Had a laptop come in with a short that was cooking the board

It was a Dell XPS 13 from a local college student. The thing would power on for about 30 seconds, get hot near the CPU, and then die. I pulled the board and saw a tiny scorch mark under a capacitor near the power rail. My thermal camera showed it hitting 95C in that spot. I pulled the cap, cleaned the area, and found a tiny solder ball from a previous bad repair bridging two pads. Removed it, replaced the cap, and the machine booted right up. Anyone else had a short hide under a component like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

richard_mason1mo ago

Man, I used to think a short would always blow a component big time. But I found a tiny whisker of solder under a WiFi chip once, just like your solder ball. It was on an old ThinkPad and it caused a similar shutdown. Took me forever to spot it.

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eric_price1mo ago

My buddy's Xbox had that, a single strand of wire.