roorii

I tried hard when brushing the slot to get that little thing out of there, but it's wedged pretty tightly, which really makes me think it'd be some kinda melted copper, obviously I can't say with certainty though. There doesn't seem to be much damage to the coating around there, which I suppose could mean debris? I can always give it another try later, and see if something is actually stuck in there. If I can't get the slot working at all, I might try to use the lower slot instead of buying an all new board, but as I said in an earlier post, I'm slightly worried about it having less room to breathe.

How'd the story end? Did you end up using a different slot, or did you have to buy another Mobo? Are these slots even possible to repair? I've already grabbed myself a new GPU, as I mentioned. Like I say w/out using the GPU, all my USB accessories work fine (I've been using the rig for work since), I was actually considering getting some angled SATA cables to allow for me to use the other PCI slot. The only issue there that this slot is quite low on the Mobo, and I'm concerned there'd be little room for airflow (it'd be very close to the PSU). The CPU especially hasn't really caused me much trouble at all (Intel Core i7), an entire new rig just seems like a huge investment for something I could potentially solve in a more cost efficient manner.

Hey! First post here, I've had my first serious computer issue with a rig I've owned for 6 years, I'm not entirely at a loss, but I'd really appreciate your help. A few days ago, I'd been playing a relatively high end game on my computer, and when trying to close the game (by right clicking and closing it via my second screen) both my screens faded to black, not coming back on. I tried resetting my computer, but no dice, the fans revved, everything seemed fine.. but no screens. I unplugged the GPU, and tried the on board graphics, and... success! Screens came back on, was able to log in and do whatever...so surely this is a GPU issue. Nope. New GPU arrived, slotted it in, switched it back on and... nothing, same as yesterday. At this point I also noticed that when any GPU was plugged in, none of my USBs would power on, no light on the mouse, keyboard, nothing. Whereas when no GPU was plugged in, bam, instant lights, and it boots as normal. Upon further inspection (after giving the rig a deep clean), I found the PCI slot I use appeared to be damaged. The image I've attached (PCI Top Slot) seems to different from the second image (PCI Bottom Slot), and it looks to me as if some copper has melted (top left hand corner). I'm absolutely no expert here though, as you can imagine, so please correct me if this isn't the case. I have yet to try out the bottom slot, as there are SATA cables blocking me from using it with the GPUS I have currently, but do suspect that this difference between the slots means it likely would work. I suppose at this point I should mention that the PSU came pre-owned when it was put together. In fact I've had several blue screens relating to power supply failure over the years. I do suspect this might be what caused it, but obviously I can't be too sure. I'm at the point now where I'll replace my PSU just to be safe, but do you think the motherboard is salvageable? Can this kind of damage be repaired, or is it best to replace? Again, thanks for reading, and help you guys can provide would really help me out. Computer parts in question: ga-z77-d3h (Mobo), corsair tx650 (psu), xfx ghost r7900 (gpu)