Scratched the motherboard, am i cooked?

[Kestas101]

Tl;DR: Accidentally scratched the MO when building a new pc for the first time. PC turns on, fans spin, gpu lights up, but mouse and keyboard dont light up when inputted into MO. Monitor also gets no signal from gpu. Is it because of the scratch? What options do i have? Is the MO worthless now, or can people who specialize in pc's fix it?

I bought pc parts for 2k. Wanted to build it myself for the first time. All went somewhat well, until i had to add the gpu. I guess i cheaped out on the case, because the panels i needed to remove for the gpu were ones that had to be yanked out by force. I didnt realize they contacted the MO when i was trying to get them out and it scratched it. Didnt know what else to do, so i just tried to boot it, see if it works. The pc lights up, fans spin, gpu lights up, cooler also produces water circulation sounds. I plugged an hdmi to the gpu and keyboard+mouse to the MO, but monitor is blank and peripherals dont light up. The scratches are on some lines of the MO... Is this the problem of the scratches or did i miss something maybe? If its the scratches, what can i do? Obviously i cant get a replacement, because its my fault for scratching it, but can it be fixed? I would assume if it can, it would be cheaper than buying the same new MO. But is it worth it? Can they fix it and make it "good as new" or is the better/only option to buy a new MO? I've attached several photos of the scratched part, trying to photograph it as best i could. I dare not to disassemble everything now, way too scared to do anything really... I also have no idea if I've scratched the back of the MO, but i did try to be careful with it.
I also cant seem to turn the pc off with the power button, after turning it on, only by turning off the power supply...
PC specs:
MO: MSI B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI
CPU: Ryzen 7 7800x3d
GPU: ASROCK 7900 XTX
RAM: 2x16 GB 6000 MHz Corsair Vengeance
SSD: Lexar NM620 M.2 2280 Pcie Gen3x4 NVMe SSD, 3500 MB/s Read speed
PSU: Corsair RM850e
CPU Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240
Case: DeepCool MATREXX 55 MESH

[jaslion]

Cant reallt see it but did you plug in the 8 pin cpu connector?

 

This is one of those take it out of the case and try it on a cardboard box with minimal hardware type of deals

[Kestas101]

6 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Cant reallt see it but did you plug in the 8 pin cpu connector?

 

This is one of those take it out of the case and try it on a cardboard box with minimal hardware type of deals

I plugged in both the 8 pin cpu connectors, since the MO has two cpu inputs.

I was hoping to avoid trying with minimal hardware, but if its not definitive that the problem is because of the scratches, then i suppose i'll have to.

[jaslion]

17 minutes ago, Kestas101 said:

I plugged in both the 8 pin cpu connectors, since the MO has two cpu inputs.

I was hoping to avoid trying with minimal hardware, but if its not definitive that the problem is because of the scratches, then i suppose i'll have to.

Since its being vague about issues and you caused damage its always best to remove as much as possible and try. Also no gpu you have a igpu

[manikyath]

yep.. you cut some traces..

 

if you know someone who is handy with very fine soldering this is fixable, but it's not easy.

[BobVonBob]

8 minutes ago, manikyath said:

yep.. you cut some traces..

 

if you know someone who is handy with very fine soldering this is fixable, but it's not easy.

It just looks like exposed copper to me, not cut traces.

That part of the motherboard is all audio. Maybe it's the cause of the other problems, but I don't think so.

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

It just looks like exposed copper to me, not cut traces.

at least one of them is cut.

 

on that note.. in hindsight i've been pondering if the audio section would have any impact at all.. and i wouldnt think so either.. so there's gonna be another problem, or another scuff OP hasnt found yet.

 

perhaps it's worth taking apart and putting it back together on a cardboard box instead of the case, and see if it'll work there.

[mariushm]

Do you have standoffs between the motherboard and the case?  The back of the case must not touch the metal, normally there's standoffs preinstalled on the case - only keep standoffs directly under holes in your motherboard.

 

You scratched the surface, there's copper and over the copper there's a coating and you scratched the coating. Probably only scratched the coating, no broken traces. Worst case scenario you cut a trace but as others have told you that area is related to audio, so maybe you broke the microphone input or an output speaker or worst case scenario you would have to disable onboard audio in the bios to get the system working.

 

Maybe you didn't install the front panel header properly, double check it.

 

First startup it's possible for the motherboard to take up to a couple minutes to start because it runs tests on the memory sticks. during that time you can have black screen and you simply have to be patient.

 

It's also possible the system defaulted for onboard video (if the cpu has graphics) and you put cable in video card

[Kestas101]

3 hours ago, manikyath said:

at least one of them is cut.

 

on that note.. in hindsight i've been pondering if the audio section would have any impact at all.. and i wouldnt think so either.. so there's gonna be another problem, or another scuff OP hasnt found yet.

 

perhaps it's worth taking apart and putting it back together on a cardboard box instead of the case, and see if it'll work there.

Im not sure myself if they are cut or if its just exposed, but the scratches werent the problem. I think it was bios that i needed to update with flashback. But also not entirely sure.

[Kestas101]

24 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Do you have standoffs between the motherboard and the case?  The back of the case must not touch the metal, normally there's standoffs preinstalled on the case - only keep standoffs directly under holes in your motherboard.

 

You scratched the surface, there's copper and over the copper there's a coating and you scratched the coating. Probably only scratched the coating, no broken traces. Worst case scenario you cut a trace but as others have told you that area is related to audio, so maybe you broke the microphone input or an output speaker or worst case scenario you would have to disable onboard audio in the bios to get the system working.

 

Maybe you didn't install the front panel header properly, double check it.

 

First startup it's possible for the motherboard to take up to a couple minutes to start because it runs tests on the memory sticks. during that time you can have black screen and you simply have to be patient.

 

It's also possible the system defaulted for onboard video (if the cpu has graphics) and you put cable in video card

I made sure there were no standoffs.

Didnt mention this before, but there were also red and yellow LED lights on the cpu and dram lights. But basically, once i updated the bios with flashback, switched the ram with each other and then waited a bit the lights were gone. Then i waited for bios but nothing happened. Decided to plug in the hdmi cable BEFORE (not after like previously) turning on pc and finally i was in bios. Now i just need to see if windows will install. The previous usb was met with an error, im hoping it was the usb at fault, not the system.

Thank you all for the replies. I'm happy to hear the traces are mostly for audio, not something super important.