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Mainboard board-level repair: Where should I go?

macminitosh
By macminitosh
in Troubleshooting
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So, recently, I fried a mainboard. It's a nice MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon, and I took its life by delivering some wattage into a fan header by plugging a floppy power connector into it (I know, I know, but... why the devil would they still put floppy power cables on a semi-modular PSU?) 

After replacing it out of my own pocket (The PC belongs to a friend of mine), I just left the defective board in its packaging and eventually forgot about it.

 

While doing some light quarantine cleanup, I eventually stumbled upon the package containing the board, and thought to myself that before throwing it in the bin, I might find a way to get it repaired, despite the unpromising end of my last post. So I started googling around, and... found exactly no one that would repair mainboard (that are not from a laptop), neither in my local area, nor in my country (Germany). Contacting MSI turned out to be nothing but wasted time, as they would not replace or repair my board (as it is now too old, I suppose).

 

My last attempt before giving up entirely would be to ask here if any of you guys know might know someone, a person or a shop, who would be willing to look at the board and tell whether or not it is fixable. Or maybe someone here has all the necessary tools and would be willing to take a look at it. I really don't want to throw out a board that might just have a defective capacitor or whatnot hindering it from booting. 

 

I'm located in the northern part of Baden-Württemberg (right between Frankfurt and Heidelberg), but with the current pandemic situation I suppose mailing it out would mean I can send it anywhere in Germany. Any tips?

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Posted
9 minutes ago, macminitosh said:

why the devil would they still put floppy power cables on a semi-modular PSU?) 

probably older psu since floppy disk are really not used anymore.

 

@Stahlmann might help you. She lives in Germany. 

QUOTE ME  FOR ANSWER.

 

Main PC:

Spoiler

|Ryzen 7 3700x, OC to 4.2ghz @1.3V, 67C, or 4.4ghz @1.456V, 87C || Asus strix 5700 XT, +50 core, +50 memory, +50 power (not a great overclocker) || Asus Strix b550-A || G.skill trident Z Neo rgb 32gb 3600mhz cl16-19-19-19-39, oc to 3733mhz with the same timings || Cooler Master ml360 RGB AIO || Phanteks P500A Digital || Thermaltake ToughPower grand RGB750w 80+gold || Samsung 850 250gb and Adata SX 6000 Lite 500gb || Toshiba 5400rpm 1tb || Asus Rog Theta 7.1 || Asus Rog claymore || Asus Gladius 2 origin gaming mouse || Monitor 1 Asus 1080p 144hz || Monitor 2 AOC 1080p 75hz || 

Test Rig.

Spoiler

| Ryzen 5 3400G || Gigabyte b450 S2H || Hyper X fury 2x4gb 2666mhz cl 16 ||Stock cooler || Antec NX100 || Silverstone essential 400w || Transgend SSD 220s 480gb ||

Just Sold

Spoiler

| i3 9100F || Msi Gaming X gtx 1050 TI || MSI Z390 A-Pro || Kingston 1x16gb 2400mhz cl17 || Stock cooler || Kolink Horizon RGB || Corsair CV 550w || Pny CS900 120gb ||

 

Tier lists for building a PC.

 

Motherboard tier list. Tier A for overclocking 5950x. Tier B for overclocking 5900x, Tier C for overclocking 5800X. Tier D for overclocking 5600X. Tier F for 4/6 core Cpus at stock. Tier E avoid.

(Also case airflow matter or if you are using Downcraft air cooler)

Spoiler

 

Gpu tier list. Rtx 3000 and RX 6000 not included since not so many reviews. Tier S for Water cooling. Tier A and B for overcloking. Tier C stock and Tier D avoid.

( You can overclock Tier C just fine, but it can get very loud, that is why it is not recommended for overclocking, same with tier D)

Spoiler

 

Psu tier List. Tier A for Rtx 3000, Vega and RX 6000. Tier B For anything else. Tier C cheap/IGPU. Tier D and E avoid.

(RTX 3000/ RX 6000 Might run just fine with higher wattage tier B unit, Rtx 3070 runs fine with tier B units)

Spoiler

 

Cpu cooler tier list. Tier 1&2 for power hungry Cpus with Overclock. Tier 3&4 for overclocking Ryzen 3,5,7 or lower power Intel Cpus. Tier 5 for overclocking low end Cpus or 4/6 core Ryzen. Tier 6&7 for stock. Tier 8&9 Ryzen stock cooler performance. Do not waste your money!

