Did your 'brand new' OEM Athlon 64 look like this?

[letter rip]

This cpu looked a little rough (dirty) to me when I opened it. The image on the left is right from the package, handled by the edges only, exept a fingertip sized smudge underneath the '1144'. The image on the right is after a touch up with a clean lint free cloth and a drop or two of alcohol.

The before and after

Should I question this or is this what OEM is all about? Note the ding below and to the right of the '40466'.

 

[Duvie]

Mine was pretty pristine...No smudges like that. MIne was shipped ot me in the pastic binning like you would see if a place bought like 2 dozen of them. It was not wrapped or in a plastic container. I could have easily been man-handled but it appeared to not have been.

 

[GuinnessExtraStout]

If it is OEM then probably the company that you bought from bought a lot or I guess they call a tray of processors and are selling them individually with whatever packaging they put together themselves. It also could include returned processors since you would have no way of knowing if it has been returned. Except that you see some old heat sink residue there.
That could be because someone else bought it, installed it, and returned it.
They could claim that they tested the cpu before sending it out which may be true also. That also explains the heat sink compund.
Although Im not sure if it is possible with Athlon 64s I guess many unscrupulous asian dealers remark their cpus as being higher grade than they are also.
Anyways there is no doubt that that CPU was installed with some heat sink compund or tim pad or something at one time.

 

[letter rip]

Well, I probably shouldn't mention any names at this point, but they are a high volume USA reseller and I DO have 60 days to put it to the test. Maybe I'll try to push it a little and see how it does. Hopefully it wasn't a return because it's a clocking dud or something. It's possible too that it's just the packaging; taken from a bulk packaging and repackaged in the little plactic thingy Duvie mentioned but picked up a smudge in the process. (I'm really reaching now huh?) Anyways, thanks for you inputs.

 

[MrCodeDude]

Who cares how it looks? See how it performs.

 

[LostInSpace927]

Hmmm, it looks like mine did after I put the HSF on it for a test fit and took it off. It really does look like thermal paste residue to me.
When you take your HSf off just take a towel or something and wipe off the thermal paste, and see if it doesn't look the same.

 

[shabby]

Looks used to me, someone tried to clean the paste off but didnt do it properly.

 

[cirthix]

Originally posted by: shabby
Looks used to me, someone tried to clean the paste off but didnt do it properly.

i though the same thing

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: cirthix

Originally posted by: shabby
Looks used to me, someone tried to clean the paste off but didnt do it properly.

i though the same thing

same here. It could be a non-issue though. Test it out fully.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Mine came in a retail box and everything in the box was covered with parts of the green corrugated paper stuff it ships in. Looks like the green thing had exploded, but there were no blemishes to the box or anything else inside

 

[NokiaDude]

It's most likely that the assw*pes at the store used the CPU as to fix a problem in another computer or it's a return. I hates stores that do that and now I only buy retail because of sneaky bastards like that.