I recently got my hands on a Sound Blaster 16 (CT2950) which seems to have had some modifications made—the two leads (C1, C3) off a component in the top-left corner have been cut off, and the resistor at C2 also seems to have been removed. Can anyone help me identify the component that's been isolated, and does anyone know why someone might make these modifications?
Those aren't modifications. That is straight up physical damage.
The silver thing with the legs broken off is a 24Mhz crystal and C2 is a capacitor.
That area of the PCB is pretty roughed up. You can see deep scratches in the silicon package on the DSP chip as well as the PCB. It looks like it can probably be repaired, but if you bought it on ebay I would return it.
That crystal needs to be replaced for the card to function again, it is the clock for the "DSP"
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mida sa loed ? nagunii aru ei saa 😜
You could try to resolder the legs of that crystal and find the replacement for the ceramic cap on C2. At the left side of the C2 label is also maybe the trace damaged, so check its continuity too.
Thank you everyone, that's very helpful. I was hoping this was intentionally done and some kind of mod (optimistic thinking), but you're right there's quite a bit of other damage in this area as well. I'll look into returning it.
