My Thinkpad X250 suddenly stopped working one day. I opened it and I saw this chip left to the Ethernet port. It seems like it has exploded or something like that. Before it stopped working, sometimes it would get as hot as 95°C. Do have any idea of why it would stop working and if so, how I could repair it? Thanks in advance.
That’s the magnetics for the Ethernet. It’s supposed to isolate the Ethernet port from the rest of your system up to 1.5kV. You can see the little rings with wire around them - those are tiny transformers. If something did that kind of damage to the magnetics, I bet you’ll find discoloration or charring in the Ethernet socket. I can’t think of a good reason why it would take out the rest of your computer, but perhaps you plugged it into an Ethernet port that accidentally had mains across it, or a broken PoE switch? Lightning damage?
Also what do you mean by “stopped working”? Like stopped powering on?
Yes, it literally stopped powering on. It was on suspend for a couple of hours and then I went to power it on and it didn’t start. At first, I thought it was the battery and I went to charge it, but when I didn’t saw the green led blinking, I knew something went wrong. Also, no it’s not the charger’s fault, I have tested it with a different charger.
What about the Ethernet? Did you have something plugged into it?
And while the magnetics look destroyed, it looks more like the plastic encapsulation pulled off with the tape (to the left) when someone tried to peel it off than being fried. I don’t see any char marks on the PCB and the pins to the magnetics look clean.
Exactly what got to 95°C?
Can you share the ThinkPad’s specs?
I used to compile code or play Minecraft with shaders.
Though you can Google it, the specs are:
CPU: Intel Core i5-5300U with 2 cores
Graphics: Integrated
RAM: 8 GB DDR3
I’m sorry but giving your specs your ThinkPad was long overdue for a thermal paste change.
If you’re not gonna give it proper maintenance, then at the very least get a Core i3/Ryzen 3 next time.
