Bent Socket pins?

I see at least 8 bent pins on your second picture.

shadowdr said:

My feeling is that I should have bought an Asus top end mobo instead, saved some cash and still had it three weeks earlier.
Edit. Guess I should add one of the before pic's, it's on the right.

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I like your sig rig. Bend a couple pins on that cpu, NP get em' straightened out in just a few minutes, unless folded over completely. That's a little more challenging.


Hope the RMA goes fast and smooth.

Daddyjaxx said:

I see at least 8 bent pins on your second picture.

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I think that there were actually 11 pins bent after the initial install. I had fixed about eight of those before putting the CPU back in and tightening the lever. I think that one or two of those broke off, re bent some of them and even added a few extra bends in what would be the top edge area of the pictures. The other areas where there is more damage in the pic on the left must have been done in shipping, unlikely, or by them testing with another CPU. At least I feel vindicated that the original damage was not user error as is always assumed by manufacturers and implied by others here. The amount of new damage could not have possibly been done by another install as it was never put back in the case or had a cooler installed.

ShrimpBrime said:

I like your sig rig. Bend a couple pins on that cpu, NP get em' straightened out in just a few minutes, unless folded over completely. That's a little more challenging.


Hope the RMA goes fast and smooth.

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She has been a good rig until lightning came in on the cable and killed the NIC along with the modem and router. It is not even possible to bend any pins on an AMD after it is installed in the socket. The Intel socket design is pretty crappy and will actually degrade each time a CPU is installed and removed.

It may go smooth but certainly not fast. You have to apply for an RMA online, CS will do nothing for you. You then wait for two days for approval so you can ship. At this point you have already filled out the damage online and requested repair, filled out a form requesting repair and sent it along with the item. CS will not make any notes on the order so you have to wait 5 to 7 days for them to open the package after confirmed delivery. Check the damage and send an email to you with repair cost and authorization for payment. CS will at no point intervene on your behalf to speed up the process. They will not find out the cost of replacing the socket or even tell you if it can be done, will not take payment up front for repair or shipping. At this point I have paid at least 250.00 for a mobo that I did not cause damage to, will most likely be charged for return shipping and have waited 15 days so far. This will be my last Gigabyte purchase, ever.

It's not just Giga that runs into this. It's a prominent issue on certain lines of ASUS boards especially but also happen with every other board out there. The main thing is buying from somewhere that won't screw you, in which case I order motherboards from only Amazon, because if you have bent pins, good luck getting NewEgg to replace it (they claim Customer Induced Damage) and may actually charge the card on your account and ship you out a new one. (been through this many times).

You will not be charged for return shipping.

Seems to me you are expecting too much out of customer service.

There is a great deal of customer dissatisfaction with most of the major motherboard manufacturers. None of them seem very willing to own up to defects or failures in their products. The one exception may be ASRock.

sobe said:

It's not just Giga that runs into this. It's a prominent issue on certain lines of ASUS boards especially but also happen with every other board out there. The main thing is buying from somewhere that won't screw you, in which case I order motherboards from only Amazon, because if you have bent pins, good luck getting NewEgg to replace it (they claim Customer Induced Damage) and may actually charge the card on your account and ship you out a new one. (been through this many times).

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The Egg charges me sales tax, the main reason I went with Tiger Direct and the Giga board. They didn't have the Asrock extreme6 which is what I should have got. I wasn't sure that it was a defect before they sent the picture of the damaged pins.

trents said:

You will not be charged for return shipping.

Seems to me you are expecting too much out of customer service.

There is a great deal of customer dissatisfaction with most of the major motherboard manufacturers. None of them seem very willing to own up to defects or failures in their products. The one exception may be ASRock.

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Well at least not charging for return shipping is better then charging.

I don't really think that I am expecting to much considering that I offered to pay up front whether or not the damage was my fault. CS would not even start the RMA for me on the phone so I had to wait two days for online approval and would not even tell me if a damaged socket could be fixed. Why even have a CS or a phone line if you won't do anything at all to help? I would think to say that calling me a dissatisfied customer at this point might be understating it.

Two days for a company to act on an RMA request is pretty much a tech industry standard these days. At least that has been my experience of late and some of them even say "up to 48 hr." in the automatically generated email response you get when you submit the request via online form.

I expect that some of the things you were asking CS to do was outside of their authority envelope and actually fell in the domain of the tech support/RMA dept. itself. Dude, you seem to be kind of impatient about this whole thing.

Lately, I've been buying more stuff from TD because they are beginning to offer free shipping more often. But over the years I have reached the conclusion that you really have to pay close attention to TD adds as they can be deceptive. You really need to make sure you know what you are getting when you buy stuff from them. It's what they don't say in their adds that can be the problem. This is especially true with their bare bones kits where they throw together parts that don't necessarily go together very well.

