Accidentally touched one of the connectors on motherboard?

[TheMickeyMoose]

I was working on my computer when I accidentally ran my finger across the top of the 3 pin connectors on my motherboard. Would I have messed anything up or caused any damage where I need to replace the motherboard? It’s was the connector for the w flow or EXT fan.

[humboldt]

i dont think so

[StickyPawz]

As long you don't bend or break off something ... touching your motherboard ain't a problem.

[Jamebonds1]

You are fine. Aren't supposed to touch CPU's, RAM's, and PCI Express's gold trace tho.

[TheMickeyMoose]

Originally posted by Jamebonds1:

You are fine. Aren't supposed to touch CPU's, RAM's, and PCI Express's gold trace tho.

Are the PCI express gold trace what the GPU connects into?

[Jamebonds1]

Originally posted by Dumpy4Life:

Originally posted by Jamebonds1:

You are fine. Aren't supposed to touch CPU's, RAM's, and PCI Express's gold trace tho.

Are the PCI express gold trace what the GPU connects into?

Yes. GPU PCIe card has a gold trace and lane on the motherboard are pin.

[TheMickeyMoose]

Originally posted by Jamebonds1:

Originally posted by Dumpy4Life:

Are the PCI express gold trace what the GPU connects into?

Yes. GPU PCIe card has a gold trace and lane on the motherboard are pin.

Gotcha, what I touched was I think a fan connector

[Jamebonds1]

Originally posted by Dumpy4Life:

Originally posted by Jamebonds1:

Yes. GPU PCIe card has a gold trace and lane on the motherboard are pin.

Gotcha, what I touched was I think a fan connector

As I said, it is fine. It is just a power/RPM/or PWM port for a fan.

[Autumn_]

Originally posted by Jamebonds1:

You are fine. Aren't supposed to touch CPU's, RAM's, and PCI Express's gold trace tho.

Touching the connectors is fine, in my experience. (Not that I would recommend doing it.)

Originally posted by StickyPawz:

As long you don't bend or break off something ... touching your motherboard ain't a problem.

This, though even bending pins isn't really a problem, except for socket pins.

Originally posted by Dumpy4Life:

Originally posted by Jamebonds1:

Yes. GPU PCIe card has a gold trace and lane on the motherboard are pin.

Gotcha, what I touched was I think a fan connector

Yep, don't worry about touching your motherboard, nothing bad will happen unless you intend to break something. (Or slip with the CPU and bend a ton of socket pins.)

[_I_]

as long as you were grounded *(toughed the case frame before rubbing your feet on the floor) its fine

[Jamebonds1]

Originally posted by Autumn:

Originally posted by Jamebonds1:

You are fine. Aren't supposed to touch CPU's, RAM's, and PCI Express's gold trace tho.

Touching the connectors is fine, in my experience. (Not that I would recommend doing it.)

Originally posted by StickyPawz:

As long you don't bend or break off something ... touching your motherboard ain't a problem.

This, though even bending pins isn't really a problem, except for socket pins.

Originally posted by Dumpy4Life:

Gotcha, what I touched was I think a fan connector

Yep, don't worry about touching your motherboard, nothing bad will happen unless you intend to break something. (Or slip with the CPU and bend a ton of socket pins.)

Not true. There is still concern about ESD.
Also, if bent a pin, it will shorter life and bad for vibration.

[Duck Twacy]

Originally posted by Dumpy4Life:

I was working on my computer when I accidentally ran my finger across the top of the 3 pin connectors on my motherboard. Would I have messed anything up or caused any damage where I need to replace the motherboard? It’s was the connector for the w flow or EXT fan.

Usually, in all the years I've been building computers, unless you have a real discharge from carpet that's prone to static electricity, I would not worry.

If something was damaged, then your system would show low performance. If you discharged static electricity to your video card, then you might get some video tearing during 3d accelerated gameplay. At worse, if you really did significant damage, then it wouldn't play any games, or force a reboot. When that starts happening, then I would replace whatever it was you damaged.

Otherwise it doesn't sound like you did any serious harm to anything.

[nullable]

I think you're going to find that while you should be careful with PC components they're not impossibly fragile...

[Autumn_]

Originally posted by Jamebonds1:

Originally posted by Autumn:

Touching the connectors is fine, in my experience. (Not that I would recommend doing it.)


This, though even bending pins isn't really a problem, except for socket pins.


Yep, don't worry about touching your motherboard, nothing bad will happen unless you intend to break something. (Or slip with the CPU and bend a ton of socket pins.)

Not true. There is still concern about ESD.
Also, if bent a pin, it will shorter life and bad for vibration.

ESD is a non-issue these days. (Read the recent thread about ESD, I gave a few examples.)

Sorry, how does a bent pin cause vibration, much less lower life span?

Originally posted by Duck Twacy:

If you discharged static electricity to your video card, then you might get some video tearing during 3d accelerated gameplay.

Thanks for that chuckle.

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

I think you're going to find that while you should be careful with PC components they're not impossibly fragile...

Yep, PC components are very hardy. You could throw a CPU and it be fine.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

The world is gone end.

[Jamebonds1]

Originally posted by Autumn:

Originally posted by Jamebonds1:

Not true. There is still concern about ESD.
Also, if bent a pin, it will shorter life and bad for vibration.

ESD is a non-issue these days. (Read the recent thread about ESD, I gave a few examples.)

Sorry, how does a bent pin cause vibration, much less lower life span?

Yes, ESD is still an issue for the motherboard, it has sensitive IC. Vibration can break the bent pin, and bend pin will shorter life for pin itself. (I did not say bent pin will cause vibrations.)

The motherboard may have been passed a compliance test, but that test report meant nothing because it is the standard level, not margin level. So, that is why it doesn't mean ESD won't occur or damage it.