Is my motherboard a gonner?

[wallsfd949]

[edit]:

I ended up purchasing a new replacement (identical) motherboard on eBay for $41 - $50 w/s&h. A $50 moment of stupidity. Glad I don't think like this on the job...

[/edit]


This is what happens after a long day of work and too many calls...


I wanted to get started on my new case transplant. I had an old Gateway 500x case that just wasn't doing the job cooling wise and I picked up one of those huge Chieftec cases from the last Tigerdirect Hot Deal for $19.95. This was the scene:
Pic 1

I saw this really handy dandy plastic piece that is proprietary for the Gateway case and attempted to remove it:
Pic 2

The fireman mentality set in and I figured, if it won't come off easy pry it off (hey, we do it to doors right? what's the difference). The end result was I think I killed my motherboard:
Pic 3

And my wife thought she'd be cute and insist I post her pic of me in distress (supportive wives are great..):
Pic 4



I'm 95% sure it's toast without plugging it in, but a second opinion is appreciated. Also, I can get the same motherboard locally for ~$60. Everything else is fine. It's nothing special, (P4 2.533) 533mhz FSB, (1GB) PC2700 RAM, Intel 845PE chipset, onboard audio and a 4x AGP slot w/3 PCI slots. I'm having a hard time justifying a new Motherboard/Proc/Ram/Video card/SATA Raptor but maybe you guys can convince me of a good reason to. My current setup does everything I need it to, but Media encoding could be quicker.


$60.00 or $500.00 + for all new?

 

[hemiram]

Well, I don't know about the upgrade deal, but you have that nice new case...

We all do dopey things, your dumb move was trying to pry off the support for the CPU socket (what were you thinking?)

Mine was when I took my $400 police scanner, and sucessfully modded it, then aligned it. It was working great, and then somehow, instead of turning it off, I tried to put the case back on it while it was turned on, and a wire got pulled and it broke off, and landed on the PC board, and that ended up being a $175 boner. I know better now...

I just put my present one together after my last one started crashing anytime I played a game the stressed it. After it blew the PS, I decided it was time to get started. I WAS trying to wait for the socket 939 PCIE boards to come out, but they kept getting delayed, so I went and got all the parts together. A few days later, after I had the thing running, the PCIE boards come out. Figures..

 

[Yossairian]

Bummer man.. Dont know how it would work for plastic, but a little heat usually works for removing those types of plates ( heatgun or hairdryer ).

For next time

good luck,

 

[Woody419]

I have fixed traces on curcuit boards with a conductive trace pen. There are a lot of these around. try a local electornics supply store.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: Woody419
I have fixed traces on curcuit boards with a conductive trace pen. There are a lot of these around. try a local electornics supply store.

I would give this a try.
Don't let like 3 broken traces hinder you
it's fixable.

 

[TTM77]

Originally posted by: CraigRT

Originally posted by: Woody419
I have fixed traces on curcuit boards with a conductive trace pen. There are a lot of these around. try a local electornics supply store.

I would give this a try.
Don't let like 3 broken traces hinder you
it's fixable.

or if you have solder/wire/knife around you can do a little soldering work.

use the knife to scratch the surface of the cable.. and start soldering.

 

[Ike0069]

I don't see a reason to buy all new components right now. If you can't fix the MB, just buy a replacement board. $60 is actually pretty cheap solution. I think most of have broken some part that cost more (in some cases a lot more) to replace.

 

[Blain]

Unless your unemployed, it's probably not worth your time to try and fix ye ole MB.

 

[wallsfd949]

Originally posted by: CraigRT

Originally posted by: Woody419
I have fixed traces on curcuit boards with a conductive trace pen. There are a lot of these around. try a local electornics supply store.

I would give this a try.
Don't let like 3 broken traces hinder you
it's fixable.

I did count, and it's about 15 lines. I don't want to 'chance' it on a motherboard. I'd hate to have a system crash when I've put a lot of time into a project.

Originally posted by: Blain
Unless your unemployed, it's probably not worth your time to try and fix ye ole MB.

I'd have to agree. I wanted a second opinion on if it was shot, and have received confirmation from everyone here. While a new motherboard/proc/ram/hd sounds nice, I agree with Ike0069 that $60 is much more attractive than $500+

Thanks all for the help and advice!

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Should have used "the jaws of life" on that ah heck I see you are posting from the lappy so why not buy this board which saves a few dollars and has a newer chipset and better IGP? You just have to wait a few days to get it that's all.

 

[Tiamat]

Ouch, thats some serious deep gashs. I dont know if a conductive pen can buff that out...

Good luck dude.

 

[wallsfd949]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Should have used "the jaws of life" on that ah heck

That may become a fun experiment since the board is useless as is. I'll post pics if we do.

... so why not buy this board which saves a few dollars and has a newer chipset and better IGP?

One reason I can think of to replace it with the same intel board, is a much better chance of putting it back together with no conflicts other than an XP re-activation or something. I think you have to re-activate it if you swap motherboards.

Hopefully, I can be up and running without any major issues by using the same mobo.

 

[Ben88]

links don't work

 

[Zepper]

Yes, you have gouged those traces away. But not hard to fix. I have used lengths of wire-wrap wire to bypass such gouges in the past . Easier and more reliable than a trace pen. Tack the wires to the mobo with some hot-glue when done.

.bh.

Here, have a :beer: while I get out my tiny violins...

 

[Ike0069]

A different MB chipset will most likely require a reinstall of XP.