GPU repair: bad PCIE traces?

[Andrew_Carr]

I just picked up this used 3070 as non-working (green lines on display) and wanted to see if anyone had thoughts on if I’m going down the right track for repairs. (Paging razorwind, haha). So far I don’t see any burnt components and physical damage just looks like a dent on the metal backplate. The PCIE traces look like the only thing that’s damaged. It looks almost like someone used a screwdriver to pry it out of the motherboard or something, and it might possibly be scorched. I was thinking of just using a conductive pen to repair these and retrying it. Any thoughts on this?

The front side of the PCIE lanes seems ok, but the small tab on the back looks pretty messed up. The dent doesn't seem to have damaged anything internally but it's somewhat deep so I have no idea how you would've caused that, except maybe by dropping it 5 feet high on something metal and pointy.

 

[magda]

Doesn't look like significant damage to the PCIe. Did you get it to work?

 

[RazorWind]

The damaged portion of the PCI-E connector is the part that primarily carries power, clock and link signals. The worst damage appears to be pin A1. If the card works at all, I doubt (but could be wrong) that that alone is the reason for the graphical artifacts on the display.
https://pinoutguide.com/Slots/pci_express_pinout.shtml

Is the dent you're referring to at the very bottom of the frame in that last photo? It's very plausible that the damage that's causing your graphical artifacts is the result of the visible mechanical damage, but I kind of doubt that it's related to damage in that area specifically, since there usually isn't any processing logic circuitry located there, and your problem is a logic one.

If you can get into Windows with it, the first thing I would do is try to take a screenshot of the green lines you're seeing, and then look at the screenshot on a healthy machine. That will help clue you in as to what part of the GPU (in the technically correct big fat silicon die + memory ICs sense) is damaged. I'd then tear the board down and inspect for physical damage under the heatsink and backplate. If I didn't find anything, I'd maybe also check the resistance to ground and voltage on each of the power rails (even the small ones). Low resistance on one of them could maybe help clue you in as to the problem as well, but you'd need to find some credible known good values to make the most of that information.

 

[Andrew_Carr]

Ok, thanks. I've penned over the traces with a repair pen but haven't tried it out yet. Just need to double check that I didn't bridge any pins and then I'll test it out again.