EP45T-DS3R back panel connector plate

[axial]

Hi, folks,
New to Gigabyte boards (refugee from ASUS, fwiw), and we've done something silly (long story) and have lost the back panel connector plate to the new mobo. Anybody know if it's possible to order these from Gigabyte?

Any suggestions on how to fabricate a new one would be welcome. I suppose it's not 100% critical to have a plate at all...

Any chance somebody happens to have a link to a scale drawing of one? Or could photocopy one at 100% and send it to us as a PDF?

<strong gnashing of teeth in background...>

 

[bilbat]

Here's my best try - spent more than an hour at this, and cannot explain why there appears to be a distortion from rectilinear. One problem is that, for such a thin, britttle piece of metal, it is fairly 'deep-drawn', i.e., the raised rim around the whole thing is deep enough to put the main face slightly out-of-focus; tried all sorts of ways to get it square; also couldn't get my scanner to decently transfer it to Acrobat to make a PDF - came out just awful. This appears to be one of those artifacts using high enough technology in its manufacture to elude any suggestions I can think of for fabricating your own.
Might try contacting Janus Yeh (GB factory support) over at:

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69

Perhaps he might persuade GB to smile upon you, and ship you a replacement...

If this doesn't suit your needs, let me know, and I'll try a couple other things to improve!

Good luck!

Bill

PS - Ack! Just noticed this forum doesn't support file attachments - will try to post the image from ImageShack...

BTW - it's at 600DPI

 

[axial]

Bilbat -- thank you!! wow, that's really fantastic, extra thoughtful. I might just print this on heavy laminate something and then stick it on a sheet of plexiglas and dremel the holes out... or at least put that as a task to honey-who-revs-the-dremels.

I will try to contact Mr. Yeh, as well, great suggestion. I tried the support phone number a couple of times, but the GB phone system (at least in the US) is somewhat arcane and I didn't quite make it through.

Thank you!

 

[bilbat]

LOL "Press one to listen to some godawful music for the rest of your life... Press two to enter a further maze of menus from which there is no hope of escape... Press three to be abruptly disconnected... If you would like to speak to a human being, hang up and call one of our competitors who actually gives a s#@t!"

Had some overnight thoughts about this.

If I were gonna try this, I think I'd work in aluminum - it's easy to come by (you can get it from the K&S rack (http://www.ksmetals.com/) at any good sized hobby shop, and it's soft, but malleable, i.e., it will 'nibble' (more about that to come...) easily, but it will distort as you do it, and you can easily tap the distortion back into place. Brass would work too. A plexiglas piece would probably be cool looking, but plexiglas is a bitch to keep from scratching up, hard to polish once it IS scratched up, and cutting a square corner is nigh unto impossible...

If you decide to attempt this (and I would certainly encourage exhausting all options - beg and plead w/GB 'till they get sick of hearing from you - cause this won't be an easy fab - my guess 3-6 hours) contact me (or, if I'm not lurking around for a couple of days, email me at: bilbat@wi.rr.com), and I'll use digital measuring tools

to make you a dimensioned drawing to work from.

Buy two pieces of whatever stock you decide upon - you'll want to practice some of these techniques before you work on 'the good one' - there's no 'erasing'>

You will want a couple of tools. One is available at Radio Shack ($11) and is called a 'nibbler':

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2289712
takes a little square nibble out of sheetmetal, bit at a time. You drill a hole in the center of your opening, big enough to admit the jaw, and 'work your way' out, then clean up the edges with riffling files (any regular hardware store - NOT a 'big box' store like Home Depot ("you wanna hammer? what's a hammer?? dunno if we got one of those...")

Other tool is a digital caliper:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=47257
http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?PARTPG=INSRAR2&PMAKA=308-0197&PMPXNO=9398989
First you ink in your material with a permanent black magic marker (they make some stuff for machinists called 'DyKem' that brushes or sprays on, but marker works fine - and you can remove it at the end with some acetone)

then you 'set' your caliper to the required dimension by tightening the thumbscrew

and kind of drag one jaw along the edge, and the other jaw point on the inked surface to make a 'scribe line'

Good luck, and have fun!

Any questions or problems, feel free to post...

Bill

 

[axial]

Thank you again for your in-depth instructions, Bill. I've posted on the TweakTown forum, and still have hope for getting a new plate. In the meantime we bought a second mobo so that we could proceed with the first build, and will use the second one in another system. I also photocopied the back plate a few times, too.

fwiw, I'm very impressed with the GB mobo so far. The previous ASUS system had died an untimely death, and through the good fortune of using ShadowProtect I was able to do a hardware independent restore and just move the hard drive over to a completely new rig.

Having the F12 "boot order override" was particularly useful, and GB's solid-state capacitors have given us a much more secure feeling after having two different ASUS boards go phut from burst capacitors.

We're happy new GB-devotees.

 

[bilbat]

Yeah, I only build a new development system every six to eight years, so I tried to do my homework (reduced to about a dozen MOBOs, dl'd & read all the manuals, lurked in forums, etc.) and wound up at the conclusion that GB was the one to bet on... All boards have their peculiarities, but GB's seem to be KNOWN peculiarities, and 'workaroundable'! Also, support at TweakTown is impeccable, and between a couple of helpful folk there, and Mr. Yeh, no one goes without a solution, and that solution seldom requires the dreaded RMA
One thing that's impressive about the latest GB MOBOs is their sheer 'feel' - you pick one up & you know it's substantial; no more impending doom feeling that, when you try to seat the pins on a difficult CPU sink, you're a quarter pound of pressure from a loud SNAP!

 

[axial]

Success! With the encouragement here and on the TweakTown forum http://www.tweaktown.com/index.html I persevered through the Gigabyte phone system and connected with the RMA dept., and was able to order a new back connector plate from them ($3, plus shipping).

Thank you again, Bill --

(btw, my most recent "dreaded RMA" story is that when I RMA'd my yr-old ASUS board they sent me back an AMD-only board as a replacement. sheesh!)

 

[bilbat]

Your success story has inspired me - I'm going to give a try to see if I can buy a parallel and serial port header direct from them, as no one in the US seems to sell the D@*^%d things...

 

[axial]

Go for it! fwiw, it turned out the best way to get to the correct ordering dept. was to choose "0" for the operator and then ask for the RMA dept.

Beware, though: the RMA dept's outgoing e-mail of the order form didn't work (5 tries over 2 days, 3 completely different addresses, including one gmail, none ever arrived). Finally asked if they could fax the form, which they did.

 

[axial]

WOW! Despite initial difficulties with the order form, Gigabyte came through with flying colors on this order -- we faxed it on Thurs. 6th, and the plate arrived via USPS on Monday the 10th.

Way to go, Gigabyte -- we're very, very happy campers.