Can I use speaker wire to repair a socket 939 processor?

[WAZ]

So I looked up some various ways to fix a broken pin on an AMD processor and the easiest one for me is dropping a piece of wire into the socket and hope that when I press the processor down it makes contact. It's for a backup computer so I don't want to pay anything, bother with soldering, take it to a jeweler, etc.

I read you can get some gold wire (where could I get gold wire?), or cut an old ethernet cable and use the wire from that. But I found the latter to be very thin. Pulling an untwisted piece of plain old speaker wire, I found that wire to be a little thicker and stronger than the ethernet-cut wire.

Is that okay to use (I believe it's probably copper), or should I use the thinner, weaker ethernet wire, or find some gold wire somewhere? Thanks.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Speaker wire should work just fine. they probably suggest ethernet since newwer cpus have lots more pins, and the pins keep getting smaller ...
Also, it depends on the gauge of the speaker wire ..... if it's too big to fit, then it won't work obviously

 

[QuixoticOne]

Good luck / my condolences.

Weird. I can't say that I've EVER seen SPEAKER WIRE that's SOLID
and even slightly resembles the thickness or stiffness of CPU pins.

But you're 100% right, you want something that's as THICK as the CPU pins
to very close tolerances, maybe slightly thinner if you have to error on one
side or the other, and with high stiffness.

Gold does NOT matter. I'd look for hard drawn copper or even steel wire if you
can find it in the right thickness. Sure it'd be nice if it wasn't subject to
corrosion and had high conductivity like gold or copper, but those are softer
metals and it's useless how pretty & corrosion resistant it is if it doesn't
work at all or reliably.

If you're going to stick it in the socket hole and HOPE it makes contact you'll need
to cut the length PRECISELY right to be a tiny bit too long but not more than
15% or so beyond the normal pin length so it cannot short out to the next pins over.

It'd be preferable to solder the wire onto the CPU itself but you'd need a good
magnifier lamp, fine point low power soldering iron, good ESD control, etc. to stand
a good chance of that. But if the broken pin is on the edge or near a gap you may
be in luck to try.

Look in the CPU electrical data sheet for the FUNCTION of the pin.
If you're SUPER LUCKY it's a "No Connect" pin that is useless.

If you're SUPER LUCKY even if it's not a "No Connect" it'll be one that isn't needed
in practice like one for factory testing or so.

If you're PRETTY lucky it'll be a power pin with the same voltage and function as
one that's right next to it in which case you can just use solder or conductive
trace repair ink to short it to the "same function" pin next to it and that's enough.

If you're a gambling man and get lucky it may be a power pin that may be 'alone'
in its immediate area but if there are several other power pins that power the same
function in the chip elsewhere in the package, maybe they're all connected together
inside the chip and it'll work out with one missing.

If you're in the mood for humor, hey, just leave it broken and never run 64
bit software, you've still got 63 good bits! j/k

Actually it's possible it does go to a RAM stick or RAM pin that you don't actually use
in your system depending on what the pin does and what broke.

Usually the ethernet cable I see that's intended for wiring inside the walls
is solid core around 22 or 26 ga. wire so actually that could be stiff and work
if the thickness is similar. Maybe the flexible "patch cables" tend to use
stranded (I've never seen that though) or flimsy / too thin wire though.

Paperclips, Radio Shack, or MAGNET WIRE that you scrape the insulating varnish
off of should work.

Good luck!

 

[brxndxn]

I fixed a processor with the tip of a thumbtack by soldering.. I don't think you'll get anything in terms of reliability without soldering.

However, before you go to any trouble, try using the processor without the pin.. It might work anyway. I had a client come in to the store with a missing pin once.. so I sold him a new processor. Just for kicks, I tried it in a test computer and it worked fine! So, I went online and found a pin diagram of the processor.. turns out it was one of the many 'ground' pins that were supposedly all connected together internally anyway..

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Good old pressure is not very reliable. Low temp soldering should be very effective. Use a small copper wire.

