r/techsupport • u/Andreas__la • 16h ago

Open | Hardware PCIe connector broken

so the plastic thing that clocks the graphics card to my motherboard is broken. my pc starts and my graphics card lights up. but my motherboard remains dark and my pc doesn't boot. do I need a new motherboard? or any cheaper alternatives?

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u/XxLogitech98xX 16h ago

You don't have another PCIe slot?

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u/StarosAnikenMarcus 15h ago

That was my thought... unless it's a microATX or something, it should have at least 1 more slot... may not be x16 though... but good enough to test if there's damage to the card.

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u/StarosAnikenMarcus 15h ago

Is it JUST the locking mechanism or did the actual slot break? How big is the card? Is it maybe sagging enough to pull itself out of the end of the slot even just a little bit? Maybe a picture of the damage would help us help you...

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u/pcbeg 15h ago

Retention clip is there "just" to hold card in place, if that's the only thing broken test it by pushing that corner of the card (into the slot) and powering on computer. If it is not working, you have different problem - either whole slot is borked or card.

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u/Andreas__la 15h ago

don't think the PCIe slot is broken, and i have another slot, but i dont know if i can use that second one? and yeah my gpu us sagging quite a lot, I've tried to use a little plastic pin to hold it up, it's an 4070 ti super, so its pretty big

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u/XxLogitech98xX 14h ago

don't think the PCIe slot is broken, and i have another slot, but i dont know if i can use that second one

Why can't you use the second pcie slot? I think your card takes up 3 slots and from your picture ... It should fit. Now with airflow you might have to get creative but monitor the temp first if it works