gpu Is the PCB repairable?

[Q and A]

Two years ago, the screws didnt bother to open up. So with the help of brute force, i managed to damage this lad. Think a bit of copper tape and epoxy mend this up? (FYI this is an AMD Radeon HD7870 GHZ edition with 8 gigs of memory)

Edit: could it be the wire thats connected between the two screws causing it to not install any drivers?

Edited July 16, 2021 by Q and A

[mariushm]

Unless you're really patient and good with a soldering iron, the card's a total loss.

 

I suspect the pcb material has cracked/bent quite a lot around the screw and it's almost like the whole "ring" of pcb material around the screw is about to break off. 

I think some of those thin traces that curved around that "safety" area around the screw got damaged and are interrupted, broken 

 

You would have to repair at the very least these ... and to the left of the big yellow circled area  if that's not dust : 

And  on the other side, may have to check vias and copper fills as all the area around the screw is "unreliable"

 

[Q and A]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

Unless you're really patient and good with a soldering iron, the card's a total loss.

 

I suspect the pcb material has cracked/bent quite a lot around the screw and it's almost like the whole "ring" of pcb material around the screw is about to break off. 

I think some of those thin traces that curved around that "safety" area around the screw got damaged and are interrupted, broken 

 

You would have to repair at the very least these ... and to the left of the big yellow circled area  if that's not dust : 

And  on the other side, may have to check vias and copper fills as all the area around the screw is "unreliable"

 

Would it be wiser to give these instructions to the nearest repairing shop? I already showed this to two professionals and they said that its broken and cant be repaired. However, i did not tell them about the soldering techniques that could be applied on it. Worth a shot to get it checked out again with your quote?

[mariushm]

If I were a technician / repair person, I would also say it can not be repaired. 

 

The screw there is f#%ed. You would never be able to rely on it to screw down the heatsink onto the video card. Basically the whole heatsink would rely on the last 3 screws or maybe just two... so guarantee there's enough tension, enough pressure to have good heat transfer.

 

Then it's a matter of time spent fixing, doing microsoldering, placing super thin wires around that broken area... and just HOPE there's no vias cracked or broken or some traces in middle pcb layers near the area of the screw that got broken. 

It would take me maybe a couple of hours and I'd charge you at least 20-25$ an hour ... so would you pay 50$ knowing there's no guarantee it would work? 

Most service places would even charge you a separate fixed fee for diagnostic, for telling you "those traces are broken or cut, the vias could be bad and those are almost impossible to repair and so on"

 

I'd rather not have an angry client who's at least 50$ poorer to give me bad reviews and just tell you it can't be repaired