Straightening CPU pins made easier

Manually resolder a broken CPU pin? good luck on that one. [<:o)]

Question: does anyone know the gauge of the pins on a Ryzen Threadripper? If it matters, a 1920X, to be specific.

I had a couple of slightly bent pins on an opened box unused cpu, my guess is the original purchaser panicked and re-sold, neglected to list the bent pins until I closed sale.
Here's a fairly obvious quick fix for bent Ryzen 9 cpu pins not way past vertical (Lets say less than 30 degrees from vertical):
1. BUY a MAGNIFYING DESK LAMP they're cheap and free both the hands.
2. Box Cutter Blade (not for cutting duh)
3. criss-cross straighten using the the cpu pin grid row as a guide for bent dudes
4. Do it gently, very gently
5. My cpu popped, it didn't just 'drop' straight in. I wiggled the socket lever, sat one side in, lifted back out sat another side in and wiggled, lifted out, once I was satisfied the pins across different sides of the 4 faces of the cpu 'square' were liking this idea and wanted to seat in their socket holes gently push flat I lost a couple of pounds in perspiration at this step, wiggle the socket clamp lever back and forth. My Ryzen 9 3900X popped in a little more first on the bad side, and was tight so I knew it was going in, then she dropped all the way and shut tight with the lever down. I saved about $200 on the cpu and spent about $40 on the desk lamp. I still don't recommend buying a cpu with bent pins, but if you drop yours and the pins get bent enough to not seat in the cpu socket its not all over.

Yes mechanical pencil is a good option..But sometimes it goes wrong too..So think twice befor using it

For the minor extra effort - go to an RC Airplane type hobbyshop and buy some thin ID brass tubing that fits snugly on the Pin OD. Using this will minimize strange mechanicals, and give you a better chance with fixing 15 pins.

Ideally you'd make a little fixture which was a second offset washer-like very short tube soldered to a thin longer rod - that would be inserted first and held fixed to avoid or to limit bending the base of the pin, and the straight tube would bend the major length of the pin, back into an acceptable angle.

The thing to take care with, is to avoid bending the base of the pin since it can pop out of the BGA substrate. And do any bending slowly. Using an empty pen barrel btw is not teribly effective, as it will not let you properly apply torque limited to the point of the bend - it will often make another distinct bend point and possibly mess it up further.

btw 15 pins makes this an mostly improbable fix, unless you are very careful, PLUS wear an esd ground strap and use a static dissipative work surface set-up.

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Edited by Xaltar - 15 Nov 2018 at 1:54am