[SOLVED] Did I fry my motherboard?

Aug 13, 2021
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I just built my first computer a week ago. While I was installing the USB 3.0 gen 1 cable, I bent the two bottom pins. Realizing this probably meant I would not be able to use the usb 3.0 ports on the tower, I kept going because I do not regularly use those ports. I finished connecting all the wires, powered up and updated the BIOS and everything was working smoothly.

Flash forward to a week later, I decide that I am going to try and fix these bent pins. Forgetting that the computer is in sleep mode and not turned off, I remove the USB 3 gen 1 cable and attempt to fix the pins with a screwdriver. I was unable to fix the pins since they were bent pretty badly so I decided to just leave it as is. However, now the power button on the front panel will not turn on the computer and the blue LED for the power is not on or flashing. I recheck all the wires from the motherboard to the PSU and everything looks good, all connections are secure. I still can not get any power to anything on the motherboard.

At one point while I was messing with the PSU cable, I was able to plug the PSU into a separate outlet on the wall. The computer turned on, the fans and CPU started going and the power button LED turned on. However, there red light indicator for the CPU came on which I assume meant the CPU was not being recognized by the motherboard. I was also not able to power off the computer using the front panel power button. I turned off the PSU after all of this and was unable to recreate this situation so I am not sure what to make of this.

This happened late at night so I have not be able to do much testing regarding the motherboard and PSU. I have an old PSU and motherboard that I will use to test these and see if I can narrow it down but I assume I messed up the motherboard when I tried to fix the USB 3.0 with the screw driver.

My build:
MB: MSI z590 Tomahawk
Intel i5-11600k
MSI RTX 3070 TI
Lian Li 205 Case
16 GB DDR4 RAM
 
Solution
There's really no way to know what you messed up when you shorted out the USB pins other than testing each part. Testing the CPU in the old motherboard with the old PSU is a good place to start...might as well move all of the other components into the old board as well and test them.

oldcracc

Reputable
Apr 10, 2019
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4,640
Sounds like you shorted something when you took the screwdriver to it, if everything powers on it could also be a PSU issue, if you can test with new psu/new motherboard and try to narrow it down.
 
There's really no way to know what you messed up when you shorted out the USB pins other than testing each part. Testing the CPU in the old motherboard with the old PSU is a good place to start...might as well move all of the other components into the old board as well and test them.
 
Solution