ATX Mobo sockets... a rant.

[FIREWALL]

I'm a bit confused here. Every mobo I've ever had, the socket had HOLES and the CPU had all the little pins.

The only way to straighten the pins on a CPU is with a very small coffee stiring straw or a WD40 straw.

An even better way is " DON'T BEND THE PINS "

BTW what kind of mobo and cpu ?

[Seth8530]

Have you considered that it could be a bad PCI e Slot? If the slot is bad putting in another card wouldnt solve your problem. Also i thought most thermal paste today is non conductive. Double check your thermal paste.

Try putting the GPU and CPU into another pc and see if they work. Make sure your RAM is firmly seated.

Fixing pc's is a process of elimination.

[Reece]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

The contacts in the socket are nothing more than hundreds if not thousands of 1very fine pieces of wire bent in kind of a question mark shape. There basically spring loaded to make contact with the pads on the underside of the CPU.

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

I'm a bit confused here. Every mobo I've ever had, the socket had HOLES and the CPU had all the little pins.

The only way to straighten the pins on a CPU is with a very small coffee stiring straw or a WD40 straw.

An even better way is " DON'T BEND THE PINS "

BTW what kind of mobo and cpu ?

Yes sounds like the plastic shell of the CPU socket came off!! that's a write off!!
If the computer is running fine for a long period when this type of problem occurs then it is not likely to be the CPU/heatsink, unless you knocked it, even then the paste doesn't go brittle for over a year or so, just swivel it a little to re-seat it! All I can say is good luck!
EDIT: It was probably cohesion that caused the heatsink to bond to the CPU, pulling up would hold with tons of pressure, would explain why the shell came off, in the future twist the heatsink from side to side till it comes adrift!

[Arclight]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

I'm a bit confused here. Every mobo I've ever had, the socket had HOLES and the CPU had all the little pins.

Starting with LGA775, all Intel sockets have it the other way around; the fragile pins are in the socket, the CPU has just contact-pads.

I remember placing a chip in this board for the first time; scary as hell. Requires quite a bit of force, for something so fragile, to get the clamp down that holds the CPU in place.

[SteamWake]

Heh I've straightened out my share of socket 7 chip pins.

[Arclight]

Ugh, such a nightmare. Trying to bend it back; "just a liiitlle further..."

*snap*

[SteamWake]

Hell the pins on a socket 7 chip are like giant redwoods compared to the 775's.

I have a machine to check the cpu in but now its irrelevant the MOBO has to be replaced anyhow.

With my luck it will turn out to be the cpu most likely

[Arclight]

My money is on the CPU as well. I tend to go by: nothing happens at all > motherboard or PSU. Powers on, but doesn't post > CPU. Powers on, but beeps error code > RAM or cards.

Ah, hope you get it sorted. Sucks when a component craps out and you're not exactly sure what needs to be replaced.

[SteamWake]

The saga continues...

I plopped the CPU into a known good machine and after resetting the cmos works fine... phew..

So I set out to get a new socket 775 mobo and guess what? You can no longer find a board with ddr ram slots. Its ddr2 or better brother.. so add some ram to that bill