Burnt unidentified component! Need guidance!

[notomfoolery]

Problem:

An old computer Compaq Presario SR2150NX (vista era) that I was given to reformat suddenly shut off with a horrid burning smell. I immediately shut down the PC by pulling the power cord since holding the power button did nothing. On inspecting the motherboard I found a burnt component. The smell is coming from that component. (check pics).

(Component as found)

(After I removed the white residue)

free upload pictures


Can anyone please tell me what kind of component that is and explain what could've caused it to burn out? Also, would the motherboard need to be replaced?

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What happened:

About a four days back I installed Win 10. Two days back I had to reseat the ram because the PC wouldn't boot. Today I booted to the Win 10 desktop (no icons, no taskbar, programs wouldn't launch, CTRL+ALT+DEL does nothing) but only got a black screen with the cursor showing. After about two restarts I somehow got the task manager up and I noticed very high CPU usage. Directly after that is when the PC shut off on its own.

What should I explain to the owner? Does the burden of the hardware failure fall on me?

 

[BadActor]

That's an IC chip that's burned. Doubtful you did anything to cause that. More than likely it's due to the age of the system, such as many cycles of thermal expansion/contraction or capacitors beginning to fail.

 

[mjslakeridge]

Can you tell whether that white substance came out of the Q48 component or the tall brown capacitor next to it? Normally when a capacitor fails, it bursts out of the top where the indened "X" is (by design).

I don't think you should be responsible for hardware failure for just installing an OS. Now, if you were doing some extreme overclocking against the owner's wishes, that would be a different story.

 

[notomfoolery]

Can you tell whether that white substance came out of the Q48 component or the tall brown capacitor next to it? Normally when a capacitor fails, it bursts out of the top where the indened "X" is (by design).

I inspected the area again and the tall brown capacitor looks totally fine. There is no hole/opening on the side of the capacitor where the burnt component sits and the top of the capacitor is flat and sealed. In the first two images, the dark patch on the capacitor seems to be soot from the burnt component (it wiped off easily). There are also four other capacitors (in a line) on the other edge of the board near USB, VGA & keyboard PS/2 ports, three of which have slightly domed tops, but so far I don't see any other signs of damage.

I don't see the white substance anywhere else on the board. When I wiped it off it was solid and brittle, but not in a fluid state.

 

[maxwellmelon]

Its deffently the ic that burnt up( you can see the top right pin that's normally inside the plastic casing). from what I can see that its a power regulator ic for something. ( the inductor and capacitor are related to that ic circuit)

Means new motherboard time. sorry. might want to do some voltage test of the PSU if you can. considering the PSU motherboard power connector is right there the PSU might have failed sending a voltage spike to the board.)

from what you told us it cant be your fault(unless you were playing inside the case before the failure)

 

[notomfoolery]

Its deffently the ic that burnt up( you can see the top right pin that's normally inside the plastic casing). from what I can see that its a power regulator ic for something. ( the inductor and capacitor are related to that ic circuit)

Means new motherboard time. sorry

from what you told us it cant be your fault(unless you were playing inside the case before the failure)

Please define "playing inside the case". I received the PC with a heavy amount of dust and cobwebs inside which I cleaned out, but that was about 2-3 weeks before I installed Win 10, and during the many boots during that time the PC never showed any signs of trouble aside from a noisy CPU fan. Please clarify if any physical action external to the component could've caused it to burn out, because I really do not want to be at fault here.

 

[mjslakeridge]

If it has several capacitors that are slightly bulging, that is a sign that they are getting ready to fail (burst), just a matter of time. I would define "playing inside the case" as carelessly dropping a metal tool onto something causing a short. Removing dust is a normal thing to do.

I also would suspect a spike from the PSU as suggested above.

 

[notomfoolery]

Thanks for your input everyone. It's a shame the old PC's motherboard had to die since it was running a nice modern OS just fine before. As mentioned, I'll suspect the PSU to be faulty and if possible have it tested.