Bent pins on brand new P4 - Common or not?

[John Smith]

Hi,

I built a new PC for a friend today and taking a brand new P4 2.6 800FSB
CPU out of the box it appeared fine. However, it simply did not slot into
place with the most gentlest of positioning.

Upon closer examination 6 of the pins on an outside row were slightly bend
inward with one also be slightly at a 90 degree angle to that.

Five minutes later and very gentle pushing with a small flat end screwdriver
and the pins were straight but... A few months ago I had one bent pin on a
new P4 CPU also so... how common is this?

J.

 

[John Smith]

Yep, that's another thing - the heavy heatsink is in this incredibly well
sealed plastic carton next to the CPU and it takes real brute force to get
that packing open which 'explodes' everything out if you are not careful.
The plastic itself is so hard you can't get a knife or scissors in there
easily without creating damage.

Not very well thought out packaging. The CPU should be better protected.
Glad I ain't the only one to get some bent pins though.

J.

 

[Newt]

Yep, that's another thing - the heavy heatsink is in this incredibly well
sealed plastic carton next to the CPU and it takes real brute force to get
that packing open which 'explodes' everything out if you are not careful.
The plastic itself is so hard you can't get a knife or scissors in there
easily without creating damage.

Not very well thought out packaging. The CPU should be better protected.
Glad I ain't the only one to get some bent pins though.

J.

on

TIP A credit card slides snugly between rows of pins, this helps straighten
them out, also protects other pins when u use something to bend them with.
Try it see what you think.

 

[El Phantazmo]

I think the AMD Retail packaging is the worst. I've used a bandsaw on
occasion....

 

[John Smith]

Built another one today and examining the plastic packaging closely we
noticed on each side of the chip the plastic packaging actually indents very
close to the pins in the middle of the chip for about 8 - 10 pins. Nuts!

They go to all that expense building clean factories and precision machines
to put the chip into a very poor plastic pacakge. Why they don't have a
dummy socket protecting the pins is beyond me?

J.