I'm having an issue with my setup and I'm not sure if my motherboard is damaged. My GPU, which was previously a GTX 1080, stopped working out of the blue. I noticed that the first PCIe slot on my MSI Z370-A motherboard seems to be causing problems since I can still get video output when I use integrated graphics or plug a GPU into the second PCIe slot, although it operates at a lower speed (Gen 3 x4 compared to Gen 3 x16). I've got an i7 8700K CPU and recently borrowed an RX 6600 from my brother to test. Pictures of the motherboard and the issue are included in the comments. Any thoughts on whether my motherboard might be fried?
2 Answers
You might have hit a short circuit somewhere, causing the solder mask to melt and damaging those capacitors. If that's true, it could be pretty serious. As for whether you're hooped, there are ways to fix certain issues, but it might not be straightforward depending on the damage.
It looks like you might be missing a capacitor on the motherboard. In the photo from the bottom right corner, there’s a cluster of four small components under the second PCI-E x16 slot and the third one seems to be absent. That might be the source of your problem! However, it's tough to tell without clearer images to compare to your board.
Thanks for pointing that out! I was worried it could be something serious.
Ugh, that sounds complicated. I really hope I can salvage it somehow!