[ale] Pictures of the culprit (was OT: Diagnosing HW problem)

[Geoffrey]

Calvin Harrigan wrote:

> Seems like a power transistor (probably a MOSFET)  for the switch mode 
> regulator. Typically used to drop the 3.3 Volts down to the 1.4-2.0 
> volts used by most CPUs.  That circuit is pretty far in from the outside 
> world.  If I had to take a guess two things might have happened, it was 
> shorted by a screw or some other piece of metal or the least likely one 
> of the capacitors shorted and caused an over current situation.  Either 
> way motherboard is bye-bye.  Sorry.

Or possibly shorted by collection of conductive dust????

http://www.3times25.net/junk/mb_2.jpg

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey