Tipstaff

Ok, if the title doesn't relate just how pissed off I am right now I don't know what can. Now, I don't normally do this... showing off my blunders, but this one is going to cost me $180.. so pay attention, and learn from my mistake.

Here's the story:

I recently got a trial tube of Gelid's GC Extreme thermal compound, and decide to give it a try on the video card and cpu cooler in my gaming rig. Stuff is supposed to kick AC in the nads, so why not. Got through the video card just fine, and I went to do the CPU. As I'm putting back the ECO ALC I noticed that the one screw was going in on an angle, so I decided to reseat the cooler. And that's when I noticed this:



For 1156 sockets it should be like this:



Ok.. no problem. Must have gotten shifted when I pulled the cooler out. So, I fix that, and go to even out the paste on the CPU when I noticed THIS MOFO!!!!



OMG! Oh @$%! ROFL?!?! <SMACK> AH @$%! That about describes the words and the series of events, including the massive headache I have from smacking myself in the head, leading to this post.

No, that isn't metal shavings.. it's what's under that glossy coating on the motherboard (I can even see the copper underlay). The damn screw was on the outside of the hole the entire time I was tightening it down, and it dug into the board. What's worse, if it happened at any of the other 3 pins I'd be fine, but that pin has a tight knit of tracers all around it. All because that one pin was at the 775 position THIS happened. All because I assumed the pin was LOCKED at the 1156 position when it wasn't. ARGH! Suffice it to say: this thing is pooched. Bye bye warranty. Plus to get Asus to fix/replace this would cost me about the price of a new board (that's board, plus shipping). Frack me!

So, kiddies, the lesson for today: go slow, and pay attention to WTF you are doing. Or else.

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BlueMak

I admit I don't understand what the damage is, t6hough I do get how the damage was done.

The third photo looks like white goo, from thermal paste, that has spread outside a screw hole.

Are you saying that the whole shouldn't have been there at all?

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Tipstaff

The backplate sticks up through the hole, that's the metal you see in the center, and the cooler mounts to it. The problem was that the cooler itself has 3 positions for each screw, and it was "accidentally" in the wrong position. Since it wasn't aligned the screw pulled against the outside of the bracket until it hit the board... shredding the entire top layer of the board, including 3 tracers, down passed the 2nd layer of thin metal, right to the 3rd layer of copper.

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Chaos

ouch, gotta hate those moments but anyone that handles large numbers of builds is bound to have suffered from the same feeling you are

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BlueMak

Your paragraph reminds me of the discussion between the detective and Seinfeld when he found (that's what they thought at first) his stolen car.
What I am trying to say is, bad luck man! Good luck with getting a replacement.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Tipstaff

Thanks.

Yeah, should get the replacement Monday. Hurts even more since I got the old (pfft.. old.. damnit) board as part of a deal. Paid $150 flat for it, and now the replacement is going to cost me $200 thanks to the fact that I have to pay both taxes (thank you Gov). <sigh>

If I could wait I'd call Asus to see how much it's going to cost me to fix this, and just send it in, but I can't. Need my gaming rig as I use it for editing too, and I have a job that needs to be done Wednesday. I might still call Asus though. If it's reasonable enough I'll send it in, then sell it when I get the replacement. Maybe even throw it up on HH as a prize or something. If it's too much then this board is gonna get cannibalized. At least I can recover something by selling the caps.

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Takaharu

Sounds like you put in a fair bit of wellie on that - does it need much strength?

Let us know your experience with the paste

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synthesis204

Well...that sucks. Is it safe to assume the mobo was no longer functional? Or did you not risk testing it?

PS: This might be why Intel has their crappy push pin coolers. To stop people from wrecking their $200 mobos

asedsa

Well I know worse story, my friend purchased ALC Domino cooler and installed it in his case which was very cheap and bad, and rear side of case barely supported 12cm cooler.
Distance between CPU and Cooler was very small, and pipes of cooler were set in curved position too much because of small case. Everything worked fine for three months. One day he turned on his computer and PC rebooted. After few times of trying to get PC turned on, he opened the case and saw leakage of cooler's liquid from one of the cooler's pipes. Liquid was everwhere, on graphic card and motherboard.

So the next step was buying a new mobo and graphic card, and returning to old CPU cooler but this time air cooling. So damage was, ALC domino cooler, mobo and graphic card.

Tipstaff

Don't want to risk blowing my chip. Last thing I need is to have to replace that CPU too. $200 vs the risk of it being $500.. nope.. not happening.

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synthesis204

You would have an excuse to build a new rig, though.

And holy crap the 875K is expensive. Wouldn't it be more worthwhile to get a 950/930 for $60 less..?

Edit: I just noticed BlueMak's signature suddenly shrank in size. What? And what is that supposed to be, anyway?

Tipstaff

At the time, though, I got both the board and the CPU for $50 less each than my dealers cost (got the board for the price of the non Pro, which only supports Crossfire, and the CPU for $280), plus I only had to pay 1 tax (which thanks to the Governments amalgamation of both taxes I would have to now pay both). Overall it was cheaper, yet faster than any 1366 based system I could come up with other than going with the Extreme processor.

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BlueMak

I am sorry for taking this off topic, but my signature shrank? eh?

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

synthesis204

I guess that does make sense - the only reason I got my cpu was because I got it 60% off...hope I never do something like that to my rig O.O

@BlueMak: It looks like it shrunk in size. It looked before it was maybe 600x200, but now looks about half that size.

Judas

this is the reason i triple check everything repeatedly.. and use my finger to hand screw most of the screws down for those solutions.... only using a screw driver to do the rest when i'm confident that it's all good...

I pulled a machine appart the other day that was custom built by some joe blow.... and interestingly he had done some pretty herendous things to his machine while assembling... i couldn't beleive it was running...

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Optix

*thinks back to when he installed his Vantage and the trouble he had getting the final pin to catch*

Uh...um...uh oh. The system is still running but I guess I'll find out when I slap on the Vantage 240 when it arrives.

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Tyrsonswood

Drilled a hole in a board once............. Didn't know it until I applied power.


"Oh Look! Blue Smoke!"

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mcdragon2

reminds me of electric rc motors ans esc's if they don't release the magic dust then they are probably ok. to bad about that board man

Liqourice

I remember when I changed the Fat Agnus chip to a Super Fat Agnus in my Amiga 500. To make the chipmem 1 MB instead of 0.5MB I had to cut one of the copper "lines" on the board.. if I did it wrong I would have destroyed it completely.. so it was a bit of a scary moment!

Tipstaff

An interesting aspect of this is the spot that is damaged. There's enough space at certain ends of those tracers that I could, if careful, jumper the traces. Might just do it if Asus wants too much to replace it.

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mcdragon2

that would be insane man!
if you do it I would love to see pictures
and if you have asus do it post up pics to show how they did it instead

Judas

well lets hope there isn't layered trace that is damaged too....

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Cow_160483

Wow Tipstaff that made me cry sorry about your board man

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Decode!
Muhahahahah!

Optix

Phew! Luckily my Three Hundred is the new revision with a cut out for the CPU back plate and all four screws are showing through in the right place.

I know it sounds stupid but I'd still rather brick a board than use push pins.

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Judas

to be honest.. i've YET to have a SINGLE hitch at all with the push pins... ever..

Then again i've never mounted a CPU with the motherboard already inside the case and mounted.. i always mount the cpu/heatsink before hand..

And i'm quite happy with it.. simple...

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Tipstaff

That's always the best way when building new systems since you can see whether the pins are in or not, but this is harder to do with massive 3rd party coolers, and in either case with an established system it can be a pain since the board will flex.

Anyhoo.. got my system up and running again. Sorta. While the new paste has dropped the temps on the cooler by 3-5c I haven't had time to test it on the GPU. More for the fact that I'm switching the cooler anyways (still waiting for the copper mosfet sinks, and the thermal adhesive), so I'm not going to bother wasting paste just to test it on a cooler that'll only be there another day or so.

As for Asus, I still haven't heard back from them about whether they'll take my old board back for repair. Going to have to call them tomorrow, and kick their ass into gear on this. If they fix it I could sell the damn thing, and recover at least a little bit of money on it, or even build a system for my buddy to get him up to current technology (vs his ancient POS that can't even run Tetris).

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