You can take the pins off an old Athlon 64 (about 2-4€ on eBay) and throw broken off pins into the socket where they're missing on the CPU. No soldering required and works 100%. Done it plenty of times for several CPUs off one donor CPU. Obviously didn't resell systems like that, but they worked well as test benches for a while before giving them to friends.
@@KuntalGhosh Athlon 64 pins perfectly fit into AM4 holes. They might not be the exact same size, but they do fit. I've done it to at least 4 CPUs that I specifically bought as damaged for a low price. My current 3700X cost me 70€ including shipping because it was missing 3 pins.
@@KuntalGhosh Alternatively, you can also just buy Ryzen replacement pins for 10€ off eBay but it's a waste of money when a whole donor CPU costs less than half.
0.5mm guitar picks will slide perfectly between the rows to help align them properly. You can also use the pick for leverage to align multiple bent pins in the same row.
On the 5600X, the pin that was bent and broke off when you moved it (at pin coordinate AU39) is just a VSS pin. It is only there to provide a local ground reference to the adjacent MB_DQS_L[5] pin at AT39, to help keep the fields tightly coupled and the return currents off other nearby signal pins. Luckily the pin to the north-west of MB_DQS_L[5], at coordinate AR38, is also VSS, so even with that bent pin gone every signal pin still has a reference ground nearby (i.e. within at most one diagonal distance). All of the ground pins connect to a ground plane inside the carrier PCB, so you can lose that one pin without problems. The only one you really need to fix is MB_DQS_L[5] at position AT39, which is a data strobe (data clock) for the DDR bus. A trick I considered suggesting is masking off the broken DQS_L pin with Kapton tape on the CPU, then bridging it to ground using a bodge wire in the socket. This would turn the signal from a differential pair (i.e. DQS_H - DQS_L) into a single-ended line (DQS_H - VSS). Unfortunately I don't think this will work, because the minimum V_IL(DQS) threshold is -130mV, meaning that DQS_L must be driven high relative to DQS_H in order to assert an input-low state. A bodge wire from DQS_L to VSS would allow DQS to be asserted high (i.e. DQS_L=0V and DQS_H > 130mV), but not asserted low (i.e. DQS_L > 130mV and DQS_H=0V) because DQS_L would be permanently stuck at 0V on the board side. In other circumstances you could probably get away with it, but unfortunately I don't think you can here. A hack that _might_ work without fixing the pin is running a bodge wire from pin AM36 to AT39 on the socket. This would tie MB_DQS_L[4] to MB_DQS_L[5]. As long as the memory controller keeps all the DQS drivers in phase, and as long as any separate enables/inhibits for DQS[4] and DQS[5] are simultaneously set/cleared, MB_DQS_L[4] should always have (functionally) identical output to MB_DQS_L[5]. Theoretically, this means you might be able to reuse the low side of the DQS[4] differential pair as the missing low side of the DQS[5] differential pair. My intuition is that each DQS _should_ remain in phase with the other DQS drivers (plus/minus skew correction from link training), because the strobes _should_ be generated from a common clock using PLLs, which would imply that they'd all lock in the same phase as long as they're generated on the same physical memory controller. However there's also a possibility that modern IMCs do something fancy with separate asynchronous clock domains which invalidates this assumption - I honestly don't know and I couldn't find good information to tell me one way or the other. The most likely cause of problems would be link training, which usually applies a skew correction delay to DQS via a DLL to ensure that its edges arrive at the DRAM IC at the same time as the data does. If link training is done sequentially for each chip, MB_DQS_L[4] would not be driven when training chip 5, so it might fail calibration. Other than that, I could maybe see excess line loading on MB_DSQ_L[4] leading to eye mask infringement, although that can likely be avoided at lower memory speeds. Might be worth a shot - it'd be a pretty cool workaround if it worked! EDIT: On second thoughts I'm actually not sure this is safe, because DQS is bidirectional, so if chip 4 is doing a write and chip 5 is doing a read then you might end up with the memory IC trying to drive DQS15_n at the same time the CPU's IMC is trying to drive DQS14_n, and since they're bridged the drivers would conflict and potentially cause a short from Vddq to Vssq.
