TR Forums

I just finished building a 3770K + Sabertooth Z77 build. I bought the CPU + motherboard from Microcenter. I got everything home, built it all inside the case, then I removed the CPU protective cap very carefully (I've built LGA systems before!). Underneath was a mess of bent pins in the three out of four extreme corners. I know it wasn't me because I was extremely careful, and the amount of bent up pins was pretty extreme. A bit frustrating, as I had to take the motherboard back out of the case (and unplug power, SATA, RAM, etc.) and drive back across town and do an exchange at Microcenter. I inspected the new board while still in the store to make sure the new socket was in good shape (it was). Microcenter handled the exchange without any issue, which is why I like to buy stuff from them when I can.

So, a couple of hours later, things are just dandy. 3770K, Sabertooth Z77, GTX 670, 16 GB RAM, Corsair H100, Seasonic X750 Gold, Samsung 830, all living in a Corsair 650D. It's... pretty damn fast. Overclocked to 4.5 GHz without any problems, seems to be running a bit cooler than I'd expected.

I've never bothered bench building a machine, I've always just build it in the case and it's always worked the first time (until this). Maybe next time I'll bench build it first.

Anyone else ever seen a trashed LGA socket from the factory before? I still have faith in Asus, stuff like this happens.

Sucks about the bent pins from the factory, I seem to recall hearing others with such a thing but seems very rare. On the other hand it seems builders do seem to bend the pins surprisingly often, I've built a number of systems with LGA sockets and haven't encounter this issue (either from factory or a building mishap) though I did crack an Athlon XP core some time ago, no one has a flawless record.

It seems you learned your lesson but I would certainly recommend at the very least placing the CPU and attaching the heatsink. In your case with the H100, even though a sealed setup, I'd want to do some leak testing before placing in the case. I also plug in the RAM before placing inside the case.

Yeah, I thought I'd been the model of pin care, until I looked really closely at my now-retired EX58-UD5 last night. Had one bent pin in the one corner, rolled up. No idea how that happened.

Personally, from my experience, it's more likely someone bought it, bent pins, took it back to Microcenter, and returned it. Those guys are REALLY bad about checking returns, and they seem to have no compunctions about resealing returns and putting them back on the shelves.

The pins are so fragile.
Given how many PC's I build, it was only a matter of time:
Fortunately a careful ten minutes with a needle got the pins straight enough for the machine to boot again.