# Is it possible that my CPU still works even though my socket has a couple of bent pins?



## Noirgheos (Mar 26, 2016)

I have a 4790K and an ASUS Maximus VII Hero.

When installing my CPU a few months ago it seemed like there were a few bent pins on my socket. At first I freaked out, but I installed it and everything booted just fine. I decided to make a topic about it now because... stress is high again.

I have made it through Aida64 and Intel XTU Stress Test just fine...


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## Frick (Mar 26, 2016)

If it works it works. I assume you straightened them out?


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## Noirgheos (Mar 26, 2016)

Frick said:


> If it works it works. I assume you straightened them out?


Nope... I just pulled a small panic and installed it. So if any were bent then it just wouldn't POST?


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## Frick (Mar 26, 2016)

How bent were they? Just a bit so the CPU itself would have straightened them out or were they bent lile all the way?


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## Noirgheos (Mar 26, 2016)

Frick said:


> How bent were they? Just a bit so the CPU itself would have straightened them out or were they bent lile all the way?


Oh definitely not all the way. They just looked odd compared to the rest of the pins.


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## uuuaaaaaa (Mar 26, 2016)

You may be lucky and bent some of the ground pins or something, check the socket's pin layout:
http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...h-gen-core-family-desktop-vol-1-datasheet.pdf


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## Noirgheos (Mar 26, 2016)

uuuaaaaaa said:


> You may be lucky and bent some of the ground pins or something, check the socket's pin layout:
> http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...h-gen-core-family-desktop-vol-1-datasheet.pdf


What exactly do they do? Also, the pins were on the lower-mid end left of the socket.


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## uuuaaaaaa (Mar 26, 2016)

Noirgheos said:


> What exactly do they do? Also, the pins were on the lower-mid end left of the socket.



The ground pins are just ground pins, they are part of the electrical circuit that feeds de cpu. It is possible for the cpu to run perfectly fine without some of the VCC (Processor core power supply) and VSS (Processor ground) pins. There may be some other useless pins (I carefully studied socket 478 in the past). I cannot tell you what pins did you bent. Check the datasheet that I linked page 112 and after has the pin layout, nevertheless in that manual you have everything you need to know about the socket and its pins. Heck I have changed the FSB, even the default VID by shorting pins with hair thin copper wires and ducktape on socket 478, just by reading the manual!


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## Noirgheos (Mar 26, 2016)

uuuaaaaaa said:


> The ground pins are just ground pins, they are part of the electrical circuit that feeds de cpu. It is possible for the cpu to run perfectly fine without some of the VCC (Processor core power supply) and VSS (Processor ground) pins. There may be some other useless pins (I carefully studied socket 478 in the past). I cannot tell you what pins did you bent. Check the datasheet that I linked page 112 and after has the pin layout, nevertheless in that manual you have everything you need to know about the socket and its pins. Heck I have changed the FSB, even the default VID by shorting pins with hair thin copper wires and ducktape on socket 478, just by reading the manual!


http://imgur.com/tW1yPAk

They were around there. Just two by the looks of things. If these were ground pins and such, would them not working cause stuff like stuttering in games?


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## Frick (Mar 26, 2016)

Noirgheos said:


> Oh definitely not all the way. They just looked odd compared to the rest of the pins.



Then they might very well have been straightened out by the CPU itself. And no, missing ground pins don't cause stuttering. If it works fine, don't worry about it.


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## uuuaaaaaa (Mar 26, 2016)

Noirgheos said:


> http://imgur.com/tW1yPAk
> 
> They were around there. Just two by the looks of things. If these were ground pins and such, would them not working cause stuff like stuttering in games?



Check the table and see what kind of pins are those (I am not gonna do that for you!! ). I am assuming that you are aware that the pic where you highlighted the pins is from the cpu side (which would be lower mid left as you previously said!). Some missing ground pins won't cause any trouble as far as I know!


