Help with Repairing a Motherboard

[13seitza]

I recently acquired a malfunctioning ASUS P8H67-M PRO motherboard from a friend of mine. He apparently installed some memory incorrectly, resulting in frying the board. When connected up to other components, the board does have power, but will not boot up. The only physical damage it has is on the back, near the left side of the ram slots. There seems to be something that looks shorted out, but this is where my tech expertise starts to fade. I wondered if anyone that knew anything about motherboards could add some info, and if there is anyway of going about fixing the board?

Here's a couple pictures of the physical damage:

http://imgur.com/a/z50pz


I'd really like to get it up and running for a little test bench PC. I thought that possibly just some soldering could do the trick? It looks as if there are just two parts not connected anymore...

Any info or recommendations would be much appreciated. Thanks so much!

 

[bliq]

it might work, or the mb may have suffered more, invisible damage. if so, there's a risk to components attached to the motherboard. Since you're not an expert, I'd probably refrain from trying unless you have junk gear you don't mind risking.

 

[CaedenV]

Nice! lol
How on earth did he put ram in backwards? They make that really hard to do wrong lol.

Anywho, more likely than not the board is shot (and probably the ram too). If you want to try then you can attempt to solder that open circuit closed, just be sure to cover it with some form of electrical tape or paint on some non-conductive resin to seal it. But if that much power shot through there then whatever is on the other end of that circuit probably has some damage as well, and there is no nice way to replace an IC anymore.

When soldering such delicate things like a motherboard, be sure not to damage any of the wires around it, and make sure that you do not heat up the board itself too much because there are typically 4-8 layers of circuits in a modern mobo, so you could damage a different circuit in your attempt to fix this one.

I suppose the 'dumb man's test' would be to short it by taping some metal to it, and see if you can get it to turn on. If that works, then try the solder.

 

[13seitza]

Nice! lol
How on earth did he put ram in backwards? They make that really hard to do wrong lol.

Anywho, more likely than not the board is shot (and probably the ram too). If you want to try then you can attempt to solder that open circuit closed, just be sure to cover it with some form of electrical tape or paint on some non-conductive resin to seal it. But if that much power shot through there then whatever is on the other end of that circuit probably has some damage as well, and there is no nice way to replace an IC anymore.

When soldering such delicate things like a motherboard, be sure not to damage any of the wires around it, and make sure that you do not heat up the board itself too much because there are typically 4-8 layers of circuits in a modern mobo, so you could damage a different circuit in your attempt to fix this one.

I suppose the 'dumb man's test' would be to short it by taping some metal to it, and see if you can get it to turn on. If that works, then try the solder.

Yeah I really have no idea how he managed to get that bad of damage. I just remember getting a phone call from a not-so-happy friend freaking out about how his computer was broken. Good news is, I already hooked him up with a replacement board and he's back and functional!

After hearing what you said, I think I'll go ahead and try some very delicate soldering. I have a bunch of extra components laying around to test it on, and if I screw it up more than it already is it's not that big of a deal. I don't have much to loose, so it'll be a good learning experience.

I'll report back with either my success/failure lol...

Thanks a lot for your quick and informative responses guys!

 

[13seitza]

Best answer selected by 13seitza.