PCIe-16 slot doesnt work. Possable cracked chip?

[david132]

These forums are endless, and I have really been learning a lot. This is my first post however.

I have a good understanding at low level of computers. I've done some hard drive recovery for friends. Changed out mobos and stuff. Little things compared to you very intelligent people. But I'm learning. Gotta start somewhere. Doing my homework on my first total build. Also have a question about memory that I am running the forums for answers.

I will try to be short and to the point. I currently am running an HP product, Asus A8N-LA mobo, with and AMD Athlon X2 64 bit processor. It has on board Nvidia graphics. I had bought and installed a new Nvidia 9500 GT video card 1GB. Along with Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, and a couple more sticks of memory (up to 4GB now). I have been running it for over a month with no problems.


The problem:

I was being braver and pulled the heat sink off the nividia chipset for the pcie to snoop. I put it back correctly, but the graphics card now doesnt work. Is it possable, when the pressure was relieved, the chip cracked? I didnt do anything else to it. No,I didnt reapply any thermal paste to it. (dummy me). I dont have another system to try the graphics card out on. My other one is an old P4 and it doesnt have PCIe (the relic). I am back to running VGA with the on board graphics.

 

[MagicPants]

It's very unlikely you "cracked" a chip. It's more likely you pulled a connection loose or caused some sort of electrical damage.

Your subject line and description don't match up. Are you saying the PCI-e slot no longer works with any video card or that just the card you pulled apart has stopped working?

 

[david132]

I'm sorry, I didnt clearify that. I didnt pull the card itself apart, just the heatsink on the chip on the motherboard above it. Being an old motherboard, I thought over time it may have gotten brittle from heat, and when I pulled the heat sink off maybe the release in pressure may have helped it crack. I dont have another card to test in the slot, or another slot in another system to test the card. (Im a little outdated). I was under the impression the Nvidia chip on the motherboard above it operated that pcie slot. So if the chip was bad, the slot wouldnt be any good. Im not real knowledgeable about the componants of the motherboard itself yet.

I'll have to pull it apart and check the soldered connections. Hadnt thought of it pulling apart. Any other ideas would be helpful. Thanks very much.

 

[david132]

Pulled the mobo today and looked it over front and back with a bright light and large magnifying glass. Nothing out of the ordinary, no dark spots indicating a short, no cracks the eye can see. And still no pcie.Guess I'll muttle through with onboard VGA instead os DVI. Thanks again.

 

[N5638J]

My compaq has the same board and i been running this HP for years and just about 3 months ago i put a PCI-E card in it also and this morning when i went to power it on and no video.. The PCI-E slot on this one too quit working. I am starting to think maybe its something with these Asus A8N-LA Mainboards and the use of PCI-E.. Because like i said i have only been using the slot for afew months and its already gone out...

 

[david132]

Good point. I think PCI-E was still pretty new when this mobo came out, so Asus may not have gottent he bugs out of it. Now that these cards are so popular, I wonder how many others using the older boards run into the problem. I didnt think it was something I did to it.
Thanks very much. I lived without High Def this long I can live awhile longer.

 

[david132]

Best answer selected by david132.