[SOLVED] Motherboard scratched, won't boot

[FoxyFoxxz]

Hello, so. I took my GPU out earlier in the evening, then this happened. I scratched the motherboard as shown in the picture by accident, now the machine wouldn't POST. It does turn on though, just no sign of life other than that.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Either broken trace or knocked off component (not a very good photo).
If you can't fix it, then get a new board.

 

[FoxyFoxxz]

Either broken trace or knocked off component (not a very good photo).
If you can't fix it, then get a new board.

Ah, that's unfortunate. Thank you for the answer though!

 

[mikewinddale]

All I can say is, "There I go but for the grace of God."

A few years ago, I was upgrading the M.2 SSD on my motherboard, which is located underneath the GPU. The PCIe x16 slot had a retention clip that had to be undone, but it was completely obscured underneath the graphics card, where my fingers couldn't fit.

So I took some tweezers and tried to use them to undo the retention clip. But even though I was pushing as gingerly and delicately as I could, I still slipped and scraped the motherboard ever so gently.

I was terrified that I might have just killed my motherboard.

So I went back to my toolbox and retrieved some tweezers with a curved head and rubber (plastic? PVC?) cap, like this. With those, I was able to undo the retention clip, remove the GPU, install the SSD, and reinstall the GPU.

I booted my computer with trepidation. Would it turn on? And happily, it did!! Here I am, several years later, typing this comment on that very same computer.

The next day, I went online and bought some tweezers with PVC ("rubber") tips, rather than metal tips with plastic caps. Specifically, this and this.

So I feel you.