Question Need help finding 4 Pin laptop fan header

[jgreener6]

Hello!

Recently I was repasting my laptops and upon reassembly I accidentally bent the cpu's fan header pins (I know, stupid and careless mistake), in a attempt to bend them back into place I accidentally broke several of them off.
Im having a hard time finding anything online that would be a replacement. I have a local shop who said they would be happy to re-solder the fan head on but they said they would need help finding the part. The laptop is a MAINGEAR Vector Pro 17 inch with a 3080 and i7-11800h, its the same chasis as the Eluktronicss Max-17. I called both Maingear and Eluktronic and both said they would not be able to send me a new part since its a part of the motherboard. The fan header is a 4 pin header.

I'm looking at buying a cheap motherboard online and just taking the header off of that one and using it in my laptop and was wondering if you guys had any suggestions on motherboards I should look at? Or better yet, a website that would sell these sorts of fan headers? The Maingear associate I talked to said that it is a common design and comes standard in a lot of laptops. I went ahead and attached tow pictures, one is of the broken fan header and the other is of the one from the GPU side, please note that these did have a little plastic piece on top that just went over the top that I took off, it wasn't a separate piece but part of the whole unit, and just bridged the two sides together.

I would really appreciate the help with this, and if you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer. Thank you!

Imgur link to 4 Pin header in question
Other fan header for the GPU that works

 

[Ralston18]

My suggestion would be to just replace the laptop's motherboard directly. Much simpler and straight forward.

Cannibalizing even a cheap motherboard may not go well (especially if "cheap") and then trying to remove and replace the laptop's broken header adds in more complexity even for a skilled solderer.

Then you are out of the cost of a cheap motherboard and perhaps an even more damaged laptop motherboard.

And absolutely no warranties....

Let "the shop" do the work so you will have both new motherboard and installation/repair warranties.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[jgreener6]

My suggestion would be to just replace the laptop's motherboard directly. Much simpler and straight forward.

Cannibalizing even a cheap motherboard may not go well (especially if "cheap") and then trying to remove and replace the laptop's broken header adds in more complexity even for a skilled solderer.

Then you are out of the cost of a cheap motherboard and perhaps an even more damaged laptop motherboard.

And absolutely no warranties....

Let "the shop" do the work so you will have both new motherboard and installation/repair warranties.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

Yes I can understand the reasoning behind this, unfortunately it seems it would cost about the same as getting a whole new laptop according to Microcenter who I bought it through. I was hoping I would be able to salvage this machine instead of buying another one for $2k.

 

[Ralston18]

Understood - fair enough. Tough situation overall.

Really becomes a matter of how well the "shop" can do with the replacement process and what guarantees/warranties they offer.

Plus there may be other ideas and suggestions offered here. I have no problems with that.