Impatient, you betcha, I didn't pay for 2 day air shipping twice so far because I am a patient person, it's because I needed them. This may be the usual RMA but I wouldn't know, I have never received a defective product that I can remember. I am probably more irk'ed than before because of the picture sent to me that shows more damage than it had when I sent it, most folks would. Notice any similarities to this thread about Asus?

shadowdr said:

Impatient, you betcha, I didn't pay for 2 day air shipping twice so far because I am a patient person, it's because I needed them. This may be the usual RMA but I wouldn't know, I have never received a defective product that I can remember. I am probably more irk'ed than before because of the picture sent to me that shows more damage than it had when I sent it, most folks would. Notice any similarities to this thread about Asus?

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Now that's something to be irked about for sure! Don't blame you in that case. Sounds like it's just a number of things having come end to end that have brought you to this point of frustration.

shadowdr said:

This may be the usual RMA but I wouldn't know, I have never received a defective product that I can remember. I am probably more irk'ed than before because of the picture sent to me that shows more damage than it had when I sent it, most folks would. Notice any similarities to this thread about Asus?

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Gigabyte averages 2 weeks total RMA time start to finish. At least they're consistent.
I can almost guaranty that they put a CPU in that board to test with, that's why there's more damage than when you sent it.
No tech at any manufacturer is going to care what you say is wrong with it. They're going to pop a chip in it and test and diagnose it themselves regardless. That's their job.
In my half a dozen dealings with Gigabyte RMA's, you're being treated no different than I was. Relax.

People complain about Asus and you've had half a dozen Gigagyte RMA's? The only Asus board I have ever had issues with was self inflicted. That's all I have ever used except when the 2600K came out, I bought a Gigabyte board....that was recalled anyway.

Daddyjaxx said:

People complain about Asus and you've had half a dozen Gigagyte RMA's? The only Asus board I have ever had issues with was self inflicted. That's all I have ever used except when the 2600K came out, I bought a Gigabyte board....that was recalled anyway.

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My 6 RMA's were self inflicted.....due to extreme benching.
I've never had a hardware failure that I didn't cause.....on any piece of hardware.
All things considered, most manufacturers do a pretty good job in the quality control area. The 'bad' is reported much much more than the good.

Gigabyte averages 2 weeks total RMA time start to finish. At least they're consistent.

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By two weeks, do you mean from when it gets there or they actually confirm that they have it, because that's already been a week difference?

I can almost guaranty that they put a CPU in that board to test with, that's why there's more damage than when you sent it.
No tech at any manufacturer is going to care what you say is wrong with it. They're going to pop a chip in it and test and diagnose it themselves regardless. That's their job.

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My thinking exactly. You can see that by doing that they sent me a picture that proves the socket was defective, right?

In my half a dozen dealings with Gigabyte RMA's, you're being treated no different than I was. Relax.

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You are right, I know, everyone gets the same treatment. Had I not received the picture I would have been OK with it. Reminds me of dealing with the DMV, except I have to deal with them again.

shadowdr said:

By two weeks, do you mean from when it gets there or they actually confirm that they have it, because that's already been a week difference?

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Two weeks from the time I sent it to the time it arrived back to me, give or take a day. That was my experience, your's may be different.

My thinking exactly. You can see that by doing that they sent me a picture that proves the socket was defective, right?

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IMO, probably, but my opinion doesn't mean squat to them.
Socket damage is probably the single most abused reason for RMA. It's the easy way out to just say that all socket damage is user inflicted. Most if not all manufacturers use this method of reasoning.

Mr.Scott said:

Two weeks from the time I sent it to the time it arrived back to me, give or take a day. That was my experience, your's may be different.

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Bummer for me. It was five days after delivery before they actually even opened the package and confirmed delivery.

IMO, probably, but my opinion doesn't mean squat to them.
Socket damage is probably the single most abused reason for RMA. It's the easy way out to just say that all socket damage is user inflicted. Most if not all manufacturers use this method of reasoning.

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I guess we will find out soon enough, I Emailed them this morning with regards to suspicion that the socket or retention was defective with a link to this thread. Either way I can't say that it has been a good experience so far. I also found a page on their "Request for service" page that says

The turn around time is normally 5 working days plus transit time. If you need faster service, please contact our customer service representative via email

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. My bad for calling, I guess I should have read every linked page on their site.

Fixing a board is cheaper than buying a new one for sure, unless you have a really cheap board to begin with.

I skrewed some pins on accident. left the MB at an angle and the CPU dropped and slid out taking pins with it.

Bought a lighted maginifying glass and used a jewlers screwdriver to gently align them.

Board works great

outhouse said:

I skrewed some pins on accident. left the MB at an angle and the CPU dropped and slid out taking pins with it.

Bought a lighted maginifying glass and used a jewlers screwdriver to gently align them.

Board works great

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Yeah, ten years ago maybe longer I could have done that. I remember painting traces on CPU top with a needle to unlock the multi on um,,, socket A's I think. Not anymore, I was told I had cataracts some years back when I got my first pair of prescription glasses and things haven't got better since then. The ones that I did fix I used the eye of a needle, three pairs of x3 reading glasses and the same magnifying glass I used way back to paint those traces. before it was fun but not anymore.