Spoiler

 

Storage tier List. Tier A for Moving files/  OS. Tier B for OS/Games. Tier C for games. Tier D budget Pcs. Tier E if on sale not the worst but not good.

(With a grain of salt, I use tier C for OS myself)

Spoiler

 

Case Tier List. Work In Progress. Most Phanteks airflow series cases already done!

Ask me anything :)

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Posted
13 minutes ago, macminitosh said:

My last attempt before giving up entirely would be to ask here if any of you guys know might know someone, a person or a shop, who would be willing to look at the board and tell whether or not it is fixable. Or maybe someone here has all the necessary tools and would be willing to take a look at it. I really don't want to throw out a board that might just have a defective capacitor or whatnot hindering it from booting. 

There little to be done for less than the cost of a new board. I can't say for sure what's broke, but it's certainly more than one cap; probably one or more IC chips. Even if you could source new ones, troubleshooting to determine the bad component isn't easy.

Main System (Byarlant): Ryzen 7 5800X | Asus B550-Creator ProArt | EK 240mm Basic AIO | 16GB G.Skill DDR4 3200MT/s CAS-14 | XFX Speedster SWFT 210 RX 6600 | Samsung 990 PRO 2TB / Samsung 960 PRO 512GB / 4× Crucial MX500 2TB (RAID-0) | Corsair RM750X | Mellanox ConnectX-3 10G NIC | Inateck USB 3.0 Card | Hyte Y60 Case | Dell U3415W Monitor | Keychron K4 Brown (white backlight)

 

Laptop (Narrative): Lenovo Flex 5 81X20005US | Ryzen 5 4500U | 16GB RAM (soldered) | Vega 6 Graphics | SKHynix P31 1TB NVMe SSD | Intel AX200 Wifi (all-around awesome machine)

 

Proxmox Server (Veda): Ryzen 7 3800XT | AsRock Rack X470D4U | Corsair H80i v2 | 64GB Micron DDR4 ECC 3200MT/s | 4x 10TB WD Whites / 4x 14TB Seagate Exos / 2× Samsung PM963a 960GB SSD | Seasonic Prime Fanless 500W | Intel X540-T2 10G NIC | LSI 9207-8i HBA | Fractal Design Node 804 Case (side panels swapped to show off drives) | VMs: TrueNAS Scale; Ubuntu Server (PiHole/PiVPN/NGINX?); Windows 10 Pro; Ubuntu Server (Apache/MySQL)


Media Center/Video Capture (Jesta Cannon): Ryzen 5 1600X | ASRock B450M Pro4 R2.0 | Noctua NH-L12S | 16GB Crucial DDR4 3200MT/s CAS-22 | EVGA GTX750Ti SC | UMIS NVMe SSD 256GB / Seagate 1.5TB HDD | Corsair CX450M | Viewcast Osprey 260e Video Capture | Mellanox ConnectX-2 10G NIC | LG UH12NS30 BD-ROM | Silverstone Sugo SG-11 Case | Sony XR65A80K

 

Camera: Sony ɑ7II w/ Meike Grip | Sony SEL24240 | Samyang 35mm ƒ/2.8 | Sony SEL50F18F | Sony SEL2870 (kit lens) | PNY Elite Perfomance 512GB SDXC card

 

Network:

Spoiler 
                           ┌─────────────── Office/Rack ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
Google Fiber Webpass ────── UniFi Security Gateway ─── UniFi Switch 8-60W ─┬─ UniFi Switch Flex XG ═╦═ Veda (Proxmox Virtual Switch)
(500Mbps↑/500Mbps↓)                             UniFi CloudKey Gen2 (PoE) ─┴─ Veda (IPMI)           ╠═ Veda-NAS (HW Passthrough NIC)
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╩═ Narrative (Asus USB 2.5G NIC)
║ ┌────── Closet ──────┐   ┌─────────────── Bedroom ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
╚═ UniFi Switch Flex XG ═╤═ UniFi Switch Flex XG ═╦═ Byarlant
   (PoE)                 │                        ╠═ Narrative (Cable Matters USB-PD 2.5G Ethernet Dongle)
                         │                        ╚═ Jesta Cannon*
                         │ ┌─────────────── Media Center ──────────────────────────────────┐
Notes:                   └─ UniFi Switch 8 ─────────┬─ UniFi Access Point nanoHD (PoE)
═══ is Multi-Gigabit                                ├─ Sony Playstation 4 
─── is Gigabit                                      ├─ Pioneer VSX-S520
* = cable passed to Bedroom from Media Center       ├─ Sony XR65A80K (Google TV)
** = cable passed from Media Center to Bedroom      └─ Work Laptop** (Startech USB-PD Dock)

