When you're fairly certain that a motherboard trace is broken near the CPU (i.e.: you suspect heatsink / fan was improperly inserted) is it advisable to attempt a repair?
I've heard that it can be done using a substance for repairing embedded windshield defoggers. Has anyone had any experience with this?
13 Answers
Cut copper traces are not easily repairable using things around the house. Traces around the CPU are typically critical to the motherboards functionality.
First a few questions:
- Is the cut trace visible? Typically copper traces around the processor are 4-5 mils wide (1 mil = 1 thousandth of an inch).
- Is it just one trace that is cut? If a improperly installed heatsink has cut a trace, then more than just one trace could have been damaged.
- Can you check with a meter to make sure that the trace is disconnected?
- Does the cut trace connect to the memory slots or chipsets?
I've intentionally cut traces with a scalpel and it takes a little effort to do correctly. A heatsink cutting a trace is very unlucky.
To repair a trace (depending upon the size of the gap), I would use some solder and a small piece of bare wire, if necessary.
4I have seen an experienced electrical engineer put a small wire-patch to the rescue on an old Macintosh Quadra 900 that was overclocked to 40MHz with a daystar accelerator that goes over the cpu. That block cooler + crystals slipped and cut a trace. This was repaired. It is therefore possible, but super tricky, and it gets much harder to do with current motherboards due to there being what... 900+ traces for the cpu? Also Mboards are multi-layered now, so it takes good fortune to have a fixable scratch.
3well, there's a significant chance you won't get it to work, unless its the top layer - motherboard PCBs are multilayered and very carefully designed to keep traces precise lengths. I've heard of people fixing simpler pcbs with a conductive ink pen, but never a motherboard. I'd say, try it at your own risk, but replacing it would be what i recommend.
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