Chipped Motherboard

[Ocean]

I recently shipped my SuperPC and had the CPU fan come off during transit and break off a piece of my mobo. After a bit of googling I think it was the surrounding of a capacitor that broke off. It is a small three sided black piece that was surrounding a wire coiled up 3 times on itself and it reads R27 on the outside. I am wondering if I can safely start up the computer and not fry anything, or if I am just going to have to go and buy a new mobo.

Thanks,
Brian

[The Wise Monkey]

I'm pretty sure the surrounding is just for protection, so you should be able to start it up OK. Just to be on the safe side, start the PC with nothing in except one stick of RAM, the CPU and the motherboard, as this reduces any potential impact if things do go wrong.

[zburns]

Please follow Wise Monkeys instructions for testing it. Other comments follow fyi.

The component is probably a wire wound resistor and consequently is less likely to have been damaged. As long as the windings can be seen and do not appear to be damaged or mashed, no scratches, symetrical in appearance (roundness), it is probably ok. The label R27 would normally be interpreted as Resistor 27 on a schematic diagram of the board. You might find it best to use a magnifying glass to get a better look at the resistor, also all over the mobo if you did not already do it (and the video card).

Assuming no other evidence of dents or something else broken off, you might be real lucky!! At least we all hope so.

If you had a video card installed perpendicular to the mobo, you might look carefully at the side of the video card that faces the mobo. The fan could have banged up against the video card circuit board solder side. I mention this because the soldered side of my video card does face the CPU and its fan.