VOGONS


First post, by elderago

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I love old hardware but my biggest frustration is how easy it is to bend those pins I have bent pins on 3 Pentium processors ! luckily they are cheap but it is frustrating because now I don't have a working teardown computer for my A+ hardware class.

I finally got frustrated and bought a lot of ten cpus.

p.s I would unbend them but I don't have the materials needed to do so

Reply 1 of 13, by ODwilly

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Credit card and tweezers work wonders, but 478 sucks because of how tiny and close together the pins are.

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Reply 2 of 13, by Thermalwrong

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I tried unbending the pins on a 1.5GHz Willamette CPU the other day - sadly one of them was bent so far over, that when I tried to bend it back, the pin just fell off. Oh well, it's decorative now 😀

Reply 3 of 13, by elderago

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Thermalwrong wrote:

I tried unbending the pins on a 1.5GHz Willamette CPU the other day - sadly one of them was bent so far over, that when I tried to bend it back, the pin just fell off. Oh well, it's decorative now 😀

ODwilly wrote:

Credit card and tweezers work wonders, but 478 sucks because of how tiny and close together the pins are.

Ive never unbent a cpu should I practice on pentium incase I have have to do it with something like ryzen ?\

at this point Im wondering if I should have just gone with socked 775, less problems with bent pins

edit tried unbending with a credit card no dice cpu wont even sit in the socket properly

Reply 4 of 13, by cyclone3d

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Bent pins generally just take a while to get straitened properly.

I have fixed CPUs that have had around 100 very bent pins. Worst was a brand new Dell with a Xeon where the heatsink had pulled the CPU out in shipping. I spent a good hour plus straightening all those pins.

The main trick is to get them somewhat straight and then use a credit card and sit it in between two rows of pins and then straighten them out the other way.

When I have a lot that are bent like that, I use a small needle nose pliers that doesn't have grippy notches to help get them straitened. Also use a small flathead screwdriver. A mechanical pencil also works pretty well.

It just takes patience. If the CPU will not easily go into the socket, then you don't have the pins straightened out enough. sometimes if it is really close you can gently wiggle it to get it to go into the socket.

What you NEVER want to do is force it is you will end up bending or kinking some pins even worse than they were before.

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Reply 5 of 13, by elderago

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cyclone3d wrote:
Bent pins generally just take a while to get straitened properly. […]
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Bent pins generally just take a while to get straitened properly.

I have fixed CPUs that have had around 100 very bent pins. Worst was a brand new Dell with a Xeon where the heatsink had pulled the CPU out in shipping. I spent a good hour plus straightening all those pins.

The main trick is to get them somewhat straight and then use a credit card and sit it in between two rows of pins and then straighten them out the other way.

When I have a lot that are bent like that, I use a small needle nose pliers that doesn't have grippy notches to help get them straitened. Also use a small flathead screwdriver. A mechanical pencil also works pretty well.

It just takes patience. If the CPU will not easily go into the socket, then you don't have the pins straightened out enough. sometimes if it is really close you can gently wiggle it to get it to go into the socket.

What you NEVER want to do is force it is you will end up bending or kinking some pins even worse than they were before.

thanks for the advice I was getting really frustrated, I've thrown away two cpus because they were bent Ill see if I can find the 2.8 I threw in the garbage it only had like 2 or 3 bent pins

I do want that lot of cpus though incase I break these

edit nevermind too much broken glass and coffee grounds not worth slicing my hand for something I spent 4 dollers on

Reply 7 of 13, by nforce4max

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Most of the time I don't need any tools at all except on rare occasions where there are dozens or more bent pins then I get a credit card to work the rows after bending them back by finger one at a time until ready to go into a socket for the last bit of alignment. Still kinda amazes me how people can have so much trouble especially when it is only a few pins but understandable when it is dozens to hundreds.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 8 of 13, by elderago

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nforce4max wrote:

Most of the time I don't need any tools at all except on rare occasions where there are dozens or more bent pins then I get a credit card to work the rows after bending them back by finger one at a time until ready to go into a socket for the last bit of alignment. Still kinda amazes me how people can have so much trouble especially when it is only a few pins but understandable when it is dozens to hundreds.

as someone posted earlier the big problem is that the pins are tiny and so close together

Reply 9 of 13, by dr_st

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I haven't worked with a lot of Socket 478 CPUs, but when I did, I did not find the bent pin problem being so terrible. Usually only 1 or 2 pins would bend, if CPU is removed from socket without sufficient care, and they would only bend a little, so straightening them out was not such a big deal...

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Reply 11 of 13, by bestemor

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cyclone3d wrote:

A mechanical pencil also works pretty well.

THIS.
An empty 0.5mm mech.pencil* lowered gently onto the pin, as far down as possible without having to bend, then slowly bending it. Preferrably trying to get the pencil to cover the whole pin before starting bending, or bend as much as possible of the pin to a slightly better angle first, then lower pencil more, bend again, etc etc...

*: 0.5mm seems to be right size for pentium1 to pentium4-ish, I think... and it should have a long thin end piece, like the one on the left in the first picture, perhaps even longer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_pencil

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Of course, if the pin is heavily bent(45deg or more), chances are very high it will break, so...

severly bent pins.jpg
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Testing and re-testing with the socket as I go - gently letting gravity do the work, no pushing(!), to see if that fixed area now will fit nicely before moving on to a different part.
Only tried it on cpus with a minor part of the pins bent, and at a non-severe angle. Would be quite time consuming with 100 bent pins I assume.

If you hold the cpu at a flat horisontal angle, close to your eyes, with a proper lightsource nearby, it makes it much easier to spot the ones that are slightly out of 'order'. Looking horisontally at long rows of pins, you can usually see where the culprits are, and then have the pencil in the other hand to lower onto it, and bend while still looking at the row... Makes it easier to control how much bending is needed. Although aiming to hit the correct pin can be a challenge for your depth perception when so close to the eye. Takes a few hit-and-misses...

Or something like that 🤣

Reply 12 of 13, by ODwilly

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May I also add that some great ways to minimize pin bending for 478 is to gently twist the HSF before removal to break the bond between the cpu and HSF? The 478 retention mechanism is super weak and they usually come out with the heatsink. Same issue with AM2.

Having foam padding and or chip holders to store processors helps as well.

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Reply 13 of 13, by elderago

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ODwilly wrote:

May I also add that some great ways to minimize pin bending for 478 is to gently twist the HSF before removal to break the bond between the cpu and HSF? The 478 retention mechanism is super weak and they usually come out with the heatsink. Same issue with AM2.

Having foam padding and or chip holders to store processors helps as well.

thanks for the advice every time Ive removed a heatsinks I ended up taking the cpu as well.

I hope ryzen doesnt have these issues as I am going for that for my modern pc.

I'll get some mechnical pencils this week and see if I can unbend those pins if not no biggie I am get a lot of 2.8 ghz pentium 4 from ebay