Help buying an second-hand I7-4790K

[Vlad02]

Hello. I saw an ad on a local Romanian trading site for an I7-4790K for only $25. The owner states that it is broken because his monitor shows the "No Signal" message. He posted 2 photos of the cpu and from what I can see, the bottom capacitors are intact and there are no signs of burns, physical damage or misuse. I will link the two photos here:

The only possible damage that I can see is on the front photo of the cpu, on the right side of the IHS, there is a small silvery spot, maybe signs of a bad delid? I will need to ask the owner for more info about what happened to the cpu during it's usage. I will come back with any important info I can get about it.

The question is, should I buy it? From what I know, the chances of a production cpu  to die is EXTREMELY small, and a no signal message might suggest lots of other problems in his system. Also it's worth mentioning that the owner stated that the computer starts but there is no image coming out.

[Streetguru]

6 minutes ago, Vlad02 said:

 

For $25 just roll the dice, if nothing else you have a nice keychain.

 

More than likely his motherboard just died.

 

OBVIOUSLY though, only buy it if you have a working motherboard already, or can get one for very cheap.

[Vlad02]

2 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

For $25 just roll the dice, if nothing else you have a nice keychain.

 

More than likely his motherboard just died.

 

OBVIOUSLY though, only buy it if you have a working motherboard already, or can get one for very cheap.

I currently rock an I5 4460 and an Asrock Z97 Extreme Pro 3 working flawlessly, if that cpu is working that's a very nice bargain, though I will wait a bit until I get some responses about the cpu behaviour from the owner. Thanks!

[Enderman]

The scratch is from the retention mechanism that holds the CPU in the socket.

All CPUs that are used have scratches there.

 

Also 99% of the time a CPU is dead it is because of internal damage, you cannot see anything on the outside.

No burn marks, no damaged capcacitors, nothing.

 

If the owner is selling it because it's dead then he probably already tested his system with another CPU and is currently using that.

Nobody is stupid enough to throw away a $300 CPU without first checking to see if that is the issue or not.

[Vlad02]

15 hours ago, Enderman said:

The scratch is from the retention mechanism that holds the CPU in the socket.

All CPUs that are used have scratches there.

 

Also 99% of the time a CPU is dead it is because of internal damage, you cannot see anything on the outside.

No burn marks, no damaged capcacitors, nothing.

 

If the owner is selling it because it's dead then he probably already tested his system with another CPU and is currently using that.

Nobody is stupid enough to throw away a $300 CPU without first checking to see if that is the issue or not.

I get what you say, i don't think that he is stupid enough to do that neither

The thing is that the 4790K was made in Q2 2014 and he put up the ad 2 days ago, making it very unlikely that this is the case. From what I have seen from his ads he sells mobo+cpus kits with ryzen and 9th generation cpus, making it even more unlikely that he uses a 4th generation cpu on a socket 1150. He also owns a little repair shop at home, fixing hardware and software issues for noobies so the chances are he just threw it in a socket 1150 and when he saw that the fans spin and there is no display he just put it up as broken. That's what I hope that he did... 

I bought it today and I will probably receive it in the next few days, I will come back with info about the cpu, maybe I can get it "back to life" or as Streetguru said I can make a nice keychain from it, who knows? 

Thanks a lot for the fast replies! You guys rock