Before repairing a pin it's worth checking if it's important. VCC and VSS generally can have a few missing. However I would be wary of buying a CPU with an unimportant pin missing because the seller could have broken this off to give you the impression that the CPU is OK when it is in fact broken for a different reason.
Make a stencil! You have a CNC machine! Grab a little piece of thin metal sheet and cut some 10x10 holes of the diameter of the pins with the same spacing so they can hold the missing pin closer to the CPU substrate, the array of pinholes will hold it in place, then heat it up until it connects.
Just a recommendation from my side, when you are replacing pins use the solderig material with low temperature of phase change, like for example: Sn42Bi57Ag1 (Bismuth has low melting temp, higher the precentage of Bismuth, lower the temperature). It'll solder just fine with 138-140degree Celsius, you don't need to heat that much and also you won't break other pins. About sole replacing.. good microscope and soldering iron is a must, than only some experience ;)
To lock the cpu into the cork surface, you can use kapton tape... For attaching the pins, if you watch Louis Rossmann, he drowns small SMD ICs in flux and then heat with hot air until the surface tension of the solder ball put them back in place perfectly, maybe that will work with the pins, it may even unbent the other pins...
Should also use kapton tape to protect the other pins from getting desoldered. Not hard to slip a couple of pieces in the rows and gently bend them over, then add a couple of more strips on the other sides on top of the first two.
When we were building a PC for a friend of mine, we needed to retrieve an R5 2600 from a motherboard. Turns out the thermal paste had basically cemented, and trying to take the cooler off ripped the entire CPU straight out of the socket. Motherboard wouldn't hold a CPU in properly on its own anymore, and the CPU had many bent pins. We spent a couple hours using a credit card to very carefully align the pins a row at a time, and eventually a miracle happened and it went right into the new motherboard socket. Not only that - We tried a different CPU on the damaged motherboard and found that the CPU would only move if the board was flipped completely over (it would fall out). Simply keeping the board in place and mounting the cooler proved to be enough to get it up and running, and it never had a problem. I eventually sold a system with that board to another friend at a steep discount, and he has had zero problems to this day. We were terrified during the process of addressing our mistakes, but it turned out a success story and I'm a lot less hopeless about hardware that's potentially been damaged now 😁
same story as mine lol. forgot about heating the cpu before taking the cooler off and ended up ripping the cpu off. lucikly no pins were bent, not even one. I got real lucky there that day
One needs a hot air station or hot tweezers for microsoldering. They supply hot air like a heat gun but at a smaller more concentrated area for like SMDs but they're very expensive around $800. The hot tweezers run round $200 - 300.
+1 for the hot air station. It really makes it a lot easier to heat up solder with relative precision, without the big and cumbersome soldering iron in the way (which is considerably larger than the CPU pins).
@@szymontrojanowski7565 I can vouch for the Quick 861DW which is about that price. We got it in the lab to pair to a Hakko hot air station, and nobody ever touches the Hakko again because the Quick is miles better (and a lot cheaper).
+1. The cheapest hot air stations with integrated PCB preheater are around 160~200$usd though. They're not great, but still good enough for occasional use.
You can use soldering tweezers and hold the pin until it is hot enough to melt the solder and let go as you saw it will pop into place if it is close and you won't have to use two hands.
If you have a "lead" in the pencil, you could extend it halfway through the tip so that only part of the pin fits inside - just enough so that it doesn't fall out, but not so deep that it interfere with the soldering iron.
A while back Linus did a very similar video repairing AM4 CPU's. He had gotten a solder mask/stencil that held the pins in place to make lining them up easier.
silicone putty! non conductive and pretty sticky, you can squish small pcbs or components into it to hold in place a lot more safely and you don't have to worry about it melting/burning. can sometimes be hard to clean off though
I heard your name come up in a lot of tech videos and I have to say I am so happy you have an English channel. The fact that you take time to record videos in German and in English is amazing to me. Thank you!
