Broken CPU Socket Contact Pins - Warranty

[rsteenblik]

I posted this in CPUs, but then realized that this is probably a more appropriate forum.

I bought an ASRock Z68 motherboard a couple of weeks ago, but the A2 and B2 dimm slots never functioned. I returned the motherboard to Newegg, but they denied my return indicating that one CPU socket contact pin is broken and another is bent. This is surprising to me because I was very careful, but I guess I should have inspected the motherboard for damage more closely upon opening it and before returning it. Newegg recommended contacting ASRock and trying to having it covered under manufacturer warranty, but this seems like a longshot. Do you have any suggestions for me?

Thanks,
Rob

 

[remygeldof]

Hello Rob,

I too bought an Asrock board a number of weeks back (asrock z68 extreme 4 gen 3) and to my horror when lifting the protection cap discovered a massively bent out of shape pin with some others in another location slightly bent. Through no fault of my own!

I spent a long time putting together this build and the final piece of the puzzle was the cpu, this was when I noticed the bent motherboard pins. My first reaction was to send it back but all the hassle of taking it apart and waiting for a return was heartbreaking, so I decided to look up the problem on the internet (as you do) And it seems that there is a lot of people experiencing this and there may be even more people having this problem but are not yet aware of it or are attributing problems with their machines to something else. I was reading a massive thread over at anandtech about how Foxconn and the 1156 socket was having pin problems and I can't but help but think that Asrock are having the same problems and sending out poorly quality controlled boards with 1155 socket, because when you go to look it up specifically things turn up.

So the information I gleaned about pins making contact or not is that some can get away with not making contact while other can't. However there could be long term side effects of unnoticed bent pins which will ultimately harm the longevity of your board or can cause serious burnouts if you try to OC. It's not good this situation. There's doesn't seem to be a way to test if contacts are being made or not, except if you pull the cpu after installation and check with a magnifying glass to see if the all the pads have any signs of wear/contact. This is a really bad situation to be in.

So anyways, I chose to get a needle and a torch in the end and carefully bend them back as best I could. So far it has worked and have not seen anything unusual but I haven't stressed the system yet and I still have to pull the cpu to see what the overall contact with pins is like. Not good! Very disappointed with Asrock, even a physical manual check would have picked this up early on, it seems there is a high degree that people won't know there's a problem till it's too late so maybe that's why they're letting them out the door...

I really think this issue needs to be raised in peoples conciseness it's boarder line scandalous!

Cheers,

 

[rsteenblik]

My story has a happy ending. I sent the damaged motherboard to ASRock and they sent a replacement board to me at no charge. The replacement board has worked now for several months without any problems. It was dissatisfying to be without the computer while I waited for returns to go through, not to mention the time that I spent communicating with Newegg and ASRock, but ultimately I have a great computer.

Good luck with your socket. I hope your repair job did the trick.

 

[xChris]

It seems is a common practice of Assrock to BEND the pins so to avoid repair/replace motherboards that developed faults under warranty.

After 1.5 years from the date of purchase, the USB ports of my H67itx stopped to work.

I returned it back to the retailer, as there is NO other way to send the faulty board back to Asrock.

After a couple of weeks, the retailer informed me that Asrock refused to replace/repair because of "CPU socket damage". Well here is the pic that I got from the board that I just received:

Just to mention that I am an IT pro, with 28+ years of experience, I am 10000% sure that its not a fault caused by me, my biggest mistake is that I did not took a pic of the cpu slot before to send it for repair, I was not aware about their "practice".

 

[darkspartenwarrior]

I wouldn't reccomend using a Mobo with bent pins, yeah it might work but power is still going to that pin and sometime down the road that unused power is going to cause a short.

If you can't get it sent back, take a credit card and carefully run them vertically inbetween the rows of pins where the bent ones are, you should be able to align them, just take care not to break them.