Artex wrote:

feipoa wrote:

Time is scarce with a 2-year old running around and an 8-5 job, but I do plan on contacting eBay as I feel I'm 100% 'in the right' on this.

I had so much more time with just one. It is hard to imagine all the free time you really have with one when you have just one. When I had one, I thought I had no time anymore. I didn't realise how much time I had until I had two, then three. Looking back to before having any kids feels like a distant dream of pure bliss.

This is amazing. I don't really know what to say 🤣!
And separate from the community thingy, it's not often a CPU like these ones are actually repaired!

And I can definitively relate to part 6! 😁

I do recognize the issue with the pins rotting. I remember a black s7 Cyrix which also had a couple pins fall off for no good reason that I could see. It may be that this CPU was also removed from a CPU socket.
It may be oxidization from being in the CPU socket for so long? It may be due to the pins having been damaged or perhaps the pressure on the sides of the pins pushing through the gold layer so that the metal starts to slowly react?

feipoa wrote:

Looking back to before having any kids feels like a distant dream of pure bliss.

^^ Love my daughter to pieces...but THIS!!

feipoa wrote:

nforce4max wrote:

I once ended up selling a dozen or so M1s because the pins rotted, scrape the gold electroplate and the iron underneath will eventually rust allowing the pins to weak and one day break. Glad that the cpu works but I strongly feel that you still deserve a refund given all the trouble this caused. Report Paypal to the BBB and good luck.

I have seen quite a few Cyrixes like this as well. I wonder if the issue was with surface prep. before they plated the gold on pins? Or do you think surface rust can eat through the layer of gold and make its way to the tin?

The impression that I got is that the electroplating was less than perfect and there was enough exposed iron through tiny holes or cracks to allow the pins to rot.

Piggybacking on a PGA socket is something I've never thought of. Very slick.

I'll have to remember that next time I have to straighten out a 386 or 486.

Ideally, you want to find a PGA which is has, both, male and female as gold. Unfortunately, my gold/gold PGA168's are all in use. gold/gold PGA132 and PGA168 have become extremely difficult to source NOS. Sometimes, photos online of the PGA's have a shine which looks like it could be gold, but it is really non-gold.

The other remote possibility is that customs opened it, pulled out the CPU and dropped it, then put it back in. I think they are supposed to leave a note saying it was opened by customs though. Not sure of the procedure in the USA.

One thing is certain is that nobody grew rust and oxidation on the pins overnight. This usually takes years to grow. When I received the CPU, nearly all the broken pins had been subject to significant rust at the base and is what likely caused them to fall off upon removal from the socket. I did find it suspicious that the eBay listing did not contain a photo of the underside of the Cyrix 5x86-133/4x.

There is one pin which clearly had solder on it. is it possible that they soldered this pin on at some point in the past?

feipoa wrote:

The other remote possibility is that customs opened it, pulled out the CPU and dropped it, then put it back in. I think they are supposed to leave a note saying it was opened by customs though. Not sure of the procedure in the USA.

This thing was completely sealed in the original materials/tape. No signs of customs tampering.

@Feipoa: Great job! Were the loose pins actually in the socket or were they missing?

@Artex Very nice to see that at least the cpu is useable again! Hope you get some money back because this was simply horrible.

If any lesson can be learned from this, I would say to request multi-sided photographs of items you are willing to pay large amounts for. I can see why one wouldn't though - if you are hoping that the seller doesn't know the rarity of an item he/she has, then asking more questions and requesting such information may tip him/her off that the item is of interest, in which case, the price may increase.

meljor wrote:

@Feipoa: Great job! Were the loose pins actually in the socket or were they missing?

I did not receive the motherboard from the auction, but Artex did mention that he thinks the pins are inside the CPU's ZIF socket. If you snap the cover off the ZIF socket, you should see them sitting in there. Could you take some high resolution (macro) photos showing this? Also, maybe take a photo or two of the end of the pins if they show corrosion. I'm inclined to believe the seller when he says that this CPU/motherboard was working together at one point and that corrosion on the ends of the pins caused them to separate. If the seller had not removed the CPU from the motherboard, he would not have known. The photos provided by Artex clearly show substantial corrosion on the broken CPU pins.