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## Noirgheos (Mar 26, 2016)

Frick said:


> Then they might very well have been straightened out by the CPU itself. And no, missing ground pins don't cause stuttering. If it works fine, don't worry about it.


Ok, thanks. Also, would you guys think it to be ok to move a motherboard to a new case with the cooler still on? I have an NH-U12S.


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## Noirgheos (Mar 26, 2016)

uuuaaaaaa said:


> Check the table and see what kind of pins are those (I am not gonna do that for you!! ). I am assuming that you are aware that the pic where you highlighted the pins is from the cpu side (which would be lower mid left as you previously said!). Some missing ground pins won't cause any trouble as far as I know!


All they are is just a bunch of letters and numbers. I'm going to CEGEP (Quebec equivalent of college) to study microprocessors, so I'll learn soon.

And @Frick just quelled my worries.


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## jboydgolfer (Mar 26, 2016)

As long as they contact the corresponding pads on the cpu, you should be fine. But  unless you intend to fix it, i personally wouldnt unseat that cpu for anything 

I cant jmagine it would hurt the cpu either, if you DO decide to fix it, ive heard here on tpu, that a mechanical pencil tip's hole is the perfect size for doing so..many manufacturers dont honor rmas for physical damage. But if its working, your  matter seems rsdolved.


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## Noirgheos (Mar 26, 2016)

jboydgolfer said:


> As long as they contact the corresponding pads on the cpu, you should be fine. But  unless you intend to fix it, i personally wouldnt unseat that cpu for anything
> 
> I cant jmagine it would hurt the cpu either, if you DO decide to fix it, ive heard here on tpu, that a mechanical pencil tip's hole is the perfect size for doing so..many manufacturers dont honor rmas for physical damage. But if its working, your  matter seems rsdolved.


Yeah I'm waiting to see if Zen is any good. 8 cores with Haswell performance for each sounds good. If it doesn't live up to my 4790K (at least match it), I'll stick with it for a while. And until then, this 4790K isn't coming out of it's socket. Now to decide whether to use 8.1 or 10... My experience with 10 has not been good so far.


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## jboydgolfer (Mar 26, 2016)

i hate 10 myself. but i also dislike 8 as well. confirmed 7 until it becomes ridiculous.


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## Noirgheos (Mar 26, 2016)

jboydgolfer said:


> i hate 10 myself. but i also dislike 8 as well. confirmed 7 until it becomes ridiculous.


8.1 was great for me. I just hope the games I want to play don't use DX12 for a while... fucking microsoft.


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## Frick (Mar 26, 2016)

Noirgheos said:


> Ok, thanks. Also, would you guys think it to be ok to move a motherboard to a new case with the cooler still on? I have an NH-U12S.



Totally.


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## qubit (Mar 26, 2016)

jboydgolfer said:


> As long as they contact the corresponding pads on the cpu, you should be fine. But  unless you intend to fix it, i personally wouldnt unseat that cpu for anything


I'll second that. Sounds like you got real lucky when installing that CPU so removing it now might just cause your luck to run out and kill it the next time you install it.

Note that while the CPU is likely to work with some of the ground or VCC pins not making proper contact they are there for a reason and that reason is load balancing. They share the current load so that the pins and parts of the CPU don't get overloaded and cause damage, but if the number of these pins making contact drops off, then the current in the remaining pins increases. If it goes too far then damage occurs when the heat gets too high. It's probably best if you don't overclock it because of the bent pins. You might be lucky and all of the pins are actually making good contact, but there's no way to tell, so overclocking it would be a risk I don't think is worth taking.

Of course, running something like Prime95 will also cause the CPU to draw much more current and potentially burn out if the pins are bent, but hey, you've gotta use it and the chance of this happening is minimal.


