Question Snapped a capacitor off from HP Omen

[AsuraJun]

One of the capacitor fell out and it’s located next to the fan adapter. EAX46 (• 390 2.5 V
I’m just wondering would it work fine if it’s not on? Thank you.

 

[AlHuneke]

You could post a picture, but I suspect this is a "supercap" and used to maintain certain system settings when the power is off. I don't think you would damage anything by running the machine, but there may be startup issues. How was it that the cap fell off? It may have been defective soldering but more likely it was caused mishandling. If the latter, other things may be damaged.

 

[AsuraJun]

I ran the machine and it’s working fine, but I’m just a little worried and I have ordered some spare capacitors, just in case.

https://imgur.com/a/VdUr8Jk

View: https/imgur.com/a/VdUr8Jk

 

[AlHuneke]

Soldering the new one one will be a challenge. Make sure you follow good ESD practices and hopefully use a grounded soldering iron.

I have another thought---supercaps are good for two applications: storing a charge to supply low current for long periods of time or storing charge to supply high current for short periods of time. Without a schematic, I don't know what yours are used for. Does your machine have a CMOS battery? If so, that . that would tell be that perhaps the supercaps help with the CPU or GPU (probably GPU) short term power peaks. In that case, having one missing might cause errors under certain heavy processing loads. Perhaps someone else knows how these are connected.

 

[AsuraJun]

I don't think I have a CMOS Battery, so my thought was since the capacitor is next to the fan adapter, I think it stores a charge to boost the fan speed when needed? because I checked my left fan and it doesn't have one which makes sense because this laptop runs one fan only when it's not doing heavy load and when it does, it runs both fans.