The power switch connections on the motherboard are damaged.
The power switch connections on the motherboard are damaged.
Hello! Here’s a clearer version of your situation:
Your MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX isn’t starting properly. After trying to short the power switch pins, it finally turned on. You replaced the power supply and now you’re still having trouble with pin shorting. An inspection revealed a scratch above the pins—probably not a physical obstruction but something else. Pressing the flash bios button doesn’t get it running, though it shows the mainboard is receiving power; it just needs the correct signal to boot.
Are there alternative methods to get the system up? Could you check other pins or jumpers for potential fixes? I know some systems boot immediately after power is applied. Thanks for your help!
The device begins by linking the power switch pin or wire to ground briefly. Focus only on the wire entering one of the two pins—typically the one marked PLUS, since a minus is likely tied to a common ground (such as the power LED, HDD LED, etc.). A straightforward fix is to gently remove the protective coating from the area around the cut and apply conductive material there, like silver conductive paint. Alternatively, you can strip the insulation from a thin wire and cover the damaged trace with a short solder connection. Ideally, you’d use a soldering iron station for precise work, but these methods also function effectively. You might set up the system to power on automatically when voltage drops (requires BIOS configuration), or trigger startup via keyboard press or mouse click in BIOS, or reboot into UEFI from the shutdown menu.
For such a precise task, I need to confirm the correct component because it affects many parts. It's tough to distinguish which trace matches each pin without removing the entire JFP1 header. The traces appear to originate from the soldering pads above. I attempted to connect them directly but failed. Without knowing their exact positions, matching them correctly is unlikely. I've searched for online layouts but haven't found anything useful.