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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by great_7562@ani.social to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

So, I had some issues with installing the GPU in the case, and the GPU bottom (those metals things at the bottom) ended up scratching part of the motherboard. From what I can tell, there's a bunch of similar components all the way up, so I'd think there's redundancy, so I guess it's not that important. Here is a picture:

https://i.postimg.cc/7LBwkr3h/62e626.jpg

https://files.catbox.moe/62e626.jpg

PC boots fine into bios, fans work, stuff are recognized, mouse and keyboard also works, but I haven't really done much beyond that.

Motherboard is: MSI B650 Gaming Plus Wifi

It's located here, and on them, it is written K72 then vertically smaller K2 (the 2 has an underline):

https://i.postimg.cc/XJNcnppT/modelblock-gaming-pd.png

https://files.catbox.moe/7otcn6.png

Should I get a new motherboard?

Edit: Better quality image, and new image host added.

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[-] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 day ago

I can tell you that they wouldn't have included it if it didn't serve a purpose. However, that purpose might be for a feature you don't use, or possibly even one that doesn't exist for your board (e.g. if there's a similar model with features added/removed, they may simply leave components off the lesser SKUs. For instance, you sometimes see solder points for 4 RAM slots, when only 2 are installed)

While I'm a fan of using things until they truly break, you have to consider what this could mean. If they are for voltage regulation, you could end up with rich, chunky volts to your CPU, RAM, GPU, etc.

If they are for thermal cutoff, things could melt or even catch fire. It might even happen when you aren't home.

And if they are for RGB controls, you could end up with no lights, and that would just be too boring to accept. (/s)

[-] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago

I can tell you that they wouldn't have included it if it didn't serve a purpose.

words to live by. you know how much less your car would be if it only used 8 bolts on the exhaust headers instead of 10? for millions of that model alone? bet your ass they're doing the bare minimum to get it off the assembly line.

[-] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You should use an image hosting service that works, and then post to !askelectronics@discuss.tchncs.de

[-] ch00f@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

~~Are those near a connector (maybe on the other side?)~~

~~Could be a bunch of ESD protection diodes which only come in to play if you wear socks on carpet and touch the connector terminals.~~

~~Can you provide the numbers listed on the parts? Usually just 3 numbers/letters.~~

~~Also, looking at the circuit traces, does it look like all three terminals are connected? Is one connected to the ground plane? (The copper that covers most of the board surface around the circuit traces).~~

Edit: looks like they’re 2N7002 MOSFETs

https://www.diodes.com/assets/Datasheets/ds11303.pdf

These act like a digital switch that can use a small voltage to toggle a larger current. Odd to have so many, you normally wouldn’t use a bunch in parallel instead of just a larger FET.

So they look like they’re all connected to the same traces?

[-] dave@feddit.uk 12 points 1 day ago

From the TI briefing note:

Paralleling power metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) is a common wayto reduce conduction losses and spread power dissipation over multiple devices to limit the maximum junction temperature.

It would also provide redundancy in case of a failure—if you had only one, and it failed (or was scraped off by an over-enthusiastic GPU installation), you would probably not be going to space today.

[-] ch00f@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Can you link that note?

I think that's usually the method in high power applications where heat dissipation is paramount. Each of these diodes is only rated for 210mA of drain current. From a BOM cost perspective, it'd be much cheaper to just buy one 5A FET rather than parallelizing a bunch of 0.21A FETs. That 5A FET would be in a package that could handle whatever heat it generates.

[-] dave@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago

You’re probably right—I searched for ‘20 mosfets in parallel’ or something like that and it came up near the top. But I didn’t read the whole thing.

I guess there’s got to be some reason for using so many though?

[-] great_7562@ani.social 3 points 1 day ago

So I guess, what this means is having one scrapped off or failing isn't a big issue (because of built-in redundancy accounting exactly for that)?

[-] dave@feddit.uk 9 points 1 day ago

My gut feeling is they didn’t put 20 there in case you scraped one off. But likely the others will have enough leeway to cover for it. If the power rail gets stressed enough, it might well fail sooner than it would have.

[-] ch00f@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

My other running theory is that (due to relative proximity to audio chip), they're muting FETs for muting audio channels when connecting headphones/speakers to prevent speaker pop.

[-] dave@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago

Interesting. Is the orange line on the board separating the audio section from the rest?

[-] ch00f@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Possibly. Might be marking some isolation or just a stylistic choice by the designer.

[-] great_7562@ani.social 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It's like well, here I guess:

https://i.postimg.cc/XJNcnppT/modelblock-gaming-pd.png

You might be able to find a better resolution image of the board if you look, on them, it is written K72 then vertically smaller K2 (the 2 has an underline).

There are so many as you say, so makes me think, there's enough redundancy to leave it be.

[-] ch00f@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Here's another idea. In that image, directly below these FETs you can see the little crab logo on the chip. That's the audio driver. It's possible these FETs are muting FETS for the analog audio channels. Basically they hold the audio lines down while you connect/disconnect your audio devices to prevent speaker pop.

Like this:

I've seen some designs that use two FETs per channel which could explain why there's so many.

[-] dave@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago

That mb appears to have 8 channel audio on the backplane (7.1) and maybe another stereo header for the front panel headphones? That would make 10 channels in total which fits…

this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
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