I accidentally broke one of the gold PCI-E connector pins (where it fits into the slot on the motherboard) on my GTX480 card when removing it from my old system. It is the third pin on the solder side of the card, in the short section (11 pins section). Is the card safe to use and will it work normally? I have not tested it yet in case it may cause any damage. Advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

yes it may damage your mobo, or just pop the card, I don't know, since I have no idea what that pin takes care of, better ask one of the guys form EVGA tech support prior to attempting to use that card.
What sad is,, if you had broke a copper trace into the PCB (Printed circuit board) you could of solder a piece of small copper coming out from a strended wire (not the all wire because too big in gauge, I done it before on a CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER SOUND CARD and the card worked perfectly), but since you broke the copper plate right on the connector, I doubt you can rebuilt that part with any thing,, sorry man!!!! I wish I could help you....
Good luck 

If you're looking at the card with the heatsink facing up so that the short section of pins is to the left they go in this order...
 
Pin Side B Side A Comments
1 +12V PRSNT1# Pulled low to indicate card inserted
2 +12V +12V
3 +12V +12V
4 Ground Ground
5 SMCLK TCK SMBus and JTAG port pins
6 SMDAT TDI
7 Ground TDO
8 +3.3V TMS
9 TRST# +3.3V
10 +3.3Vaux +3.3V Standby power
11 WAKE# PWRGD Link reactivation, power good.

I'm not 100% certain, but the card may be regulated to allow up to the full 75W from the PCI-E 16x slot's 12V.  So if that is the case there might be a chance of current overdraw on the remaining pins.  If it were me, I wouldn't risk the damage to my mobo PCI-E slot.

nick u SICILIANU

So, just curious,, that pin should take care of a +12V,,,, since that card get's powered from the 2 PCI-E power cords, can you still reuse that card with out that connection to be made with the mobo?
Or it will not power up?

blacksapphire08

If you're looking at the card with the heatsink facing up so that the short section of pins is to the left they go in this order...

Pin Side B Side A Comments
1 +12V PRSNT1# Pulled low to indicate card inserted
2 +12V +12V
3 +12V +12V
4 Ground Ground
5 SMCLK TCK SMBus and JTAG port pins
6 SMDAT TDI
7 Ground TDO
8 +3.3V TMS
9 TRST# +3.3V
10 +3.3Vaux +3.3V Standby power
11 WAKE# PWRGD Link reactivation, power good.

The card still receives about 75W of power through the PCIe connector. I'm not entirely sure what would happen if you plugged it in but my guess is that it could damage the card. If it were the pins on the far, long side of the connector I wouldnt worry since they're the data pins and the worst that would happen is it wouldnt be able to run at x16 speed. I've actually seen people lop off part of those pins to make it fit into a smaller slot and it still worked.
 
You should be able to get this repaired by someone knowledgeable with electronics repair.

Canusayblunt

Hey could i theoretically create my own solder tip for the PCi-e interface Connector tab/pin ? " The very end of the brass connector, the part that makes internal metal to metal contact with the PCi-e slot on my mobo, my card is not running fine, i have a quite noticable Fps drop and full on stutters i believe it is on the data side of the interface, but i am unsure as i suck with computers. it is only one brass tip on the very end of the connector, i can get back to you with better details when i remove the Gfx card again in a moment, any help would be greatly appreciated thanks in advance....  Cheers 

why would you want to do that?
Is one of the pin broken off?
And anyway, I don't think you can do that, maybe a repair shop can restore the broken off plate but I don't think you can restore that printed circuit board.
specially if it is broke right were it goes into the PCI-E slot, if it was a trace there is a way on fixing it your self, not easy if you have no experience but it is possible, I restore a creative sound blaster 24bit once by soldering a thin piece of wire to rejoin the broken trace, it was a pain on doing it but I had it done and the card still working today in my dad computer.
Good Luck!
 
Best regards 

Canusayblunt

Thanks for the speedy reply, I hope it is the  " Trace "  in question as i am not that knowledgeable with computers... It is the Last Bit of Brass that tapers off to a point on the bottom of the face of the PCI-e Connector, only a few mm of the one broke off, but just enough so there is no or limited connection... Thanks for the help so far, Any further help will be appreciated... Also I can attach a Photo next post if my cameras resolution is good enough lol

yea I see what you saying, I doubt you can easily fix that, yea post a picture, that is a good idea

Canusayblunt

OK one sec, gotta power down and pop it out and shoot a quick one...

OK

Canusayblunt

This is what im seeing, and apparently i just broke this one with my monkey handedness, the pic of the other one is not as good so i went with this one, the extent of the damage is similar on both...  

oo OK,
that is not your problem for sure, that is absolutely normal, my cards looks like that too, that's not broken, it's just the way they built.
your problem it's definitely something else,  try on uninstall the video card drivers, then boot in windows in safe mode, run driver swipper, after the restart, just to make sure rerun driver sweeper and make sure there is nothing left, and re-install the video drivers, that may fix your problems.
I have similar problem with frames lock on my system too, and I didn't find out what it may be, but I think in my case it is my PSU not delivery enough power to my system since I recently added a 3rd EVGA 470SC for a 3WAY SLI, and before that I use to be fine.

Canusayblunt

OK thank you, i was afraid that it might be my PSU as i've had suspicions of its failure " Complete System Hangs, jittery jumpy frame rates for short periods ect...also it sings like a 2 stroke at the top of its powerband when stressed.   But this low frame and Heavy skips just started today after i half assed cleaned the card and re-seated it, i thought it wasn't in properly so i did it again to no avail.. I guess its not too much of a Fps drop, but more the skips that got very noticeable. Im going to run LightsMark and 3dMark06 again with the same clock speeds as before to see if i cannot replicate scores. Thank you for all your help.

try this before you start troubleshooting hardware, it's cheaper, ok:
uninstall them trough the control panel, so click on Start then control panel then look for uninstall a program and look under the list all of programs installed in your machine for NVDIA stuff and 1 by 1 uninstall them, when you uninstall the drivers your screen will flash, don't worry that is normal, then download driver sweeper from here http://www.softpedia.com/dyn-postdownload.php?p=101717&t=4&i=1 and don't worry it's a free app, if you have it just restart the machine, wile booting press F8 and select SAFE MODE, after window is loaded into safe mode open driver sweeper and select NVDIA graphic drivers and sweep, after speep is finish it will ask you to reboot, accept it, after windows loaded again, reopen driver sweeper and double check if there is anything left, if there is not, and usual there is noting left, install the NVIDIA driver you like to, reboot and wola you done, open 3DMark test if it returns any error, if not, try gaming, and if you problems are resolved you good, if you recently updated the drivers, reinstall them if they still get problems repeat the uninstall process and reinstall the previous version that you know it's good.
I know it is a pain to trouble shoot, good luck