7i76e PWR FAIL

Hi

I have a 7i76e that was given to me a longer time ago because it was faulty and I don't know what happened to it exactly. It's been sitting on the shelf ever since until I stumbled over it lately.

A visual inspection turned up nothing unusual, no holes in chips where magic smoke might have escaped. Upon applying power the field power led is lit as well as the pwr fail led. I checked and 3v3 is indeed shorted. In addition the ethernet controller chip gets hot, not smoking hot but definitely hotter than it should get.

Should I expect the ethernet chip to be the cause or is the cause rather somewhere else and it getting hot is just a symptom?

Kind regards
Martin

If the Ethernet chip is hot, its likely been damaged by ESD

Ok, I think technically I could replace it but do these chips have internal firmware that needs to be programmed?

No, the Ethernet chip has no non-volatile memory

Very good, thanks!