First off, I am not an Electrical Engeneer (yet) and it has been a while since
I have had a class that dealt with electricty so if anyone notices an error
please correct me.

Generally
A capacitor is like a little rechargeble battery. First off a cap always is
usally acting as a resistor. Now lets assume that you have a some what
constant voltage DC. If the voltage drops then the cap lets out some of it's
stored up power. If there is too much power it absorbs some. 

Most computers
use 3 capacitors next to the CPU to do the job of supplying power (tri-phase
is the term I
think). The way this works is that one powers the cpu until the voltage starts
to drop, and then the next takes over, and the first begins to recharge. 

The voltage regulator in the PSU does not look like a cap, but I assume that
it works the same way as there are bunch of cap's in there.


On Fri, 17 Oct 2003, Bryce C wrote:

> Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't a voltage regulator a voltage
> regulator and a capacitor a capacitor and neither look all that similar?
> You can, of course, attach a capacitor to a voltage regulator as is done
> on the common, home-brew IR receiver but the voltage regulator still
> looks more like a transistor than a capacitor.