WHAT IS THIS COMPONENT ON MY MOBO???

[andrewsdw]

I'm wondering what this component is. This mobo and cpu is my dad's old pc. Anyways
he was having troubles and took it into compusa (I wasn't in Ca)which the rep of course said it broke and he needed to buy new crap from him. Anyways thought I would try to revive so I bought a new case power supply(Ultra X-Connect 500 watt(box was already opened when purchased? thinking return??)) etc. Hooked everything up and it worked right on!! Go into bios..13v on 12v rail???hmm??? Oh well lets try to install windows, Aww crap...15 minutes into the XP install it turned off. Power supply was pretty hot. Figured some kind of thermal shutdown?? Nope, it's the motherboard so I'm thinking this happened AFTER I put the ps in and that piece of crap burnt the board up.

Does this electrical component regulate power or something which is why the bios showed 13v or anyone think it's the power supply.

sys specs are
fic at31<-- I know crappy board
athlon xp 2100
1 gig generic ram
nothing else important

Gonna take the ultra x-connect back to compusa but do you think this power supply burnt the board or the board "cooked" itself??????

 

[andrewsdw]

Sorry the url for the pics is:
http://kaliboy96734.tripod.com/fried/

 

[century child]

That component looks like a polyswitch. It's basically a solid state, resettable fuse that's meant to protect other components and cicuits from damage. If too much voltage and/or current is applied, the component increases it's internal resistance to cut off power from the rest of the board. When power is removed, resistance drops and when the component cools back down, it reopens the circuit. It sounds like the PSU seriously overpowered the system to the point that it just smoked the polyswitch. Strange that it would take so long though.

 

[FastEddie]

At least the UltraX didn't catch the board on fire. These are over priced Powmax crap. Oh, it's probrably cheaper to replace the board than pay to have it repaired.

 

[andrewsdw]

Hey thanks guys. Didn't care about the board I can replace it was just looking at building this ghetto rig and letting be my inhouse mp3 server and backup volume. I'm seriously questioning the power supply right now. Sounds like I got to go back to compusa and take this crap back and exchange for a good antec ps. Think I should take the board in with me and tell compusa the ps fried my mobo and see fi they give me like $15-$20 credit or something?

 

[andrewsdw]

I'm just wondering if the power supply was a return because it was open (?defective?) and they just threw it back onto the shelves. BTW thinking back it was not
even 10 minutes into the install. Once again thanks for the info...I appreciate the help.

 

[jonnyGURU]

What Century Child said. But another thing I have to agree with Century Child on is how long it took to pop like that. 10 minutes? You know how CompUSA said the motherboard was "broke?" Why did you doubt them? This polyswitch was probably actually preventing the PC from posting with the other power supply because the motherboard had a serious problem. Then you throw a power supply on there with twice as much power.. it simply overpowered a ready-to-fry part. You're lucky you didn't take anything out with the motherboard, like the CPU! That's what those transistors along the back of that board are for; regulating the CPU voltage.

And if the power supply was opened, it might have been a return. Ultra power supplies are shrink-wrapped. But despite that, I still doubt the power supply actually caused the problem. I think the problem was there and you had to go and piss it off.

And FastEddie... It's Ultra. Not Ultra-X. Ultra-X is a company that sells post test cards, RAM Stress Test and QuickTech Pro. And I think it's been well established that Ultra is not made by Powmax. You can finally put that juicy chunk of mis-information to rest, please.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Double post.

 

[andrewsdw]

Thanks for the info johnnyGURU...appreciate it

 

[jonnyGURU]

This used to actually happen to me all of the time with ECS/PC Chips and some of those other really cheap boards. I had my bench set up with a Topower 450W PSU. Someone would bring me one of the aforementioned boards and tell me that it didn't POST. Now those REALLY crappy boards (yes, the FIC isn't "really" as crappy as you think) don't even have the polyswitch. Juice comes right off of the 5V rail and into the CPU MOSFET's. I'll fire the board up and a 2" blue flame will shoot out of one of those transistors. Here's a picture of one after the flame is gone. Notice the crack through the middle? Unfortunately, 50% of the time the CPU get's fried in the process.

And don't thank me. Thank Century Child. He spotted the part. I looked at one of the photos, decided it was too blury to bother worrying about and moved on...

 

[andrewsdw]

Damn...nice. Once again thanks for the info. Learning more and more everyday.