What's broken?

[standish]

I recently bent an internal sata connection on my asus p5k-e board, tipped over the case onto a tile floor from a 45 degree angle, and probably over applied arctic silver to the cpu fan contact. Yes, all in a one shot. When power was applied I get a "no signal" message on my monitor. Fans run, HDD spins. Sometimes it will repeatedly cycle on and off, others just seems to lie there comatose, yet running.

I pulled one of my two sticks of ram, all HDD's but C:, all peripherials, even the fans, and have tried a number of different sata ports (sans bent one!) yet my computer is still a vegetable. I also tried getting it to restart by keyboard (no luck). I have tested the HDD in an USB enclosure on another machine (seems ok). I also have moved the HDD power cables around on the PSU which seems to make it either simply operate or cycle on and off, but never getting to bios/post. (though am not sure about my interpretation of this test).

I bought a new ASUS P5Q turbo pro thinking it was the board, but have /not/ installed it yet.

Any suggestions or help on what to do next?

Could there be something wrong with the PSU(corsair 520-hx) ? Or Graphics card (GIGABYTE GeForce 8600 GT)?

 

[shortstuff_mt]

There's a link to our standard troubleshooting sticky in my signature. It was created to troubleshoot this exact problem. Let us know how it goes after you've performed EVERY step in the checklist.

 

[standish]

Thanks. The troubleshooting sticky is great! I reset the CMOS with clr jumper which did the trick.

Is their any way to tell if the motherboard is permanently damaged though? I tipped the tower over (not while operating) and I had seriously bent one of the internal Sata ports. Though it hasn't snapped off it is a bit bendy. I haven't plugged a HDD in to that port yet to see if it operates because I didn't know if that was safe to do.

Also, I don't have an internal speaker, but just ordered one.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

If the board works then I wouldn't worry about it. I doubt you'd be able to RMA the motherboard anyway. They don't generally cover physical damage.

 

[standish]

Was never really interested in RMA; I figure I "broke" it and that's that.

I might go out on a limb this evening and plug in a drive and see what happens. Guess I'll wait and see if it gives me any problems.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

I wouldn't risk it. Aren't there plenty of other undamaged SATA ports to use? I wouldn't use it unless you absolutely have to. No need to tempt fate. It seems like you've already dodged a few bullets with this system.

 

[standish]

I have enough ports, but thought plugging in would be a method determing if a short exists. I would then be able to proactively correct it (i.e. replace the board), but maybe you're right and I should just let it go. Thanks for all the assistance!

 

[standish]

Best answer selected by standish.

 

[asteldian]

If it aint broke don't fix it...
If it is broke but you don't need it...then leave it the hell alone

Seeing as you cannot RMA it, the only way to replace would be to spend money on a new one. If the motherboard is still working which it appears to be, then there is absolutely no point to replacing it because if it was serious damage you would soon know, sounds like the little SATA tab got squished and is useless - but that should have done nothing to the board, so as long as you don't use that port (and no doubt you have like 6 - 10, most of which you won't ever use anyway) then there is no issue and there will be absolutely no benefit of spending money to replace the board with a new one that now has a working SATA which you will never use