Legit Reviews

I bought a parts computer for $15 that still had the DVD drives, media reader, psu, mobo and cpu in it (HP/OEM ASUS PTGD-LA w/ P4 630 cpu) but when I examined the mobo more closely something was shining funny on the socket. Being an AMD fan, this is the first time I had seen an LGA775 socket up close. Being too small to tell with my naked eye, I pulled out my trusty Canon SD1100IS on macro mode and was able to capture this image which shows a bent pin.



I can't understand how just that one pin was bent back upon itself but none of the others are, lol. Is this something that HP would have done to limit some feature that the mobo should normally be able to do, or is just a weird coincidence? And if it was random damage would it be something that would have ruined the mobo, or would I be able to fix if I somehow were able to use a sewing needle and a magnifying glass to bend it back in conformity with its brethren? Or should I just trash the mobo and put another in its place? Thanks for any insights you can give!

looks like random damage to me... I've seen hundred of LGA775 motherboards and all the pins are consistent.

I know they have pin diagrams online, maybe it's just an unused pin (crosses fingers).

definitely not how it ships lol

i'd try bending it back with a mechanical pencil or a knife blade maybe

OK thanks. The hard part is seeing the darn thing, my eyes just don't focus on things that small and at close distance. Pins on older cpus were much easier to deal with.

Kaos Kid wrote:OK thanks. The hard part is seeing the darn thing, my eyes just don't focus on things that small and at close distance. Pins on older cpus were much easier to deal with.

magnifying glass and a flashlight do wonders

skier wrote:

Kaos Kid wrote:OK thanks. The hard part is seeing the darn thing, my eyes just don't focus on things that small and at close distance. Pins on older cpus were much easier to deal with.

magnifying glass and a flashlight do wonders

Yep, they did, along with a sewing needle and about 15 minutes of fumbling I got the pin bent back and I got it to boot into bios! Turns out the goof that owned this also screwed up the heatsink at two of the plastic connector shafts, but a little superglue got it usable again (fingers crossed). I'm thinking that between the bent pin and the broken hs/f that is why he sold the box so cheap, so it may be renewable as a whole computer again instead of just a parts box. Not bad for $15, eh? The only downside is the mobo has no PCI-E16 slot, so its limited to 128MB onboard graphics or a PCI card. Oh well, it would make a great surfer and word processor I guess...

I will try to sell the mobo/cpu/hsf as a combo on CL, maybe I'll get lucky...