There is a special pin mask available that holds all the pins in place as when the chip is manufactured. When the new pins are put in place in the correct holes in the pin mask and the pin mask inserted over the other pins on the cpu, simply heating the area on the cpu around the broken pins with heat gun this will result in all the pin aligning correctly due to the pin mask. Pins that you do not want to heat can be masked off.
Yea Linus used that. But he made a mistake when he placed the pins wrong he did it over the mask instead under wich would hold the pins better without worring about pins flying by the heatgun
What would be really nice for this sort of pin repair would be a soldering laser spot. Stick the pins on with solder paste, then use a hotplate to get the temp close, then a non-contact laser for the final targetted repair.
the sucking in the pin into position is called surface tension! so cool you dont need to actually place it perfectly it just has to touch the solder and when it dries gets sucked into place
U should use a soldering mask and Smd Rework Station. It makes life much easier. Poking pins with a soldering iron and tweezers is a painful experience. Linus did a video - We FIXED a DEAD CPU!! - As always awesome work. :D
Your best to use hot air with low airflow so you don't blow the other pins off the CPU, also a heat plate to keep the IHS and CPU at a constant (ish) temperature, use a fine nozzle to concentrate the airflow to just the pin/s you are working on, it will soak the heat to surrounding pins so be very careful not to disturb them, use plenty of flux to aid solder melt and it will help the pin realignment as it starts to cool, it's all about having a steady hand. Great video as usual bro, I'm a hardware fan with a lack of funds for high-end so rely on people like you for the extra knowledge 👍 keep up the great work 🙂
there's actually a holder or template if you call it. is like the socket its made out of ceramic and it helps when replacing the pins makes sure all of them are aligned. i dont know if the company still makes them but if you really need one i can send you my spare. i bought them almost 3 years ago. also have them for trx40. i like you video because it shows people that even guys like you experience things everyday non superhero status tech gurus like you experience. makes people that are just starting out into modding or repairing not to give up and just keep practicing. thanks brother!
I used to use a box cutter blade. At every angle available between the pins and the bent pins I would wiggle the bent pin in the direction to straighten the bent pin. 90 degrees and 45 degrees angles. It worked every time.
Back in the Athlon XP days we just put a piece of copper wire into the socket to do the job of the missing pin. Optimally slightly longer than the original pin. The extra length makes sure it has enough pressure on the pad on the CPU for proper contact. And I have a LGA775 board with a missing pin ("spring"?) but it still runs just fine. Just a ground pin for power deliery, so the other 136 pins now have to carry 0.735% more, which is no big deal.
Stainless steel tube. Or the typical soldering tweezers. I have also seen it done with just low low speed on the hot air station and normal tweezers, As you saw it will sort of "dance" to its correct position, you just have to get it very close.
Great Video bought brand new 5900x installed and it didn't work at all even after troubleshooting! Finally took out and inspected cpu pins! Was 2 bent pins and i used a razer blade just the blade and easily bent them back and happy to say pc has flawlessly worked with no issues! 5900x 6700xt 650w psu 32gb 3600 crucial ram 2tb 980 evo m.2 240mm aio cpu cooler and cooler master n200 itx case runs under 60c full load
I absolutely have no idea on how to resolder broken pins, but for bent pins using a common cutter blade and inserting it in the space between pins rows allows to unbend them easily and several at a time, I did it on a 3900X
Hey for the broken pins on the cpu, have you considered finding a jewelry repair shop that has a laser welder? These are essentially a 10-20 power microscope mounted to laser powerful enough to weld various metals, including stainless steel (higher metaling temp than whatever copper alloy the pins are made out of). They generally focus down to .1 mm. I see a jewelry repair tech making real quick work of your problem. I would bring them some extras to practice on. These laser welders are thousands of dollars but quite common in the jewelry repair industry. my guess would be 2 minutes per pin to fix that. Anyways love the content have a nice day! 😁
That would be way overkill : these jewelry welders solder bare metals together by melting them. Not the same kind of soldering as the one using tin solder : you'd just destroy the CPU PCB.
