Of all the components that a PC has, there is no doubt that when it comes to assembly, the most delicate of all is the motherboard socketwith hundreds of thin pins that, if we are not careful, can end up bent or even broken. This is not the first time we have found ourselves in this situation, but can it be fix really a pin on the motherboard socket that has broken? The answer is yes, although as we are going to explain below it is a process that requires quite a bit of skill.
Generally, when you buy a new motherboard, if it comes with a broken or bent pin you can use the warranty and you will not have to try to repair it or directly throw away the motherboard. However, if the pin has broken due to poor handling on your part or if the board is already out of warranty, then the story changes quite a bit. We don’t recommend getting involved in trying it, but if you have the tools, the ability and above all the desire… by power, it is possible.
How to repair a motherboard socket pin
A Chinese enthusiast has demonstrated how you can repair the motherboard socket simply with great care, but also with a lot of eyesight and above all a lot of pulse. One of the biggest problems is that, in the current Intel and AMD platforms, the pins of the board socket are not rigid, as was the case for example in the AMD AM4 platform, which, in addition, the pins were on the processor and not on the motherboard. They are bent in a curve to ensure better contact and also act as a shock absorber for when we place the processor on top.
Damaged pins can sometimes be realigned with great care and precision tools, but there is a danger that trying to do so will end up breaking them off. If the pin is too far from its original position, most people would discard that motherboard and throw it in the trash, but bilibili user Mu Ziwen has shown that a broken pin can be replaced with a fairly basic set of tools.
This is the process that the user followed to carry out the repair:
- Using tweezers, a heat gun and great care, completely remove the broken pin.
- Heat the pin to about 300 degrees with the heat gun, give it the appropriate shape and place it in place with the help of tweezers.
- Let it cool and check with the tweezers that the pin is fixed and that it does not move from its place.
- Using a multimeter, check that the pin has current.
- Place the processor and test to see if it works.
In the case of this user, he was lucky and the first time he managed to get the system to boot. In his case, the defective pin caused the system to not correctly detect the RAM, and after this process he managed to get the computer to boot without problems.
This process obviously demonstrates that by proxy, a broken motherboard pin can be repaired, and in this case simply with a pair of tweezers and a heat gun. Of course, the user warns that you have to be careful with the temperature and not go over those 300ºC that we mentioned before, because if you reach around 400ºC the plastics of the socket will begin to melt.