Yeah, I'm not trying to start a flame war here. I'm just (clearly) disgruntled by this whole process but I'm happy that I will now have a working processor that is much better shape than it was when I received it with the added bonus of being a little more future-proof after Feipoa's brilliant work. That being said, I would feel a lot better seeing some pictures of the pin-side of the processor to see what kind of shape they were in before I bought the lot. Shame on me for not asking for better pictures - I admittedly got caught up in the excitement of just seeing one of these in the wild up for auction, and this excitement got in the way of a logical thought process. I'm 100% certain that if it wasn't me who won this auction, the next person in line with the higher bid would have been in the same situation somewhere down the line if one would remove the processor like I did.

feipoa wrote:

meljor wrote:

@Feipoa: Great job! Were the loose pins actually in the socket or were they missing?

I did not receive the motherboard from the auction, but Artex did mention that he thinks the pins are inside the CPU's ZIF socket. If you snap the cover off the ZIF socket, you should see them sitting in there. Could you take some high resolution (macro) photos showing this? Also, maybe take a photo or two of the end of the pins if they show corrosion. I'm inclined to believe the seller when he says that this CPU/motherboard was working together at one point and that corrosion on the ends of the pins caused them to separate. If the seller had not removed the CPU from the motherboard, he would not have known. The photos provided by Artex clearly show substantial corrosion on the broken CPU pins.

I can try that - no problem.

Why on earth would I spend so much time on this? I have nothing to gain other than to learn some valuable lessons about making damn sure an item is in the state I expect it to be in, and asking more questions before I splurge on such an expensive item (note: not an issue with boxed/sealed items!! 😎 ). To be brutally honest, It's not even so much about the money here...but more the ethical side of things.

I would also be pretty upset if I removed the CPU from the socket and pins were falling off. I agree that anyone who bought this auction would remove the CPU from the motherboard.

Artex wrote:

It's not even so much about the money here...but more the ethical side of things.

On the ethical side, I do wonder if the seller had prior knowledge of pin corrosion; bent pins; broken pins; a previously soldered pin? Whether he knew just prior to shipment is one aspect, the other aspect is if he ever knew then forgot. It is also possible that who ever the seller bought the CPU from is the individual who soldered that one pin. The seller may not have even noticed. Irregardless of what he knew prior to the sale, the result is the same: the CPU was in a condition of broken, corroded, and bent pins and if this the condition for which Artex received the CPU, I would have bid substantially less, and the final outcome should reflect this to some capacity. Its like a store selling a television with dents on the enclosure; they likely do not know it is dented when sold, but when you bring it back to the store, they either discount the item or take it back.

I'm starting to feel like Newman in that Seinfeld episode about Kramer and the kids bicycle. So on a warmer note, I ran across some youtube videos of someone running 3D games on their Cyrix 5x86-133. Anyone from here? How did I miss these?
Quake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R8ZC3Ii8so
Forsaken https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDFbu-dtfxo
Tomb Raider 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW2PJkMR9Eg
Frogger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3bV7CBuNvQ
Grand Theft Auto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQMpZ1M5vBc
Virtua Squad 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQqjODd3Q2U

His system may not be entirely optimised because he only gets 21.7 fps in GLQuake using a Voodoo2. I get almost 25 fps. Perhaps he doesn't have LSSER or FP_Fast set properly. Nonetheless, I thought Forsaken ran surprisingly well.

Artex, did you contact eBay over the phone?

Dreamer_of_the_past wrote:

Artex, did you contact eBay over the phone?

I did and they referred me to PayPal. Going to try again for sure.

Artex wrote:

Dreamer_of_the_past wrote:

Artex, did you contact eBay over the phone?

I did and they referred me to PayPal. Going to try again for sure.

Make sure to talk to a superior and not to a regular eBay telephone operator. Also, report eBay to the BBB as well. They will take care of it. I had an issue with Macy's once. The BBB solved it right away.

If the CPU pins were straight, the CPU should just pull out of the socket with one's fingers. From my experience, CPUs which have sufficiently bent pins may require some prying to to remove, even from a ZIF.

From my understanding, the pin Artex attempted to solder back on was the pin which originally contained solder on it.

feipoa wrote:

From my understanding, the pin Artex attempted to solder back on was the pin which originally contained solder on it.

No soldering was attempted at all. The soldered pin fell off in my hand and when I started removing pins from the donor 486 in advance (thinking I could do the work), that's when I contacted you as I realized the project would be completely over my head.

Artex, you may want to file a police report as well. I know it's a bit pain in the ass, but it worth it because in the end after when its all over you will get your money back.