PSA: Killed a motherboard by not double-checking standoff placement

I zipped up a new build for a client two weeks ago, a gaming rig with an AMD board. Everything looked perfect on the bench, but after powering it on, nothing but a black screen. Turns out I missed one extra standoff under the board that didn't line up with any hole, and it shorted out the back of the motherboard. Cost me a $180 replacement and a lot of embarrassment. Has anyone else had a simple assembly mistake wreck a board like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_ben13h ago

Two years ago I put a screw through a ribbon cable on a laptop. Missed it by a mile. The whole trackpad just stopped working and I had to replace the entire palmrest assembly. $90 mistake and a lot of cussing at myself while I fixed it.

kelly3112h ago

Missed it by a mile." Yeah, I know that feeling. I once reassembled a phone and somehow got a tiny piece of my shirt fabric caught in the screen connector. The whole display flickered like a bad horror movie. Took me an hour of staring at it before I realized I had basically dressed it in a tiny shirt. $90 is rough though, at least you got to learn something and curse the universe at the same time.