SMD Capacitor seems to have exploded in two

[Grunchy]

It's a SMD component marked "107D" and "217U5".

So far I have deduced that it is a 100 µF capacitor and possibly tantalum.

But what means the "217U5" marking? I googled all over and could not find a guide to this 2nd line of marking.

Also what do you suppose if I were to put on a regular thru-hole ceramic component instead?

[asp]

You can find your datasheet for your cap here:

http://datasheets.avx.com/TAJ.pdf

And from reading the datasheet your cap is a 100uF/20V. You cannot replace it with a ceramic cap since ceramic caps don't have polarities, but you can (most likely) replace it with a THT electrolytic cap (it just depends on the application) just be sure not to mount it reversed (your anode(+) side of the cap is to the left of the picture))

[SeanB]

100uf ceramic would be an issue, you could probably replace it with a 100uF 25V SMD electrolytic with no problems, provided there is enough room. Looks like it is the input filtering, and either you had reverse polarity connection or connected the input with power applied.

[Grunchy]

Thanks everyone - I replaced the SMD with an electrolytic, but the board has perished.
I couldn't see anything else obviously wrong so I'm retiring it!

[asp]

Maybe you can give us more details about the board since somebody might come up with a schematic for it as that will make it easier to find the fault.

SeanB is right as it looks like a filtering cap. Start debugging the board from the PSU onward (voltage regulators, mosfets, diodes..)

[T3sl4co1l]

Possible the tant exploded on its own, or due to a supply transient; this will momentarily or continuously short the supply, so could compromise other components (FETs, fuses?).  Could also be from a reverse or overvoltage condition, which likely took out lots of other things.

What is this, a laptop motherboard or something?  I once had the condition where my power adapter was going flaky (the cable was frayed and the +19V output was occasionally shorting to GND), and in one instance I plugged it in, and poof, magic smoke from the motherboard.  Looked like some charging-related circuitry poofed (an SOIC-8, which it turns out was just an LM393, of all things?!), and a couple peripherals (an ASIC, a PCI bridge or SuperIO I think) suggesting a 3.3V rail went kaput.  CPU, GPU, RAM, HDD were all still fine, replaced the mobo, good as new...

Probably, a similar situation, or perhaps an accidentally reversed plug pack (does anyone make adapters with common connectors but reversed polarity?) or the wrong voltage, could have caused your problem.  Among many other possibilities.

Tim