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Broken CPU Pin

A

Atomik

Member
So I've had a Pentium 4 3.2E S478 CPU sitting here for several months with a broken pin. It was pulled from a system and one of the outermost pins was snapped right off. I guess my question is, should this CPU be thrown in the trash? Is there any way to repair it? Do people buy CPUs with broken pins on Ebay?
Unfortunately I no longer have a s478 system to try it in, even if I did get it repaired. I just don't want to throw it away if it is in any way salvagable. I still have the retail box/HSF.

Thanks!
 
I believe there was someone here who fixed a broken P4 1.6GHz with 3-4 broken pins by sodering them back on. How he/she did it, I don't know. If you put "No equipment to test, sold as it" on ebay, people will probably buy it. 🙂
 
It depends on which pin is broken. If it's just a voltage/ground pin, chances are the chip will run fine. Some people actualy intentionaly bend/break specific pins, usualy on mobile chips, to modify them. For example, by bending a certain pin on my 1.6ghz mobile northwood, I can run it with the proper voltage of 1.25v on a desktop board, where it would default the 1.6v without bending the pin. If you could be specific about which pin broke off, I could let you know your chances that the chip will run normaly.
 
hey, as ken and stev have stated.... they are repairable and it depends on what pins are fecked! my guess is you dont know anyone with a 478 board either? sell it for salvage, if you can find out what pin is busted (hopefully a ground), you wont have to soder and you could re-sell it as working condition (given the fact you've tested it and it works)! you'll get a better offer if you use anand's for sale/trade area, compared to ebay for a cpu with a busted pin!
 
If you can't make it out clearly, the broken pin is the outermost pin on a corner of the CPU.
Broken Pin
Now that I think of it, I did come across a website that repaired broken pins on CPUs, but I will have to do some digging to find it.

Edit: Thanks for the PDF. I think the broken ping is AF1 pin name VSS which is Power/Other.

Edit2: This is the website I was thinking about link
 
Well, there's a reason why there are 478 pins on that cpu. Intel was very concerned about redundancy and data integrity when they designed that particular cpu, so they made it with 18 actual data pins, and then added the remaining 460 pins as "backups". Much like RAID-0, if you break off one pin, the data can be easily recovered by XOR'ing the data on the other pins.

This gives you a much more reliable and sturdy cpu. For example, the p4 can be used as a tennis ball without voiding the warranty, or jeapordizing its usability as a processor! Thats another reason why AMD released their new 939 pin cpus. They wanted to one up Intel. The s939 cpus are so robust, in fact, that you can use them as tennis balls, soccer balls, AND as hockey pucks without having to worry about anything! (Unless, ofcourse, you break off ALL the pins.)

So, in conclusion, losing one data pin should do you no harm. Matter of fact, you can rip off an additional 459 pins and still be fine.


/ joking ofcourse =)
 
Thanks for the help everyone! Chances are it will work, although I no longer have any S478 mobos. I might try out that motherboard repair website or put it on ebay.

remagavon: make me an offer? 🙂
 
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