Wow! Graham, you are the prince of fiddly bits. I would have never tried separating that plug to go digging for the pin. You are just remarkable. What a fun video to watch.
The same thing happened to my motherboard, so I just bought a USB 3 pci-e card, but props to you and if I had thought of replacing a pin I probably would of taken a pin from one of the headers that were not in use
With a broken pin stuck in the connector, you may succeed by tapping the connector on a hard surface like the edge of the desk or something like that with side where the pin is, slightly over the edge(so not to tap in the pin deeper).
I think that might've worked with this one. The moment I poked it with a blade edge to try and pry it, I nudged it deeper in. I didn't expect it to be loose.
@@Adamant_IT do you think the broken pin ID can cause blue screen errors? Cus thats what i got, and got faulty memory error, but the diagnostic memory didnt found anything.
Excellent video!🥳🤯🎉❤️🥰👍 I never realised the USB 3.0 header shroud surrounding the pins was removable! I have an itx board where a piece of the shroud just disintegrated on a fairly new board and it happens to be blue on a black PCB…….I might give it a go to replace it and see if it can be done on my Aorus itx board. Thanks for this video! I always learn new things from your channel despite not having any soldering skills 😞. It’s interesting to always learn a new technique (no “that’s what she said” joke references pls 🤦🤦♀️) for repairs on electronics etc. love your content, detailed information supplied and your weekly chats. Cheers from Australia 🇦🇺 🍻
Great video, very interesting. I've bent/broken enough of these USB 3 headers in my time. They are very badly designed and this is a helpful video. Thanks.
Now I'm inspired. I've broken pins in the USB 3.0 front panel header on 3 different motherboards. I had no idea that it would be that easy to repair. Thanks a million!
I am glad you were able to fix the problem. I did think that the extension cable was not fully seated, but at a slight angle after you plugged it in/as you were fitting it back into the PC.
Well, Graham, I was screaming at the computer not once but twice, once when you put the plastic shroud on upside-down, but even more so when you reassembled the motherboard with USB3 lead with the blank in the wrong place and see it turned up at the edge, and clearly seated incorrectly. it is a good job that there were no voltage issues, or it would have become a bit of a costly mistake!
When I first built my PC I accidentally bent a pin in the side-facing 3.0 header. It was the top right pin (If you're looking from clip-side up) and for almost a year I just used the other header which faces straight off the board. Recently I was able to fix the bend by using the small straw that comes with compressed air cans. It was still slightly bigger than the pin, but I was able to carefully leverage at the bend and get it mostly straight. Surprisingly, even with a slight bend, it still works. The other header I used for a 3.0 to type E adapter so I could use my front USB-C header, even if at a lower speed.
Same thing happened to me with my lian li dynamic o11 with the 3 bottom fans not enough space and broke the bottom right pin you’ve inspired me to fix it my self im very handi with a soldering tool so I want to thank you for showing on how to fix a broken pin
You have a Quick air station, I just got hold of the 861DW myself and taking that connector out and replacing it would be easy. Nice your using the pinecil also cracking good value they are, I use a hakko 888D as my daily driver that and the Quick makes embedded level micro controller / micro soldering sop and msop with a few QFN's a breeze.
Quick 861DW is nearly twice as powerful as the one he's having. I ordered an Atten 862D, which unfortunately, got stuck in customs clearance and I'm having a hard time trying to get it out. Quick 861DW and Atten 862D are pretty much the same thing they say. Many newcomers are choosing Atten over Quick due to its affordability. A preheating device can help a lot when using an underpowered hot air station.
I've snapped a pin off a USB header before. I fixed it by creating a slightly larger pin using a paperclip and shoving it into the plug. The contact of the makeshift pin with the left over nub in the socket was just enough to make a good enough connection.
I've been using the extension headers in all my builds since removing the usb3 header from my own Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming motherboard took the housing with the cable despite using tweezers etc. The damn thing was stuck fast. While the extensions have the opposite problem of coming off too easily, they look far better in the build and you don't get the problem of connectors that have welded themselves together.
Dude that video was awesome. I just broke that fucking tiny pin in my new motherboard which I bought literally a week ago. I was really anxious for couple days and I really relieved after seeing that video. Thank you.
Yeah, I my 011 I used a USB3 extension to get around this. Sadly, there are a lot of crap cables out there, but there are a couple of good ones. I've been using them in builds for quite a while... because screw that USB3 cable. Never seen one so bad it snapped off though. Crap...should have waited 'til the end since that's exactly what you did,
Some time ago got the budget H310 board (for cheap) to build and resale as a part of a computer, the board was working fine, but after the assembly I discovered that one of the front usb 3 ports wasn't working, and indeed the vbus pin (the single one on the bottom) was snapped, so I've actually managed to take out a bit that left and replace it without removing plastic or the whole connector, the new lin I've took from broken amplifier board with plenty of connectors similar to rgb header, wasn't that easy but neither to hard.