 

[WAZ]

Thanks for the replies.

Yeah, I figured out what the pin does a while back.... it affects DIMM slots 2 and 4. So I can put one or two sticks of RAM in just slot 1, or slots 1 & 3 (running at only DDR333 instead of 400). If I put RAM in slots 2 and/or 4, the PC won't post.

Kind of a bitch, but not the end of the world. It will boot and run fine; I'm just limited with my RAM, which, while not ideal, is okay for a basic PC for my wife.

So whether I solder or not, the bigger question is what kind of wire will work. Maybe the ethernet cable I had was old and crappy, because that wire was THIN and very flimsy. The copper speaker wire was much sturdier and fit fine into the socket. Are "good" ethernet cables copper wiring with thicker, sturdier wire? Maybe I'll pick up a few inches of that and give it a shot.

I have zero soldering skills, no iron, and don't want to screw up the processor with a bad solder job, or pay $50 for someone to do it. My thought was, if this little piece of wire can do the job for free, then fantastic, I can use all 4 DIMM slots. Worst case scenario, it doesn't work, but the thing will at least still boot. (No risk or shorting anything out, is there?)

 

[TheKub]

Originally posted by: WAZ
Worst case scenario, it doesn't work, but the thing will at least still boot. (No risk or shorting anything out, is there?)

Worst case you short something that kills both the CPU AND the motherboard. I'd proceed with caution.

 

[WAZ]

Eek!

 

[Nathelion]

Pushing little pieces of metal into he socket hole and hoping for the best is 1) unreliable and 2) liable to damage the socket. I had a friend who tried it (on a socket 478) and it ended up killing the mobo (it wasn't dead, it was just that the little clamps that connect to the pin got trashed). So I'd personally go for either a solder job or limited RAM.

 

[miker75]

How about breaking off a pin from a SIPP module? (if you could find one)... that should be about the right size (and pretty tough)..

Just sounds like a pain to solder it on..

 

[Amaroque]

If it's going to be a second system, I'd just run it with two DIMM's @ 333. I'd leave it, and just run it as is.

New AX2's are also very cheap now...

 

[QuixoticOne]

The ethernet or most telephone cable that you'd actually install IN the wall
should be solid 24ga. or similar wire.

Just take apart your closest wall phone jack, see if the wire is the right size,
if so, pull an inch of slack out, strip, cut a tiny bit for your pin, re-wire it in place.

You could also try a couple things:

a: dip the end of the wire in some conductive epoxy / trace repair ink and
set it onto its place and see if it sticks well enough to survive socket insertion ONCE.
You'd need a tiny blob just the right size to stick and not leak over the the next pin.

b: coat the end of the wire in a little ball of solder, wrap an extra inch around
the tip of a CLEAN soldering iron so you won't get much any solder on that end,
and let the heat of the iron keep 8mm of the wire so hot that the little dab of solder
on the end is molten then just ever so carefully place the molten dab onto the base pad
and hold the iron in place while you turn off the iron and let it cool enough to stick
then clip the excess wire length and you'll hopefully have a strong enough joint
to survive socketing once.

 

[DimZiE]

phone cable should work tried this one time and it works !! good luck

 

[wwswimming]

if you just use 2 RAM sockets - less hassle, no time invested in an attempted fix

if you fix it - might break it, a lot of time invested ... would be a Fun Challenge
which i guess is why we're talking about it.

you'll need a same size pin. e.g. another dead socket 939.

also, a fixture to hold it in place - for example a ZIF socket for socket 939,
modified to allow a soldering iron to "get in there".

if you have a friend who works for a semi-conductor company in the
die-attach/wire-bond section, their experience could come in real handy.

i would pre-heat the DUT (device under test) ... then you'll need to
know its max safe temp. 85 C would probably be a safe pre-heat.

it might help if the surfaces being joined were "tinned", pre-coated
with solder.

 

[CurseTheSky]

I keep slightly older and dead processors just for this reason. Broken pin? (Carefully) clip one off another processor and give it a shot!