@@gabrielhmi "you'd just destroy the CPU PCB." I don't see how, these lasers have extremely small heat effected zones. you can vary the "power" of it by ether limiting how bright the laser is, or how long the laser is on. "Not the same kind of soldering as the one using tin solder" yeah its really not soldering, its welding.
@@billymcbilly489 yes, that's the issue. You have tons of tiny very fine metal traces linked to these pads, you don't want them to take very large amount of heat in a very short time like for welding. CMS components usually come with a temperature curve which needs to be met for soldering, a soldering iron won't put you too far off from it, but a welder definitely will.
@@gabrielhmi its not an issue, once again, extremely small heat effected zone. I'm not talking about welding around the solder joint, I'm saying just take the broken part of the pin (if you still have it) or a new pin that you cut the base off of and welding directly back on where it came from.
I wonder. Could you order a metal stencil with holes for all the CPU pins so you could put the stencil over the pins on the CPU to hold them in position. you could still apply heat to length of the pins that stick out from stencil to possibly melt the solder.
Roman, the flat-back of a steak knife is usually the perfect width, so you can gently slide/wiggle the knife in, and allow it's width to perfectly straighten & alight the pin. I've done this on my 2700x and maaaany 478 socket CPU's from back in the day.
Use the blue or white tack putty- it’s sometimes called poster hanging putty or something- it works really well to hold electronics in place- doesn’t dry, doesn’t leave a residue, and it temperature stable for the most part
was really hoping for a good way to fix my smashed ryzen 9 3900X. Pins on all 4 corners are smashed from falling on tile floors several pins are broken. Nifty tip with the mechanical pencil thank you Roman
Use a diagram to find which pins you can ignore. Power and ground have lots of spares so don't worry about those. Other pins say NC or not connected. Someone also suggested unsoldering pins from a cheap old AM3 CPU off ebay and popping them in the actual socket matching the missing pins on your chip.
When I broke two pins from AM3 CPU I used thin layer soft plastic material like playdoh for kids just to hold pins in right place. Heat gun, flux and melting solder will do the rest as you saw in 7:48 My dad is much experienced person in soldering. I'm just self learning amateur. He told me to do that method. It worked extremely easy!
Oh I forgot to mention about do not inhale smoke from playdoh stuff. It is very dangerous to lungs and it can put you in bed for good 4 days! I didn't know that and got sick. Always use face protection and fume extraction
recently bought used 3400g, it arrived with slightly bent 5 pins. i found a knife which would fit flush in non bent area and used it to straighten bent ones by inserting knife across all pins horizontally/vertically and applied a bit of pressure till knife would go flush like in non bent areas
I have another method that is more reliable and is no soldering. Get some twist ties: wires that have plastic insulation. Strip the plastic off and test-fit the wire in the socket hole and push in then use a scissor to cut the wire while installed in the socket. Install CPU and try boot. It may take a few tries to get the PIN height right but it will work.
You need something like bga solder mask or stencil kit...to make it more efficient. And when i say bga solder mask...i dont mean the classic for protecting the pcb cuts. its a different mask with holes for the pins...and can make your job more efficient.
i would try to drill a hole to soldering iron tip, for just hold the pin. and put it onto board. or you can buy some injection needle in pharmacy, and that heat up with iron, if you just want to replace only one pin
The digital camera really helps - I tried using a lighted magnifying glass and just gave up . I ordered a USB type camera magnifier but it was lame - You get what you pay for !
Use mini drill bit, jewelers tools, and put hole in soldering tip and hold cpu down to install pin, and up to remove pin? Or use mini flat screwdriver to press pin still in soldering tip?
I fixed a broken pin on an AMD FX-60 I got for free from a friend. The way I fixed it was with eclectically conductive two part epoxy. I used a sewing pin and dipped it the mix epoxy then dabbed the epoxy on the spot where the pin was missing then waited a few minutes and with tweezers held the cpu pin in position until the epoxy set. It worked and I was happy for a free upgrade to an FX-60 that was a big deal back at that time. I already had a socket 939 platform with lower end cpu. LOL the funny part was I did it at LAN party in the wee hours of the morning.