 

Retired/Other:

Spoiler

Laptop (Rozen-Zulu): Sony VAIO VPCF13WFX | Core i7-740QM | 8GB Patriot DDR3 | GT 425M | Samsung 850EVO 250GB SSD | Blu-ray Drive | Intel 7260 Wifi (lived a good life, retired with honor)

Testbed/Old Desktop (Kshatriya): Xeon X5470 @ 4.0GHz | ZALMAN CNPS9500 | Gigabyte EP45-UD3L | 8GB Nanya DDR2 400MHz | XFX HD6870 DD | OCZ Vertex 3 Max-IOPS 120GB | Corsair CX430M | HooToo USB 3.0 PCIe Card | Osprey 230 Video Capture | NZXT H230 Case

TrueNAS Server (La Vie en Rose): Xeon E3-1241v3 | Supermicro X10SLL-F | Corsair H60 | 32GB Micron DDR3L ECC 1600MHz | 1x Kingston 16GB SSD / Crucial MX500 500GB

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Posted
9 minutes ago, macminitosh said:

So, recently, I fried a mainboard. It's a nice MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon, and I took its life by delivering some wattage into a fan header by plugging a floppy power connector into it (I know, I know, but... why the devil would they still put floppy power cables on a semi-modular PSU?) 

First, let me apologise for laughing out loud at what you did to the board ;)


Second, each fan header has the same 3 components next to it, so you could have someone replace those, as well as check the main Nuvoton IC. I have highlighted them in this image for you in bright green.
image.thumb.png.dd0bbc8aed1bb622d1a4d86d219e1763.png
 

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4 minutes ago, SavageNeo said:

probably older psu since floppy disk are really not used anymore.

 

@Stahlmann might help you. She lives in Germany. 

Some PCI/PCIe cards still use the floppy style connector for additional power - though thankfully most have moved to SATA. Even a new PSU can still come with the old connector.

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18 minutes ago, macminitosh said:

I know, I know, but... why the devil would they still put floppy power cables on a semi-modular PSU?

I wish my Seasonic Focus GM-750 had floppy power - I use it.

It was even listed on the Newegg page, but do I get one? Nope!

elephants

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Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, ragnarok0273 said:

I wish my Seasonic Focus GM-750 had floppy power - I use it.

It was even listed on the Newegg page, but do I get one? Nope!

These exist on Amazon :) 

Spoiler

image.png.532972c9f2a0bfaf90e7183ac5c3c5aa.png

edited to add spoiler tags to the large image - soz!

Edited by TehDwonz
added spoiler tags to hide large image
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1 minute ago, TehDwonz said:

These exist on Amazon :) 

Better than Molex, because I need my 3 Molex connectors.
I have 3 leftover SATA power cables though - thanks!

elephants

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4 hours ago, SavageNeo said:

probably older psu since floppy disk are really not used anymore.

 

@Stahlmann might help you. She lives in Germany. 

Not a "she" but ok ;)

(My profile picture is just a musician called "SCARLET")

 

Sadly i can't say anything that might point OP in the right direction for mobo repairs (even though we live around 100km apart lol).

If someone did not use reason to reach their conclusion in the first place, you cannot use reason to convince them otherwise.

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4 hours ago, TehDwonz said:

First, let me apologise for laughing out loud at what you did to the board ;)


Second, each fan header has the same 3 components next to it, so you could have someone replace those, as well as check the main Nuvoton IC. I have highlighted them in this image for you in bright green.
image.thumb.png.dd0bbc8aed1bb622d1a4d86d219e1763.png
 

 

It's okay, if anything like that happened to anyone else I'd probably laugh as well. Thanks for the schematic! A friend of mine offered to check the components you've marked, maybe he can isolate a defective part and I can search for someone to exchange it for me :)

 

12 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Not a "she" but ok ;)

(My profile picture is just a musician called "SCARLET")

 

Sadly i can't say anything that might point OP in the right direction for mobo repairs (even though we live around 100km apart lol).

 

Oh, nice to hear from a fellow German, frohes Neues! und happy lockdown ;) 

 

I'll continue searching for anyone with the micro soldering skills to try and fix this, I'm open for any suggestions! 

If I can't manage to find someone, or if the board is not fixable, maybe someone here wants to have it? 

 

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