This is a painful memory. Worked for a small company. Under fifty employees. My boss bought into a Dell server and support contract. Server died, they sent one of the Dell certified technicians out to fix it. At one point, I watched him sit for two hours trying to bend pins back because he tried to re-seat the processor incorrectly. One by one, bending pins with needlenose. And after hours of that, tries to re-seat it again. Several pins are completely flattened. At that point he gives up and orders a new processor which of course was past the next day shopping time. So we were down for an extra day.
I asked him “what the fuck are you doing?” when he was bending the pins. He told me what he was doing, but said it was seated incorrectly initially (physics would disagree). I told my boss what he was doing and that we should call Dell and get another tech out. He said Dell would make it right so we will just continue on. The day after next, new processor arrives and he comes to put it in. Guess what’s still sticking out of the socket when he tries it? One of the bent pins that broke off. Now we’ve got a bad mobo and another bad processor. His incompetence didn’t improve. I think by the end of the week we were shipped a whole new server.
The very first time I built a computer, I did so with a more experienced friend, but I still managed to bend the hell out of the pins. I also had nowhere near the means to acquire new hardware, nor any kind of support contract that would provide it, as I was an individual. (There was a warranty but it didn’t cover customer incompetence.) My friend took the damaged part and, over about two days, very carefully bent the pins back to straight using, I think, a credit card and a small knife. Unlike the tech you described, though, he didn’t adjust the pins individually; instead he mostly did it row by row and very gently.
Once he was done, we installed it and it did indeed work. I think that system was my gaming computer for a few years before I upgraded again and, this time, installed everything with great care.
If it was me on my own, I’d absolutely have done the same thing. Using two credit cards or something like that. I’m really glad that worked for you. And, from experience, some processors/slots had very difficult fits. Where you tighten the hold down and just clench your butthole.
This is a painful memory. Worked for a small company. Under fifty employees. My boss bought into a Dell server and support contract. Server died, they sent one of the Dell certified technicians out to fix it. At one point, I watched him sit for two hours trying to bend pins back because he tried to re-seat the processor incorrectly. One by one, bending pins with needlenose. And after hours of that, tries to re-seat it again. Several pins are completely flattened. At that point he gives up and orders a new processor which of course was past the next day shopping time. So we were down for an extra day.
I asked him “what the fuck are you doing?” when he was bending the pins. He told me what he was doing, but said it was seated incorrectly initially (physics would disagree). I told my boss what he was doing and that we should call Dell and get another tech out. He said Dell would make it right so we will just continue on. The day after next, new processor arrives and he comes to put it in. Guess what’s still sticking out of the socket when he tries it? One of the bent pins that broke off. Now we’ve got a bad mobo and another bad processor. His incompetence didn’t improve. I think by the end of the week we were shipped a whole new server.
The very first time I built a computer, I did so with a more experienced friend, but I still managed to bend the hell out of the pins. I also had nowhere near the means to acquire new hardware, nor any kind of support contract that would provide it, as I was an individual. (There was a warranty but it didn’t cover customer incompetence.) My friend took the damaged part and, over about two days, very carefully bent the pins back to straight using, I think, a credit card and a small knife. Unlike the tech you described, though, he didn’t adjust the pins individually; instead he mostly did it row by row and very gently.
Once he was done, we installed it and it did indeed work. I think that system was my gaming computer for a few years before I upgraded again and, this time, installed everything with great care.
If it was me on my own, I’d absolutely have done the same thing. Using two credit cards or something like that. I’m really glad that worked for you. And, from experience, some processors/slots had very difficult fits. Where you tighten the hold down and just clench your butthole.