▷ How to straighten the pins of a processor or motherboard

If you have had the bad luck to buy a processor and when installing it you have bent the pins of the socket of the motherboard, do not despair, today we are going to see what procedure we can carry out to straighten the pins of a processor or motherboard. We will only have to follow some tips and have a little skill and ability to get it.

Index of contents

Buying a brand new processor and a new motherboard and bundling it up when trying to install the CPU on it is one of the worst things that can happen to us. If in addition to this, we have had the bad luck that the pins have made contact with each other or have interlaced, we will have to equip ourselves with the maximum possible ability to solve the mess. Don't worry, we will have a good chance of easily recovering our hardware and installing it again.

Precautions to take into account before handling the contacts

There was no doubt that this type of problem was infinitely easier to solve before, since the old sockets were of the PGA type and the pins were installed in the CPU with a completely straight orientation.

On the other hand, currently with the very high number of connections that processors have, it has been necessary to adopt another type of connection technology. This is via LGA socket or grid contact array, which are located directly in the socket of the motherboard and in the form of pins bent to the side in the form of a spring to descend when pressing the CPU against it.

In any case, the first thing we will have to do before handling any of the two elements is to completely disconnect the motherboard from the power supply and separate the CPU from its socket.

All this must be done ensuring that we do not have static electricity in our hands, for this it is recommended that we put on latex gloves or something similar and not touch the contexts of the CPU with our fingers

Equipment we will need

We must look for objects that are capable of manipulating the pins with precision and very small:

• With a magnifying glass, if our sight at a short distance is bad A credit card or a DNI in the case of PGA type processors A needle or tweezers for the case of LGA sockets Mobile phone in case we need to do photos and zoom to see the pins better.

Warnings

It is important that you keep a number of things in mind before handling the pins

• When you buy the CPU or motherboard, take a good look at how the pins are. It may come pre-folded from the factory. In which case we must return the product and speak to the store. When you install the processor, at no time press the fingers with it. Use the socket fixing mechanism.Before removing the CPU, remove the thermal paste that it has, and put it new to put it on. Do not eat it, even if it looks appetizing, which is toxic, do not bend the pins for one side and the other, especially if they are those with LGA sockets, they are extremely thin and covered in gold, so they could break very easily.

Straighten pins on a PGA-type processor

We will start with the easiest case. The processors that incorporate the pins directly into the package, as a rule have these oriented upwards and are completely straight, so it will be easier to manipulate them. We currently see this format on AMD Ryzen processors.

The first thing we must do is place the processor in front of us in such a way that we see perfectly the aligned pins in each of its rows. In this way we can know what the crooked pin is, and what row it is in. Let's say this is the row distribution.

We repeat the procedure by rotating the processor 90 degrees to see now what we would call the columns. We must identify which pin goes out of its natural line.

In this way we can identify well which pin is the one that we must touch. For this we are going to use a hard, flat and straight element, for example, a DNI or something similar. We only have to take into account that it is not metallic so as not to put some pins in contact with each other.

We place the card in the row where the pin is bent and press it towards the direction where we want to place it. Be very careful with applying too much force. Once this is done in the rows, we will also have to do it in the columns, we will repeat the process until we get to see our processor with all the pins perfectly aligned.

Now we test to see if it enters the socket of the motherboard WITHOUT PRESSING IT. If it doesn't fit, we keep adjusting the pin position until we can effortlessly fit the pieces together.

Straighten pins on motherboard in LGA type socket

LGA sockets are much more delicate and difficult to manipulate. These have much higher density of pins in the area and it is more difficult to identify those that are in poor condition. This is why if we do not have a good close-up view we should use a magnifying glass or something similar.

We must bear in mind that these pins not only move sideways like the previous ones, but also have down and up movement.

We will proceed as in the previous case, we will place the plinth in front of us on the two axes of space to see which one is outside its natural row and column.

But it is that in addition we will have to pay attention if these are at the same height with respect to the good ones. For this we must be parallel to the zenith view of the base and thus identify which they are.

Now, making a show of precision we must take the defective pin with a needle and move it to the corresponding place. It can be right, left, up or down.

We recommend using a needle to move it, since they are so fine that by pressing with tweezers we could break them and then the tutorial was finished.

Every time we make a small movement we must align ourselves in the three positions to see if the position has improved. We repeat the process until we see the pins all aligned in rows, columns, up and down. The image must be perfectly uniform, with absolutely nothing leaving its place.

This is the most effective procedure for getting the pins fixed. You can use the tools that we have commented or other similar ones. With which you are most comfortable.

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We hope you can fix your CPU or motherboard in the best possible way. You've got it? We want to see photos of the barbarities that you have found.