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## Noirgheos (Mar 26, 2016)

qubit said:


> I'll second that. Sounds like you got real lucky when installing that CPU so removing it now might just cause your luck to run out and kill it the next time you install it.
> 
> Note that while the CPU is likely to work with some of the ground or VCC pins not making proper contact they are there for a reason and that reason is load balancing. They share the current load so that the pins and parts of the CPU don't get overloaded and cause damage, but if the number of these pins making contact drops off, then the current in the remaining pins increases. If it goes too far then damage occurs when the heat gets too high. It's probably best if you don't overclock it because of the bent pins. You might be lucky and all of the pins are actually making good contact, but there's no way to tell, so overclocking it would be a risk I don't think is worth taking.
> 
> Of course, running something like Prime95 will also cause the CPU to draw much more current and potentially burn out if the pins are bent, but hey, you've gotta use it and the chance of this happening is minimal.


I have it on turbo to 4.4GHz, the default. It hits this turbo just fine, albeit it does get a little hot. 74C in Witcher 3 maximum. Might also just be my shitty airflow in my H440. Just ordered an S340 to help with that.

In the Firestrike physics test it got up to 76C max. In Aida64 it got to 85C max but was usually below 80C. On the Intel XTU it got to 84C max but was usually in the mid to high 70s.

This load power thing wouldn't cause any stutter in games right? I know others said no... but I'll ask you.

Voltage under load goes to 1.3V maximum.


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## qubit (Mar 26, 2016)

As you've overclocked it already and it's working, I don't think those pins are a problem. Likely they all got straightened out when you fitted it. To be honest, a pin bent right over would likely cause a short circuit which would stop it booting, but not always.

Your increasing temps aren't likely to be due to the pins. If anything, it would be a possibly degraded contact with the CPU cooler eg thermal compound not so good any more, cooler coming a bit loose or just dust. Also, don't forget that the ambient temperature of the room will have a big influence on the CPU temperature, since a cooler will cool _by_ a certain temperature, not _to_ a certain temperature. Therefore, if your room becomes hotter by 5C for example, then so will the CPU. An active fan with thermal feedback control would cause the fan to spin up to compensate, depending on the target temperature.

The stutter in games would not be caused by this and it's very common unless the system has enough horsepower to run the game and is set up properly eg vsync (critical) drivers, updates etc. The rule for smooth animation is 1 new frame per monitor refresh, otherwise stutter and/or tearing always result, even if the effects are subtle. Adaptive sync is one way of dealing with this problem and currently commands a price premium since it's fairly new.


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## Noirgheos (Mar 26, 2016)

qubit said:


> As you've overclocked it already and it's working, I don't think those pins are a problem. Likely they all got straightened out when you fitted it. To be honest, a pin bent right over would likely cause a short circuit which would stop it booting, but not always.
> 
> Your increasing temps aren't likely to be due to the pins. If anything, it would be a possibly degraded contact with the CPU cooler eg thermal compound not so good any more, cooler coming a bit loose or just dust. Also, don't forget that the ambient temperature of the room will have a big influence on the CPU temperature, since a cooler will cool _by_ a certain temperature, not _to_ a certain temperature. Therefore, if your room becomes hotter by 5C for example, then so will the CPU. An active fan with thermal feedback control would cause the fan to spin up to compensate, depending on the target temperature.
> 
> The stutter in games would not be caused by this and it's very common unless the system has enough horsepower to run the game and is set up properly eg vsync (critical) drivers, updates etc. The rule for smooth animation is 1 new frame per monitor refresh, otherwise stutter and/or tearing always result, even if the effects are subtle. Adaptive sync is one way of dealing with this problem and currently commands a price premium since it's fairly new.


I do have a Freesync monitor that I just got. Loving it with my 390X. Alright, thanks.

Now to play some games...


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## qubit (Mar 26, 2016)

Enjoy.


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## jaggerwild (Mar 26, 2016)

I just got a Asus X79 Deluxe(cheap with bent pins) cause I missed my 6/12 core, took an hour to fix a couple pins(got the board for 65 on flee bay). Boom done up and running.@4700 still need to tweak it a bit but I must say I missed this set up
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/11394869

 Unless you notice less memory showing in CPU-Z then I'd say you lucked out my man/woman


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