PCI-E slot damaged from "heavy" video card.

[rdukeman]

I am not sure who who is at fault here, and if anything could be done about it aside from getting a new motherboard.

I don't have the part models with me right now because it was from a machine I built for someone else a while ago. I just wanted to see if this was a common occurrence, and if anything could have been done to prevent it.

This conclusion that the slot was broken came from the slot being tested and not having any signal from it. No other video cards work in that slot and the video card itself is still undamaged.

Also, I am now on a the lookout for a reasonably priced MB. The card is an ATI 5700 series I believe. Since my client paid 70$ for the diagnostic from another party, I was considering their offer of a XFX 750i SLI N-force for 125.00$ (-70$ so 55$ more). However, that seems to be a dated MB but perhaps it would be still worth it considering the price?

 

[mfenn]

No 57xx card should be heavy enough to damage the PCIe slot unless the mounting bracket wasn't properly secured to the case.

And yes, any NVidia chipset is going to be pretty dated by now. But that's a Socket 775 chipset if I recall, so anything is going to be dated. There are a plethora of 775 boards on Newegg for $45 or so if you don't want to buy from them.

 

[RebateMonger]

There have been "heavy" add-in cards since the beginning of PCs. Some of the old ISA cards were huge. The Emulex Persyst 4 MB ISA card was 14 inches long and five inches tall and held 108 memory chips.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EmulexPersyst_4M_ISA.jpeg

I've seen a "bad" memory module damage a memory slot. The memory module had sharp edges on the PCB and, upon insertion, damaged three pins inside the memory slot. Although I was able to reposition the pins, the slot would no longer make reliable contact with inserted memory modules.

 

[Blain]

As has been stated, a properly installed video card shouldn't be causing any physical damage to a MB slot.
Don't blame a "heavy" video card for the damage...

* Incorrect installation
* Slot was defective from the start