Question M.2 standoff broke. How bad is it?

[CoconutCube]

While trying to remove the preinstalled M.2 SSD heatsink from my motherboard, I ended up stripping the screw as it was ridiculously overtightened. I then tried removing the standoff it was screwed into, assuming it was also screwed into the motherboard. However, the standoff had apparently been soldered through the board and when I twisted it, it came off leaving a hole and exposing some PCB layers. Some of the copper lining the inside of the hole remained on the standoff. I also noticed that a couple of PCIe traces were dangerously close to the hole, however they appear undamaged.

Since it's just a standoff, I think the situation is salvageable. Can I clean the area and standoff and glue it back in place? I'm not very knowledgeable about PCBs, so any advice is appreciated.

 

[punkncat]

No better way to find out than to throw some power and see if it posts...

I am not knowledgeable enough about the board itself to know if that screw would have been anything aside from ground, as I suspect if even that. Shouldn't be too hard to whip up another solution for mounting the M.2 drive itself and worse comes to worse use a different drive location or type if it works properly otherwise.

If it is already broken.....

 

[CoconutCube]

No better way to find out than to throw some power and see if it posts...

Yep... I haven't really got anything to lose at this point. Will have to try it when it's all sorted.

I am not knowledgeable enough about the board itself to know if that screw would have been anything aside from ground, as I suspect if even that. Shouldn't be too hard to whip up another solution for mounting the M.2 drive itself and worse comes to worse use a different drive location or type if it works properly otherwise.

If I had to guess, it was soldered on as such in order to cut costs/assembly time. It is a cheap Gigabyte board after all. I doubt it has anything to do with ground either, especially since the second slot on the board uses a far more convenient plastic clip retaining mechanism. No idea why they didn't do that for the first slot too. At the end of the day, I'll probably just hot glue the standoff back in place and maybe isolate the exposed part with some electrical tape if it turns out to be fine.

 

[General_Cool]

It is a cheap Gigabyte board after all

I have read nothing but bad things for years about Gigabyte boards, yet my Z170 Gaming K3 is still chugging along, been through overclocking, different power supplies, and has been in and out of different cases many times and has been nothing but loyal. Maybe there was a magical wizard working for Gigabyte that assembled that board and it was his last one before retiring so he wanted to make it really well...

At the end of the day, I'll probably just hot glue the standoff back in place

Probably a fine idea. I would just opt to use the second M.2 slot though, since you won't have to worry about a hackjob coming apart while you're in the middle of an important Windows update...

Just make sure it didn't damage anything else. The board works right?

 

[punkncat]

The biggest issue I see with using a hot glue would be case temps. Most hot glue doesn't take much to make soft. I would at least consider something a bit more resilient such as a silicone based adhesive. I would be concerned that something like JB Weld might be conductive.

 

[Gururu]

Does the M.2 screw go all the way through? Maybe you can secure the standoff with a similar screw through the bottom and have enough space in the standoff to screw the M.2 on. It looks like the standoff is threaded all the way through. I dont have an example for reference though. I dont think any adhesive will provide support to the torque you need unless you fasten the M.2 very lightly.

 

[CoconutCube]

I have read nothing but bad things for years about Gigabyte boards, yet my Z170 Gaming K3 is still chugging along, been through overclocking, different power supplies, and has been in and out of different cases many times and has been nothing but loyal. Maybe there was a magical wizard working for Gigabyte that assembled that board and it was his last one before retiring so he wanted to make it really well...

Absolutely. I still have my Gigabyte Z170 HD3P from nearly 9 years ago which held a BCLK overclock on my locked chip the entire time. Its standoffs were interchangeable and the M.2 mounting system was far more robust in general.

The biggest issue I see with using a hot glue would be case temps. Most hot glue doesn't take much to make soft. I would at least consider something a bit more resilient such as a silicone based adhesive. I would be concerned that something like JB Weld might be conductive.

Fair enough. While hot glue would probably hold it in place for some time, it would also definitely lose its strength after some time due to constant temperature changes.

Does the M.2 screw go all the way through? Maybe you can secure the standoff with a similar screw through the bottom and have enough space in the standoff to screw the M.2 on. It looks like the standoff is threaded all the way through. I dont have an example for reference though. I dont think any adhesive will provide support to the torque you need unless you fasten the M.2 very lightly.

Actually a brilliant idea! It's what I went with. I also added some heat shrink tubing on the part that goes through the motherboard and a plastic washer on the back of the board in order to not have it short something. I'm probably being overly cautious especially since some people run it with the SSD not even mounted and have no issues. Better be safe than sorry I guess... assuming my board isn't permanently damaged already, but I'll find that out in a day or two. Either way, thank you all for the helpful advice!

 

[CoconutCube]

Update: Good news! Booted it up and everything seems to work perfectly fine! Thank you all for the advice once again.