PSA: Asus and different PC {hardware} distributors have spent the previous few years exploring methods to make putting in and eradicating motherboard parts simpler and safer. Asus’ newest technique goals to remove launch buttons and latches from PCIe slots, however current studies point out that the process dangers chipping the gold fingers.
House owners of Asus’ AMD X800 and Intel Z800 motherboards ought to train warning when eradicating their graphics playing cards. A number of studies present that the corporate’s just lately launched Q-Launch Slim system can scratch the GPU’s connection pins.
A just lately uploaded Bilibili video confirmed how the mechanism can chip the tip of a graphics card’s brief gold finger, which faces the lengthy gold finger. {Hardware} Luxx’s Andreas Schilling later shared a photograph of his GeForce RTX 5090 exhibiting related harm. Schilling reported that the pins incessantly grew to become caught within the PCIe slot throughout benchmarks involving repeated GPU elimination and swapping.
I am not pleased with the answer both. We use the Strix X870E-E Gaming for testing the graphics playing cards. So I’ve needed to take away graphics playing cards from the slot just a few dozen occasions. This did not at all times go easily and fairly often the cardboard obtained caught within the slot. First harm seen. https://t.co/CHVKFBrbY8 pic.twitter.com/1pEUXmQQES
– Andreas Schilling 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@aschilling) January 24, 2025
Asus launched Q-Launch Slim to simplify the method of detaching graphics playing cards and different PCIe add-in boards. Conventional mechanisms require urgent a latch on the finish of the slot to launch the gold finger, which frequently proves troublesome as a result of giant GPUs can fully obscure the latch.
The corporate started utilizing another technique in 2021 involving urgent a launch button positioned in a extra accessible place. MSI demonstrated the same system at Gamescom final 12 months, suggesting that the development is catching on. Nonetheless, Asus’s Q-Launch Slim mechanism goals to simplify issues additional.
With Q-Launch Slim, customers merely maintain the motherboard down with one hand, barely tilt the cardboard upward, and take away it by pulling towards the I/O bracket. The design prevents the gold fingers from shifting in some other course.
Asus is working to handle the current studies of chipped connectors, however hasn’t but supplied particulars on a treatment. It stays unclear if the corporate may revert to an earlier system or strive one thing new with future motherboards.
The PCIe slot is not the one port motherboard producers are attempting to enhance. MSI additionally launched a Q-Launch system for the M.2 slot for Z800 boards. Putting in and eradicating NVMe SSDs usually includes screws that may typically turn out to be irritating as a consequence of their small measurement. With MSI’s new system, urgent a lock button behind the drive secures the SSD with out the necessity for screws. Asus makes use of the same system with a launch latch and a sliding gate that helps 2280 and 2230 drives. Not like Asus’s GPU slot technique, SSD Q-Launch mechanisms have not encountered widespread issues to date.
