[SOLVED] Broken capacitor on motherboard. Safety questions.

Mike486DX

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Sep 22, 2014
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Hi,

I clumsily managed to snap off a capacitor from my system's motherboard while switching graphics cards.

It's right next to the audio output jacks, and subsequently, the audio is now only playing in one channel.

Otherwise the board appears to be working fine. Have used it for several hours without bluescreen or fault.

Now I can pop in a PCI sound card very cheap to make up for the audio issue, but what I'm wondering is - is there any electrical safety issue (or fire risk) from living without the capacitor?

Many thanks in advance

PS: Missing capacitor highlighted

wkANcdd.png
 
Solution
...
Now I can pop in a PCI sound card very cheap to make up for the audio issue, but what I'm wondering is - is there any electrical safety issue (or fire risk) from living without the capacitor?
...
There's no real safety risk in any case, just make sure the two terminals where the cap used to be don't short together and it will be perfectly OK.

I have to imagine there are plenty of motherboards working with disabled on-board audio for the same reason as the caps back there are so easily damaged while swapping GPU's.

And btw, you don't have to install a PCIe audio. Instead get a USB DAC and the whole audio system is external to the PC with much better audio. If your on-board has a TOS-Link output it might work with a DAC too.
...
Now I can pop in a PCI sound card very cheap to make up for the audio issue, but what I'm wondering is - is there any electrical safety issue (or fire risk) from living without the capacitor?
...
There's no real safety risk in any case, just make sure the two terminals where the cap used to be don't short together and it will be perfectly OK.

I have to imagine there are plenty of motherboards working with disabled on-board audio for the same reason as the caps back there are so easily damaged while swapping GPU's.

And btw, you don't have to install a PCIe audio. Instead get a USB DAC and the whole audio system is external to the PC with much better audio. If your on-board has a TOS-Link output it might work with a DAC too.
 
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