Scratched my motherboard with screwdriver. Am I in trouble?

Forceflow

n00b
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Aug 29, 2020
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Scratched my Tomahawk X570 a bit when I tried to undo a PCIe latch between my beefy Noctua cooler and my GPU with a long screwdriver.

PC powers on, works fine, ran through OCCT power test, AIDA64 burn test for 15 mins, BF2042 for an hour.

(Multiple pictures per slideshow)

Pictures:

 
Any way I could do more testing/verify?
The fact it booted up and you aren't missing hardware and everything is functional is telling.

I've seen posts here with scratched boards and they never have the kind of luck you have.

Without a board schematic and knowing what the top layer provides, in that spot, on those traces, there really isn't much you can do besides what you have.
 
The fact it booted up and you aren't missing hardware and everything is functional is telling.

I've seen posts here with scratched boards and they never have the kind of luck you have.

Without a board schematic and knowing what the top layer provides, in that spot, on those traces, there really isn't much you can do besides what you have.
Do you think it looks very bad? As far as I can tell, no copper is showing.
 
There's a scratch in those photos?

Generally unless you cut through the solder mask, and then fully cut the copper, there's no damage.

What you might do with a screw driver is knock a chip or socket off. But you didn't. All good.
 
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Maybe look at it real close with a magnifing glass and lots of light. If you see anything looking coppery, definitely put down a coat of conformal coating over the scratch to protect it going forward. From the pictures, it looks like you just scuffed the paint, but it's hard to tell. Not much in the way of visible traces right where you scraped, so a little bit of luck in placement and a little bit of luck in depth of scrapes and you might not need to do anything other than learn from your near miss.
 
It takes you to scratch through the bare copper traces and cut off the traces for you to have problems. No problems with a surface scratch on the finish of the motherboard. If you want to protect from future scratches potentially in that area, Paint some MG Chemical Conformal coating on it. It will disappear the scratches as well. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B8RY7M...&crid=274WYCHL1KE6C&amp=&sprefix=mg+chemicals
 
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It takes you to scratch through the bare copper traces and cut off the traces for you to have problems. No problems with a surface scratch on the finish of the motherboard. If you want to protect from future scratches potentially in that area, Paint some MG Chemical Conformal coating on it. It will disappear the scratches as well. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B8RY7M...&crid=274WYCHL1KE6C&amp=&sprefix=mg+chemicals
Is that necessary now? Because I'd rather not poke around in the case anymore, this adventure has scared (and scarred, pun intended) me.
 
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I screwed a screw THROUGH a trace on an old heatsink design back in 2002 on a service call. It cost me out of pocket to replace the motherboard. I felt way worse from screwing up than taking the $ hit on the job.
 
I screwed a screw THROUGH a trace on an old heatsink design back in 2002 on a service call. It cost me out of pocket to replace the motherboard. I felt way worse from screwing up than taking the $ hit on the job.

Wow. That's really really bad.
 
My friend dropped a screw on this graphics card years ago and toasted the card.

That same friend dropped a screw on his motherboard and fried it a few months ago.

18 years ago I shorted a motherboard from the screwdriver touching a part it wasn't supposed to and bricked it.

Lol
 
I had a MB quit working from water line leak. let it dry out and cleaned it with alcohol and after the second alcohol bath, wala it worked great
 
Is that necessary now? Because I'd rather not poke around in the case anymore, this adventure has scared (and scarred, pun intended) me.
if you'd removed the solder mask on a power or signal trace / plane there would be a slim chance that something metal and grounded might touch it and cause havoc, but from your photos you did not do this. Its all good.
 
Sorry to bother again, but I think I scratched this part further down the path:

Seems to be some pin-like thing under a transistor, as far as I can tell. Should I be worried? Computer's running fine, but I'm scared.
 
if copper trace is exposed corrosion can happen, so painting the scratch would be good insurance.
 
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