Why do "fried" components sometimes re-start working after some time

[uOpt]

I have observed that often enough to be convinced this is true: for me, solid-state electronics that I frie in an accident sometimes come back to life after some time.

Sometimes a few hours, such as when I had the wrong half of a 4+4 ATX12V in my DFI, sometimes after a few weeks such as when my mighty CABNE went down from an Athena PSU. I had more in the past.

Why is that? Is that just buildup in the caps that needs to vanish?

[jonnyGURU]

I don't know what you're talking about.

Oops... Got to get my batteries out of the freezer... be right back.....

[haste]

hmmm
maybe i should try my "fried" A8N32-sli again...

[ianm2]

Its probably more to do with some that maybe self healing and recuperate to a limited extent, it may be that the 'shock' of losing specified performance makes it go unstable and not work/crash, and then when you power it up again, it works, but in reality, compromised.

eg. you may still have some electrolyte left in caps, obviously though, the capacitance or ability to do its job propely will have altered

any component that has been fried and still works, will not be optimally working, and may induce things like noise, and lack stability/regulation, so no point in using whatsoever, chips, are far less tolerant to recovering. ie when they have had it, they have had it.

fwiw, solid state isn't 'passive' components like the holy trinity....resistors, capacitors(condensers..I prefer) and inductors/chokes

SS refers to semiconductor based things like chips(IC's), transistors, be they bipolar or mosfet.( as opposed to gaseous state devices like thermionic (heat ionisation) valves(tubes) which do the same thing, only by a different mechanism

[uOpt]

I don't think it's that simple, that a limited capacity is brought back.

That CABNE is now working at the old speed in my gaming machine. Highly clocked (higher than it would go after the Athena assassination) and no problems (yes I primed 36 hours).

The DFI SLI-DR that had both the 4+4 accident and was connected to the Athena did bring me second place in 2x 256 MB TCCD speeds after recovery, and ran my 2GBHZ faster than before. That is after it was dead for a couple hours after the 4+4. Of course the new speeds are not a result of almost frying the board but improved piloting. But it proves that the components are not permanently degraded.

[DvBoard]

If it's still working you didn't break it right the first time ;).

[Bbq]

If it ain't broke, fix it til' it is.