Men that have to boast about what graphics card they have installed, are compensating for other smaller parts. Not all of us have "graphic card envy" that a lot of men on here, including Graham, have a bad case of. We do not rate the "pc" based on the "graphics card".
Those plugs just need a bit of switch cleaner, servisol is great sprayed in before you plug in,same thing with those power mobo sockets,they can be very stiff to push plugs in,allow to dry before plugging in.🤖
If this was my build that bottom row of fans would be history. The build appears to have more than enough fans for useful cooling and the fans in the bottom are just asking for trouble.
I get to this video looking for the procedure to repair the same problem on my motherboard, after I solved it, I read the motherboard's manual, it was pin 10, not conected :D Anyway, thanks for the advise. Great video.
I had to use a usb 3 cable from Amazon I desoldered the old connector and sacrificed the one from a cable. Hate how they lift off the board so used some gorilla hot glue to keep that thing on lol. Also had a issue where my x299 apex usb 3 wouldn't be accessable in the phanteks evolve X case because of the drive cages literally blocked the ports looked on amazon sure enough they have a cable for this and it's nice and flat not chonky 🤣.
I have a trick for removing the pins from sockets like that .. tap it down rapidly in quick succession on the end of a desk with the part with the pin is stuck hanging over it so its free to fall out...
Well, I bent mine and didn't realise and was like oh why have I only got one port working. However think I am going to do what you said at the beginning and run with 1 as my board is a b550 gaming plus and got plenty of rear usb ahhah
Good day Graham, to add a set of USB 3.0 ports to the back of my computer I pulled the 19 pin plug out, a very tight space with a lot of wiggling. The plug came off along with the shroud, but no pins were bent or broken. Now when I put everything back together I hear the connecting sound of the computer accepting a USB flash drive, but no flash drive shows on the screen. I also hear the disconnect sound when I pull out the flash drive. Do you have any ideas on this?
In my experience the best way to remove the plastic plug for the USB3.0 header is to just use the front panel connector itself. The damn connectors always seem to pull the plastic with them when you try to unplug the cable.
I'd have gone for that if it was a case of most of the pins being mashed flat, but for one or two pins, I think single-pin replacement is a lot less hassle!
i managed to pull the socket off the mobo, it just would not come out. needless to say, i cut the groove off on the cable and now its fine! and the housing went back onto the mobo just fine
Just a shame my 2 month old MSI B550m pro VDH uses a right angled USB3 front header connection! And yes,. I managed to bend and snap a pin on it :-/ So a PCIE usb 3.0 card on its way, as well as a replacement motherboard header. At least I'll be able to use the PCIE header to get things up and running, until I get my soldering skills back again before replacing the motherboard header...
Instead of splitting the adapter head apart I would have tried taping the head against something to get it to come at least partially out and then grab it with tweezers. Just a thought.
I just had a Asus vivobook that had stopped charging. Windows thought it was charging but the battery was not taking any charge. Sent it back to Asus they have had a look at it and said the motherboard was faulty and now I have been refunded. It would of been awesome to send it to Adamant It as it would of made a good LFC video.
Get some dental tools, life saver for these types of repairs. Also curious if their is a 3.0 performance hit with those extensions. May have to grab one to see.
A friend messaged me today saying they'd experienced performance issues with these extensions. It's something I'm going to look into. I suspect it might be luck of the draw, in the same way that I had the dead one in this video.
Nice work! Would it have been possible to have put a drop of solder on a pin and then heated the solder up to join it to the broken pin to get it out? If done quick enough, it shouldn't do any damage to the plug, rather than 'opening' the plug up to get the pin out?
That's a good idea actually... definitely something to try. The possible issue there is that if the solder flows into the connector, it'll weld the broken pin inside it forever. So could be a risky move. One to try out on a scrap header wire sometime though...
I managed somehow to bent that pin on one of my motherboards. It was bent down at the bottom of the connector. I was able to straighten it again without breaking. In my main pc I added an expension card for an extra usb 3 header for my card reader. Iwould use that as a replacement for a broken pin, but I don’t know if you can use expansion cards with the vertical gpu mount.
Where do I buy pins? One of my pins were snapped in half and half of it is stuck in the plastic on the board. Could I use wire to connect the pin into the cable?