First post, by Jorpho
- Rank
- l33t++
I unexpectedly salvaged a complete Intel Core 2 Duo from the dumpster recently, and was quite astonished to find that it was completely functional! (I actually encountered someone in the act of dumping it; he claimed "all the bits had been taken out.")
A close inspection of the motherboard reveals two places that look suspiciously like they should have capacitors attached to them, though – and just now I realized that there was a loose capacitor rolling around the bottom of the case. I think it came from a spot located on the edge of the motherboard, between the battery and the motherboard's power connector; there's another capacitor there that looks like it was pushed violently to one side.
This kind of surprises me. I thought motherboards were awfully sensitive to capacitor failures – or are those simply situations where the capacitor unexpectedly starts conducting current freely? Given the capacitor's location, are there any guesses as to what its evidently non-critical function may have been?