Can 1 broken pin stop a computer from working?

[alpfriend]

So I sent a PC to my friend from Germany to Ireland, and when he got the computer, he turned it on and no display was showing. He tried different connections to the monitor and used different monitors and nothing was working. He opened the case and the CPU fan was loose, so it wasn't such a big deal, it could happen in transit but on reinstallation of the CPU fan, he noticed that the CPU had come loose out of the socket so when taking out the cooler the CPU was stuck to the fan because of the thermal paste obviously, but the CPU should not come out of its socket.

He went ahead and just reinstalled everything just like you would normally, and nothing displayed again. I asked him to send a video of the PC when turning on, keeping in mind that I built this and tested it before sending it to him, and everything sounded normal, all fans spinning so it was "sort of" a relief to see that.

But after running out of ideas of what I could be, he went back and checked the CPU and I told him to check for damaged pins, and of course, there was one pin missing near the centre of the chip (which is an AMD FX-8350), and now unsure of what to do next, I am here asking for help.

Broken pin means that the other part of the broken pin is lodged in the motherboard right? Which means new motherboard? Or can you just turn it upside down with the latch open and hope for it to fall out which means one less new thing to get.

What is the next thing we should do here? Completely at a standstill and out of ideas and frustrated like hell!!!!

Can a damaged pin stop the computer from displaying on screen even though it is powering up normally and sounds fine?

Thanks in advanced for your time!

[spartaman64]

yes if you remove the cpu it will power up just fine but nothing displays

[thekeemo]

Can absolutely 

[flibberdipper]

Before I start, it's fairly normal for the AMD chips to stick to the cooler. So yeah.

 

Second, it is very possible that a missing pin could fuck things up a bit.

[BobyTheDragon]

Damaged pins can stop it from working or make the system stupidly unstable.

 

look closely with a torch on the motherboard, if there is a piece in there then its new mobo and cpu. if not it's just new cpu. no way I know you can fix it sorry.

[HrutkayMods]

Can a damaged pin stop the computer from displaying on screen even though it is powering up normally and sounds fine?

 

yes... is it fixable? possibly, figure out which hole the pin is suppose to be in and put a piece of metal roughly the size of the pin in the hole and put the CPU back in, it might work then, linus did it in a video once

[DildorTheDecent]

Or can you just turn it upside down with the latch open and hope for it to fall out which means one less new thing to get.

What is the next thing we should do here? Completely at a standstill and out of ideas and frustrated like hell!!!!

Find the broken pin and attempt to place it back in the socket with the processor. Save yourself some cash OP. 

 

All the way back in 2009 young Linus did a video for NCIX showing how to go about it. 

[Fetzie]

You may be able to fix it by sticking the broken pin in the hole where it fell out on the CPU:

 

 

 

And to answer your question yes a single broken pin cam completely screw up the computer. For all we know that pin could've been for something important like power delivery.

 

Yeah, if it is any of the power delivery, memory controller, base clock control pins then it's game over if you can't repair it. It is, however, relatively easy to repair a broken pin on a PGA socket. LGA is a different beast though.

[Godlygamer23]

It depends on the function of the pin. If it's only ground, no. If it delivers power or allows data to be transferred, yes. Also, if that broken pin shorts two other pins together, that will cause issues as well.

[alpfriend]

with LGA, you buy a new motherboard.

Thanks everyone for the replies. Seems like kind of a mixed pool of opinions. "Might be fixable", " might not be", "broken".... Still dunno what to do really. He's watching linus' video at the moment so I'll update back here once I have more news. He did also tell me he manually realigned 3 pins on the CPU.

LGA is Intel isint it? This is an FX CPU so its not LGA right? Is the FX socket pin fixable at all?

[Fetzie]

Thanks everyone for the replies. Seems like kind of a mixed pool of opinions. "Might be fixable", " might not be", "broken".... Still dunno what to do really. He's watching linus' video at the moment so I'll update back here once I have more news. He did also tell me he manually realigned 3 pins on the CPU.

LGA is Intel isint it? This is an FX CPU so its not LGA right? Is the FX socket pin fixable at all?

 

You basically need to find some ~ 0.5mm guage high-quality copper or gold wire, and cut about a 3mm long piece off it. This is inserted into the hole in the socket that corresponds to the missing pin on the cpu (it'll stick out a little over the socket, but not too much). You then place the cpu in the socket and lock it in place. This might work. If it doesn't, you can either try again, or buy a new CPU.

[alpfriend]

So I've some good news, the pin was found outside of the board so the motherboard is still good. As for the processor we are still trying to sort it out.