Just a bored thought...

[SinfulWeeper]

So I am awaiting a replacement motherboard to come in for my laptop. The existing board decided it liked and can handle beer better than I... It was wrong...

Anyhow I found the boardview of my motherboard and while all on different circuits. Can't wait to make money on a well withheld bit of info.... even though it is too late. But IoT makes things so easy...


Got sidetracked... anyways there is a plethora or voltage regulation items missing. And a few semicondor chips. Those are not on any boardview. What happens if I use deductive knowledge and slap some bad boys in there? I be out a mere 25 on parts (mobo, cpu, various capacitors diodes.... etc etc...) but out a ton of time. Should I do it? Or is there a program I can use that will simulate it for me?

 

[mindless1]

If I understand correctly you want to solder on components omitted. What do you hope to gain, new features or longevity? Any thoughts that this will make it better handle more beer?

I would leave it as-is, install and test and be done, OR if you don't mind voiding any warranty there (probably isn't) might be, you could cover or plug in all relevant connectors and heatsink/fan, then spray a beerproofing conformal coating over it. That may still be inadequate at keeping the underside of BGA chips from having a drink unless you spray it on really thick, which might create a mess, and the CPU, if socketed will be a bigger challenge.

 

[sdifox]

Well that is a fastbway to kill your mb plus whatever else is in the path, upto and including the cpu.

 

[snoopy7548]

These parts aren't missing, they're not populated for a reason. When designing circuits, locations for extra parts are sometimes put in for higher-performing assemblies (one board for all models), concerns about future part availability, or simply for having options (i.e. calculations show # capacitance required but let's add pads for extra in case we fail this test so we don't have to respin the board.) If you find out what specific regulator is missing, you'll likely need to depopulate another regulator circuit and replace other parts with different values.

Without having (and understanding) the schematic, leave it alone. I don't see how you can possibly know what parts to put on there, as there are thousands of ICs (and a plethora of wildly different regulators) in common packages, not to mention it would be impossible to determine the proper values for unpopulated resistors, caps, and diodes without knowing the rest of the circuit. An improper value on a single resistor can cause the entire board to fail.