Can You Still Use An AMD AM4 Motherboard with a Missing Backplate/Bracket?

KingOfComputing

Honorable
Mar 17, 2013
94
0
10,630
I recently purchased a cheap (£35) AM4 motherboard on eBay (Asrock AB350M) for a new AM4 build I was doing. Got a nice 1800X and 16GB DDR4 to go along with it. However, the motherboard I received was missing pieces. It was missing the manual and driver disc but hardly matters with everything online these days, also the IO shield was missing, which I know is not essential as I have owned two PCs without them for years without issue. More worrying though was there was no board backplate or cooler mounts. If you look at say the board on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06WW9S5BY you can see there is a black mount above and below the CPU socket, which I believe also includes a back plate behind the CPU socket, well mine doesn’t have that part at all. To be fair it was listed as used, but no mention whatsoever was made of missing parts, so I don’t think I was being that unreasonable to expect it to be complete.

I contacted the seller of course, who didn’t seem overly bothered, but with some prompting did offer me a rather small partial refund.

I guess I should insist on returning it and buy a new one, but I am on a shoestring budget for this build and if I could make this work without the back plate, or even buy a black plate somewhere else, assuming they are of a standard size?, for a nominal amount and get some money back from the seller to cover it that would be my preference.

I have heard some coolers include their own backplate, would this negate my need to have the original motherboard one? I have ordered the Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED Turbo dual fan cooler as here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06XXRFBYV/ Could anyone tell me if that will mount to my board ok without the needing the original motherboard mounting brackets/backplate?

Any advice would be great.
 

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
The missing "mount" around the CPU socket is for the stock cooler - most (all?) aftermarket coolers require you to remove those.

I believe most aftermarket coolers still require the backplate though. Luckily, they should be readily available from various sources.
For example, NewEgg sell EK backplates for $9 - I would assume similar options exist in the UK.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9siac8w5ea1005
 

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
Yes. AM4 is the socket.

It might be worth looking to see if there's any coolers (compatible with AM4) that ship with their own backplate..... some used to (ie you removed the 'stock' backplate), but I haven't looked into it for AM4.