ATX Mobo sockets... a rant.

[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

[Arclight]

Hmm, P4? Be glad you don't have one that requires RDRAM.

Pair of DDR2 sticks aren't that expensive. I use Kingston HyperX for gaming rig, and I'd consider that cheap (especially considering a DDR3 kit would cost double, even more if I want to match the low latency of my current DDR2 kit).