TIL a cheap thermal camera can beat a good multimeter for some power issues

I was working on a laptop that would turn on but had no display, and my Fluke meter said all the main power rails were fine. Out of frustration, I borrowed a coworker's $200 Seek thermal camera and scanned the board. Instantly spotted a tiny voltage regulator near the CPU socket running at 85 degrees Celsius when it should have been cool. It was leaking voltage to ground under load, something the meter missed completely. Has anyone else had a case where a thermal camera found something your other tools couldn't?

3 comments

3 Comments

gray_hall49d agoMost Upvoted

I saw a repair tech on YouTube use a thermal camera to find a shorted capacitor on a graphics card. The board looked perfect, but one cap was a bright white hotspot while the system was trying to boot. It's wild how heat gives you a direct map to the problem part before it fully dies. Do you think this makes thermal imaging a basic tool for board repair now?

the_ben9d ago

Wait, that regulator was at 85 degrees? That's insane for a part that should be cold! I can totally see how a meter would miss a small leak like that if the voltage looked right at a quick check. Makes me want to grab a thermal camera just for weird power-down issues. Crazy how a simple heat picture can show you the exact spot that's dying.

blake_owens9d ago

Actually, thermal cams are great but they can't see voltage leaks directly, just the heat they make!