RMA is for when the board or whatever component goes bad or is defective. Not for when one screws the pooch and fry's something. RMAing for these reasons is what drives prices up. Neglect or doing something that causes the damage is not covered by RMA policies.

 

[Goldskis45]

Yep its a MOSFET. It would be a huge pain in the arse to replace if they didn't accept the RMA...

I'm 50/50 on whether they will or not...

If you would like to learn a small bit about them and how to make them flame like you did;

here is a video I made in High school

[media]http://vimeo.com/5440196[/media]

I apologize for the horrendous audio as I only had a day to film edit and submit it to the competition at MIT

I swear our school had the worst headsets on the face of the planet

No I am not the narrator, I'm behind the camera.

Edit: and we also realized after the fact that our oscilloscope was backwards and thats what the readings were weird...