Fried Pololu stepper driver component

Hi all, I had a component on my Pololu fry or something. I have no idea whats wrong, but it seems to still be working.

Earlier today I was printing something and halfway through a bunch of steps were missed on the X-axis, but then the print immediately went back to normal. So the first half of the print is in the right spot, the second half shifted over. When I discovered this I noticed the distinct smelled of fried electronics in the air so I took a look at the robot brain. I've attached a pic of the RAMPS 1.2 board with two pololus in view so you can compare and contrast components.

My questions are these: Is it safe/advisable to continue using the pololu? What are the possible consequences? What does this component do?

It's hard to tell from a photo, but why take a chance. You can go to pololu.com directly and get these boards, assembled, for less than $8. For a few dollars more, you can step up the black edition which supposedly can handle higher current better.

Good idea. I found that I actually had a spare unassembled a4983, so I put that together and everything's working great. Wow, when did those boards get so cheap? That's really great, I'll have to upgrade my discontinued boards at some point.