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P4 pin bent badly, still works

L

linden arden

Member
I recieved a P4 3.0 in a recent trade. It came to me attached to a motherboard in a bundle. I fired the thing up fine and I have been running with no problems for a month or two. Today I was upgrading the stock HSF with a Zalman. I took the HSF off and took the chip out so I could clean off the top. Lo and behold, one of the pins on the side is basically bent all the way down at a 90 degree angle to the rest of the pins. So basically, the chip lies flat in the socket and still clamps down without any trouble because the bent pin is mashed right up against the chip. I examined the chip with disbelief.

I threw it back in the board and fired it back up. Again, no problems.

Is that even possible? do chips run when one of the pins is bent so badly?

Someone help a novice computer guy out here. What in the world is going on? Should I try to fix it? I'm just a little surprised the thing still runs.
 
Ive heard the same thing happen to someone on here....
why didnt you bend it back?

If it still works, then thats cool 😎
 
The thing is bent all the way over, basically. Plus there is a little twist in it, so I dont think it will ever be straight. I just dont think I could bend it back without breaking it.

Is there any chance I am losing performance because of the bent pin?
 
where's the pin approximately? as long as you don't short, then you still might be in luck. most pins are power/ground pins. if the bent pin is a power/ground pin, it'd still work.

if it's a pin that carries actual data, then the electricals would be altered and your FSB would be slower, probably.

if it's a fuse pin or some other non-FSB pin, then you're still ok because it doesn't toggle fast enough to really matter, afaik.

just make sure you don't short! 😀
 
The pin is on the outside edge.

If you are looking at the pins with the 'notch' (corner where there is no pin - not sure what the technical name is) in the top right corner, and you are counting from the bottom left corner, it is the 16th pin on the outer left edge

Follow all that?
 
About 75% of the pins are used for providing power and if one of them (or even a dozen of them) were bent, you wouldn't even notice. If, however, you totally mash up one of the data or address pins, you won't even get into the BIOS.

If you are curious, download:
<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="ftp://download.intel.com/design/Pentium4/datashts/30235103.pdf">ftp://download.intel.com/design/Pentium4/datashts/30235103.pdf</a>

and look at pages 41 and 42. Anything labelled "VCC", "VTT" or "VSS" is a power pin. As you can see... that's most of them.
 
A while back I bought a boxed 200mhz intel from some internet store. I opened it up and discovered that one of the outside pins was bent in. After I freaked a little bit, I got on the phone with them and was told to take some needle nose pliers and bend it back. "It happens all the time, from the factory"

heh, I have never heard of this happening to anyone else until just now when I read this post.
After watching those Intel commercials with everyone in the bio suits, it doesn't make sense that something like that could slip passed QA

 
I've heard of someone recieveing a p4 3 giger with a busted pin from a buddy who thought it was dead. The guy soldered a new pin in place of the busted and is a happy camper with a free chip! If the flattened pin broke off, would that chip be ok?
 
I've busted pins off on purpose to make my 533 P4B tell the mobo it was a P4-C and default to 800 FSB. It all depends on what the pin is sending, power, data, ground, etc as mentioned above.
 
so, its seems to me that if i try to fix this pin and it snaps, it should still run fine. the bent pin obviously isnt hitting the socket, so whether its bent or broken off entirely shouldnt matter.
 
Originally posted by: linden arden
so, its seems to me that if i try to fix this pin and it snaps, it should still run fine. the bent pin obviously isnt hitting the socket, so whether its bent or broken off entirely shouldnt matter.
Click to expand...


Probably not, but by the same token why bother trying to fix it if you know it's not broken?

This is a conundrum.
 
Ok, wanted to update this. I decided to try my hand at fixing the pin. I read about the mechanical pencil method and decided to try it. My biggest problem was actually getting the pencil tip to slide over the pin. The pin was so mashed down against the chip that there wasnt enough clearance under the pen to get the tip on. After a great deal of gentle proding and poking, i got the pin into the pencil tip. i applied a little pressure and i was surprised how rigid the pin felt. i gradually inched the pin more and more upright with no problems. in a matter of a few minutes i had the thing vertical again, and it was difficult to spot it. step #1 was a success!

so the moment of truth was firing it up. obviously, if the chip was working before i was taking a real risk of doing damage myself. i put the pin in the socket and it dropped without any trouble. i threw in a graphics card, set a HSF on the chip and prepared to fire it up.

hit the power - fans start whirring, keyboard lights up, im feeling good at this point. i wait for the monitor to click in and.... nothing. my heart drops. what the $%^ was i thinking? i just manged to destroy a perfectly good P4 chip. i shut it off. unplugged and replugged the power connectors. hit the power - fans start whirring, keyboard lights up, im feeling good at this point. i wait for the monitor to click in and.... nothing. my heart drops again.

steaming mad, i walk away for a second, shout a few curse words, and drink a glass of water. i go back to the computer. i check all the wires. i check out the graphics card. i put a little pressure on it and im surprised to hear the card settle firmly into AGP slot. with a little hope still left i decide to fire it again.

hit the power - fans start whirring, keyboard lights up, im feeling good at this point. the monitor clicks in, the sweet blue bios screen appears, and angels sing!

so, i managed to turn a working P4 chip with a bent pin into a working P4 chip without a bent pin... probably wasnt worth the stress, but im happy to have a normal chip again.
 
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