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Broke SMD Capacitor off Mobo

A

azncapcom

Junior Member
So I was breaking off those metal clips off the back of case to open up the slots to install a second graphics card.

The stupid case design did not let me bend the clips outwards of the case but had to bend inwards, also there was no gap between that and the mobo... so yes, i ended up breaking a cap off the mobo even when trying not to...

Yes i should have probably taken the whole mobo out of the case first... was trying to save time... and this is what happens.

Just want to know if this cap is at all that important...

Its a cap around the ASMEDIA ASM1083 chip. I did a quick google search and I get this:

Engaged in High Speed I/O solution development, Asmedia Technology is committed to enlarging product portfolio with introducing PCI Express Bridge Products. The ASM1083, x1 PCI Express to 32-bit PCI Bridge, enables users to connect legacy parallel bus devices to the advanced serial PCI Express interface. The ASM1083 is a PCI Express-to-PCI forward bridge, fully compliant with PCI-SIG PCI Express-to-PCI Bridge Specification1.0.

Does that mean im ok if I don't have any components that would take advantage of that legacy compatibility?

I did try to resolder the cap back on, but that thing is so tiny and I have a big soldering iron which just won't do the job. I have some solder experience, but I don't think its worth the money or hassle to purchase a small solder iron to fix it. plus could damage other components. If the system can run fine without that cap, so be it. What annoys me is that I only purchased this mobo 2 weeks ago...
 
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tried running games ok so far. tried prime95 test and ran fine for 30 minutes. temp was reaching 85C+ so i stopped as it was still on stock cooler.
 
It may simply be a smoothing or transient suppression cap since it is so small.
And as your tests conclude, it will probably fine without it.
 
Surface mount electrolytic or polymer (can type) or rectangular ceramic type? You wrote tiny so it seems ceramic is likely.

Knocking a ceramic off will often fracture it or tear the solder pads off the board. Given the function of the chip it is highly likely it is only a decoupling cap, meaning the chip may run fine without it, or it might mean your PCI bus isn't usable. I'd throw a PCI card in there just to check but if you really don't need the support then forget it happened.
 
im sure the engineer threw that cap in just for shits and giggles. to hard to fit iron to board buy a metcal, or attach 2 wires to board then to cap. scrape down to the trace, carefully.
 
^ Not so much shits and giggles but rather out of habit or it's just what's guaranteed to work via the datasheet, and if you take a look at some ASM1083 pics, you will even see where a board designer put pads and silkscreen for a cap(s) but then later someone decided not to put them on the board, usually to save a few fractions of a cent.
 
^ Not so much on that particular chip and not true in general for decoupling caps on most chips. We can practically rule out other capacitor circuit functions. Ceramic wouldn't be used for timing and flim would be much larger. There shouldn't be any AC component on this circuit so it wouldn't be coupling either, plus you can see in some of the pics that they have vias going to the ground plane.
 
azncapcom said:
So I was breaking off those metal clips off the back of case to open up the slots to install a second graphics card.

The stupid case design did not let me bend the clips outwards of the case but had to bend inwards, also there was no gap between that and the mobo... so yes, i ended up breaking a cap off the mobo even when trying not to...
Click to expand...

What case do you have with "metal clips" that must be broken off to create slot openings?
 
and what did eye find?
a chip surrounded by caps.
"somebody said"
"different versions, builds, destinations, hardware reason for open pads. "
 
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