What do i do before installing a used motherboard?

[TheHoss34]

So i recently bought a "used" ASUS P8Z68-V PRO mobo on ebay however the description never mentioned the state or condition of the mobo (The only reasons why i bought the thing was because of the price and it came with its og accessories).

I asked the seller about the condition and he replied that he didnt know he was just selling it for a friend, but even his friend was unaware of the condition since he too bought it used but just "never got around to it".

With that being said i would like to ask, are there any precautionary actions i should do (other than checking for cosmetic damage) before installing the mobo? Or should i be good?

Thanks

 

[das_stig]

Not much really, as you say physical damage, cpu pins damaged, missing capacitors and the like, but doens't really matter much if you have no returns options.

Bench test the motherboard, after pulling the cmos battery for a few hours to ensure a bios is completely reset.
Power it up with cpu, 1 stick of ram and flash the BIOS with latest version.
If it still works, connect everything else that your going to use and see if it is all seen by motherboard.
Now configure BIOS and try installing OS and drivers.
Use prime or AIDA to do some stress testing and if all looks goo, put in your case.

 

[TheHoss34]

Yea thats probably the best solution, thank you very much man