Motherboard damage

I've also posted this to alt.comp.hardware so apologizes to those reading
both groups.

I'm hoping someone would be knowledgeable enough to help me here.
Motherboard is Asus P5LD2 Deluxe and I have two sticks of OCZ2P10001GEE
which I had been running dual channel at 3-4-3-11 and around 950 FSB.

I was having some random crashes over the past couple of days. Looked
inside and turns out the waterblock on the Northbridge had popped off, with
the clamp ripping out one of the looped fasteners on the motherboard it was
attached to. Put the waterblock back but still no dice. After using
memtest, it turns out that the second DDR memory channel (pair of slots) is
gone--the same RAM module would work in the A slots one but not the B
slots--errors in the second, with error rate seeming to be somewhat
proportional to the FSB frequency I set in the BIOS.

Looked under the waterblock again and it looks like there's a missing
surface mount ceramic capacitor. I think I may have crushed it while
reinstalling the waterblock. So either from overheating or breaking the
cap, some damage appears to have occurred and now I can only use one of my
1 GB sticks D: It's sure strange though that the second channel slots work
at all; I wouldn't have expected a partial failure with error rates
depending on the FSB...

My question is, can I just replace the cap I think I crushed with a random
one, or maybe unsolder one of the others around it and measure its
capacitance with my LCR meter and use that, in the hope of restoring
function? Or what if I didn't crush the cap and there's actually not
supposed to be one there? I'm not sure how to deal with this.

I'm also looking for suggestions for the best forums to ask this.

On 2007-09-06, Prune <bobysgotguns_.DeleteThis@_yahoo_._com> wrote:
>
> My question is, can I just replace the cap I think I crushed with a random
> one, or maybe unsolder one of the others around it and measure its
> capacitance with my LCR meter and use that, in the hope of restoring
> function? Or what if I didn't crush the cap and there's actually not
> supposed to be one there? I'm not sure how to deal with this.

Not familiar with your board so I'm only going to address this
point in particular: if there was a cap there you'd be able to tell
by looking at the pads. If they're clean, smooth and shiny there
was nothing there to begin with. If something was ripped off and
the pads themselves are still in place, you'd have a rough finish
there. It may not look rough to the naked eye but would still
manifest itself as appearing dull instead of shiny, often a greyish
or whitish colour. It would be a similar appearance to a dry
soldered joint if you know what one of those looks like. Compare
it to the appearence of other pads, both with components soldered
on to them, and pads left blank if you are unsure.

--
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews.DeleteThis@sdf.lonestar.org