Am I screwed?

[kandon]

I just tried putting in my brand new Radeon HD 6850, and when I pushed it in, it wouldn't sit right on the first try, so I tried pulling out, and I think I used too much force..and one of the gold pins on the part that enters the pcie slot, the bottom half broke..heres a picture of the pins im talking about.

http://i40.tinypic.com/sv757s.jpg


Thats not my actual card, i just found a pic on google and did the best i could. the straight line going horizontally is where its broken. its only on one pin, not on the other side. it still fits well, but im still waiting for my power supply to be shipped so i cant find out if it works.

will i be fine, or will it affect performance or anything? or should i rma it and say it was broken on arrival? im so nervous and sad D:

 

[Helltech]

Regardless if it was fine or not I'd just RMA it to be safe. I have no knoweldge on the matter what so ever. I know on some CPUs you can have broken pins in certain places and they will still work, I have no idea on GPUs though.

 

[buzznut]

I'd advise the same, return it to the vendor before its too late and just tell em it arrived DOA.

 

[ram1009]

What you call "pins" are actually circuit board traces plated over with gold. Assuming the parent material isn't damaged the circuit could be restored with conductive ink but it would be very tricky to do. Whether you can or would RMA it depends upon how honest you are. You are the one who broke it. Why ask somebody else to bear the burden of what you did?

 

[slhpss]

the way I see it you have two choices

1. be honest suck it up and buy a new one...
2. be dishonest tell them it was DOA get a free new one...

I would go with #2

 

[andrewcarr]

You do know that is supposed to be like that and is like that on every graphics card. I at first thought that too but realized my mistake. Once you get it in place and lock it in (the back panel of the case or expansion ports have locks/screws to hold it in place) you should be fine. Just look at pictures on newegg and you will see that it is supposed to be like that. This is if it is only the second to last connector.

 

[SushiDragon]

He means the bottom piece broke, not the locking plate.

 

[DelroyMonjo]

You DO realize there is a locking lever at that end of the GPU??? I can see your problem happening by just trying to 'brute force' remove the card without releasing the lock.

 

[andrewcarr]

I was talking about the gold coating on the second to last pin as it shows in his provided picture.
By the way I wasn't trying to sound like a jerk sorry if I came across that way.

 

[kandon]

Yes, I realize there is a locking lever, and I'm not that ignorant. It was just hard to put in and stuff, and I'm not trying to "burden" anyone, I'm just asking if it will affect anything.

Anyways, I called them and said it arrived DOA and they said they'd send me one, and when I told them I needed it before the 30th for a birthday, she said she would select next day shipping

Thanks for the help guys. :O

 

[DelroyMonjo]

Well, good for you!

 

[dalethepcman]

Such a funny thread. Andrewcarr is correct, you didn't scrape off any coating, all of these cards are built like this intentionally, why I could not tell you. You should wait until the rest of your parts arrive and give it a go.

Even if you had somehow scraped off the coating, you could RMA the card to either the reseller or the manufacturer without much difficulty as faulty materials would be to blame for the cards damage.

 

[SushiDragon]

Could you actually post a picture of your card? Most cards have the pins not coated all the way.

 

[kandon]

Oh god, I just found out that the guys who said it was supposed to be like that were right D: I looked on neweggs picture, zoomed in, and the gold pin thing doesnt go down all the way on the same place as mine.

I also googled some threads and saw the same thing with some other cards. D: I heard a little pop noise when I pulled the card out and when I looked there it looked like it was chipped off.

Lolol, oh well, I'll just get a new one since they already shipped it, mine looked kinda dusty out of the box anyways.

Thanks for your help, and sorry for being such a newb, this is my first time building a computer ;/.

Managed to get everything set up, except I got a bad power supply so I bought a different one.

Thanks again

 

[kandon]

Best answer selected by kandon.