Broken USB 3.0 header pins

[Insert]

Hi, this is my first time posting!

 

So when switching cases the other day I ended up damaging the USB 3.0 header pins on my motherboard (Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150) by accident. This has caused my front USB ports to no longer work. As a solution, I ordered this 3.0 to 2.0 conversion ( Silverstone Tek Internal 19-Pin USB3.0 to USB2.0 Adapter Cable (G11303050-RT) so I can at least use the ports in front. I was wondering if there's any other solution for me to retain the 3.0 functionality of the front USBs. Would this work? Syba 19-Pin USB 3.0 Header Mini PCI-Express Card with Female USB 3.0 Cable SD-MPE20142 ?

 

 

 

[DioOmicida]

Damaging them in what way? Once I bent the pins on an old Phenom processor and I just bent them back and it still works to this day. 

[mariushm]

It depends exactly which pins were broken.

 

Here's the pins for the header :

 

 

So if you broke a Vbus or GND pin, the usb 3 connector of that particular vertical row where the broken pin was will not work, because it won't receive power.

 

If a Vbus pin was broken, you can take out the pin from the connector and look for the closest usb 2 header and plug that pin into USB +5v and now your usb 3 jack on the case is powered. Same for GND, Wires that go to GND pins in the usb 3 header can be connected in a usb 2 header into the GND positions.

 

 

 

 

[Insert]

One of the pins broken was IntA_P2_D- along with the bottom most vbus next to the No pin. I'm gonna guess that this is header is beyond repairing at this point, right? Is there any kind of third party replacements I can buy that could be another alternative?

[mariushm]

On 5/12/2016 at 11:42 PM, Insert said:

One of the pins broken was IntA_P2_D- along with the bottom most vbus next to the No pin. I'm gonna guess that this is header is beyond repairing at this point, right? Is there any kind of third party replacements I can buy that could be another alternative?

 

The Vbus on the left powers the first USB 3 connector. If you have a soldering iron, you can solder a bit of wire to the broken pin and then solder the other end of the wire to the other Vbus pin  (if you still have it around, otherwise recycle a pin from another motherboard or from somewhere else, like from one of the NC pins in the USB 2 headers (nc means not connected, it's a pin that's there just to make you unable to insert the usb 2 connector the other way by mistake). You can then push the broken pin inside the cable connector before you put the connector in the header.

This is fairly easy to do at home, and you'll get your P1 connector working.

 

As for the second connector...

 

IntA_P2_D- and IntA_P2_D+  (and the equivalent P1 pins on the other side of the connector) are the data pins used for backwards compatibility with USB 2.0, those are the two wires through which usb 2 devices communicate and transfer data.

When transferring data in USB 3 speeds, the wires with SS (superspeed) in them are used.

 

I don't remember if the wires are actually used when a device communicates in USB 3 mode. Even if they're not used, it's possible those two wires are used only at the beginning when a usb device is plugged to initialize : the device has to tell the motherboard (well, the usb controller) what kind of device it is and what it's capable of , and then the usb controller can tell the device it should switch to communicating and transferring data through the usb 3.0 wires, in which case that usb connector with the broken pin is unusable.

 

You can make an experiment : if the cable connector is the kind from which you can pull out individual wires (or cut one wire at the connector base), try removing the wire that goes into IntA_P2_D+ . If you can't alter the cable connector, I'd suggest you try bending the IntA_P2_D+ pin (or even breaking it, you won't do more damage than you already did)... well, if you're not interested in having the board repaired by someone, see the last paragraph, it's an easy fix.

 

With the two IntA_P2_D- and IntA_P2_D+ disconnected and assuming those two wires are only for backwards compatibility with usb 2.0 devices, then the usb port would work only with usb 3.0 devices.  unless those two wires are used to initialize what you plug in the connector or used otherwise somehow, as I explained before.

 

If you plug the cable connector into the header, the P1 usb connector should still work fine because all its pins are intact (if you make the fix at the start of this post) , but the P2 usb connector can't transfer the usb 2.0 data and that means devices you plug in the connector will never be able to have a conversation with the usb controller and the usb controller may be stuck trying forever to have a "conversation" with what you put in the connector. If that's the case, removing both P2_D- and P2_D+ wires from the connector (or removing both pins) will make sure nothing bad will happen even if you plug something in the second usb connector as the device will never "talk" to anything.

 

Another idea would be to simply take the motherboard to a place that repairs things like mobile phones or places like they used in Scrapyard wars, that free cycle place. They should have the soldering irons and (optionally) pre-heaters to remove the rest of the broken pins from the motherboard and put new pins there. It's literally a 10 minute job, I even have the equipment required to do this fix at home but i dabble in repairs and microcontrollers.

 

 

[Insert]

I'll probably bring it into a place like you said in the last paragraph. Sounds like a simple job from the way you explained it. Thanks for the reply!

[E.Mon]

Hey if this reaches anyone who knows, what would it mean if the ID pin is broken?