IBM

Hello, haven't had much luck searching on google.

Anyone know what this device is? Doesn't have enough slots to fully occupy the slots on the mobo, and it has a bunch of inductors and a big heatsink on both side.

It just fell out of this beat up intellistation 275 from ebay so it must have come loose during shipping, don't know where it belongs.

One side:

The other:

it appears to be a Voltage Regulator Module, also called a Point-Of-Load converter. perhaps it slots near the CPUs.

Looks like a voltage regulator module, or VRM. If the 275 in this googled up photo is the same as yours, what looks like the VRM is located in the lower right corner of the photo - just behind the lower memory slots:

That seems to be it, I just had to pull the fan assembly and there is the slot for it, along with a whole lot of massive dust clumps all over the place.

I'm going to try and vacuum this thing out before re-assembling it.

Thanks Recondas, RobesPierre

The recommendation is not to vacuum computers because the vacuum hose can develop a very strong static charge. If you have access to a compressor that's good, otherwise lung power can get many of the dustbeasties out.

This.

I was once vacuuming out a bunch of old antiquated terminal server gear which had a whole bunch of dust clumps all over the inside of the chassis. At the time I didn't think anything of it, and used the house vacuum to clear out the machine. Of course the vacuum hose wasn't grounded and happened to be made out of plastic, so the static charge that was built up by the dust moving down the hose was rather impressive- enough to leap a 2" air gap with a sharp bang straight into the PCB.

That piece of equipment never operated properly again.

If you want to vacuum computer equipment out, please please please invest in a proper ESD safe vacuum cleaner. They cost anywhere from $100 to $300, the most typical models (which were sold by 3M and about a dozen other companies) resemble a black toolbox with a handle. The hose on those machines is electrically grounded via a three prong power plug, and the entire assembly is rated to suck up something as fine as toner without igniting it.

If you don't want to do that, then buy a $5 can of compressed air and use that instead.

Please, please please don't use your house vacuum cleaner. You can permanently damage your equipment, even if you're being careful with it.

-DN

Hmm, in the back of my mind I thought there might have been an issue like this. I haven't vacuum it yet.

I've bought the compressed air cans from a bin in the local office works but they don't really last long enough for me. Maybe I'll invest in an air compressor as they are useful for a lot of different things.

Compressor air has tiny oil particles in it. Not what you want on your PCBs. Oil-less compressors exist, but they still use oil, you just don't need to refill during it's lifespan it so I guess (hope?) it doesn't spray tiny oil particles around. Special oil free compressors for electronics manufacturing exist, but they probably come at a price.

I use a soft brush to clean PCBs, and a regular vacuum cleaner to clean out the (empty) chassis. Occasionally I use a can of compressed air to blow the dust out of a PSU or other object I don't feel like opening.

You can get a filtered airgun for use with a regular compressor (guys at bodyshops use these all the time so they don't ruin an expensive paint job) but I don't know how much you'll have to spend to get one that is safe to use on computer guts.

If you stay away from the lowend-who-knows-who-made-it stuff, a compressor designed for airbrush work would probably be pretty safe. High-end air brush compressors are designed (and filtered) to prevent the output of oil, water or other contaminants (if you've just spent a couple of days applying detailed custom graphics to someone else's motorcycle you're gonna have zero tolerance for compressor-supplied paint additives).

Is it Helicopter?

Search for collegehumor batman helicopter on Youtube.