FYI, while you can use a mechanical pencil, a razor blade, like one from a utility knife works really well. You run the blade along the rows and it’ll align the bent pins perfectly with the other pins. JayzTwoCents made a video a while ago about it.
Back in my overclocking days of single core barton AMD chips, one chap in the overclockers forums used to sell "combs" which sat in the area around the pin and created a very crisp medium to straighten against just using tweezers, wonder if those are still about today as I am sure they would make your bending of pins a lot easier as you just have the guide on the comb to work to as opposed to having to work with the 2 dimensions a pin has to be straight in. He used to sell them in "corners" as well as chip widths and whole chips arrays, I can't find mine as I only had a corner array as that could be used on any CPU.
You have access to a CNC machine I believe? Dont know how small the holes are that you can drill, but maybe you could make something with 100 or so tiny holes to hold all the pins in place. Should not be as big as the chip but big enough to protect nearby pins.. Not sure how to avoid soldering the pins to the pin holder itself, other than being really careful :) Or using something other than metal, like carbon or something?
Got to put your pin bending technique into practice, works good, not the smoothest insertion, but I'm happy enough with working. Now I'm fabricating a bracket to keep the cpu in its socket (there is no twisting/turning my cooler before removal) it's too bad that Gelid wants $30 to ship theirs...
Hey Roman, bit like a Linus video, little janky, however, good job with the MB. Check out his video, they used a pin mask to hold the pins in place when they did there attempt to solder on new pins.
I use Multicore solder that has 5 cores of flux built into it for easier single component working. also 60/40 has a lower melting point and easier to work with. Also you could get some FLU400 flux remover to clean the flux off. hth.
I would take a spare soldering iron tip and drill a hole the same size as the mechanical pencil tip tube. Then shape the tip to clear surrounding pins, and then press the tube into the hole. That way you only heat the solder beneath the pin.
you could stick it down with kapton tape to make it steadier. also, consider sticking it down to a temperature controlled hot plate, to keep it steadily at that pre-heat temperature instead of repeatedly cycling it. also, looks like a finer soldering tip would help too, you can get really tiny tips for SMD soldering
make a metal jig and insert missing pins into the jig in the correct place. insert the CPU into the jig. heat up the CPU and the jig wait for it to cool down and boom. working CPU
You should make a DIY soldering station guide to your fixes, as if you've broken a £500 CPU, you wouldn't mind investing nearly £100 in fixing it. I'm sure you could make a thermally absorbing mount for a usb microscope. Lighting, solder, tweezers and perhaps a tool to hold pins better? Really interesting video! Thanks for all your efforts
I had to fix a load of bent pins on a 3950X at the start of last year - used the tip of a mechanical pencil to straighten them - was nice and easy (hardest part was seeing the bent pins - but I used the zoom feature on my phone camera to see them) - CPU works perfectly
As some people suggested, i would recommend the hot air station, QUICK 861DW to be precise. Cheap (at least in comparison to other stations) and effective for this job.
mount the cpu then prepare the cpu, pre apply solder to the bottom of the pin hold in place with tweezers and put the iron on the top of the pin and heat the whole pin .
Maybe you can use a donor am4 socket as a template for holding the replacement pin(s). Probably a bad idea since you want be able to heat the pins well to melt the solder if the template is in the way.
Stereoscopic microscopes work better at judging distance in such small scales. Also I think there will be some latency between the real World and the image displayed at the monitor which compound the eye-hands coordination necessary to do such a repair.
You could probably make a soldering iron pin holder similar to the mechanical pencil but fits on your iron to hold the pin to insert it, then have a lever to push the pin when removing the iron tip. Speed things up a bit.
If you watch Louis Rossman you will see how capillary action pulls the surface mount components into place. I think your idea would get the pin soldered but releasing it would be very difficult even with an eject button. It looks like these pins are surface mount components.
That's so cool. -- Would love to see it on the 5600 as well. -- Considering that the tension just pulled the pin into place, could you just set it there with some solder paste and reflow it in a PCB oven?
A old trick to set up pin straight, is to use a xacto (only the blade) and setup the hole line of pins do it in all direction (x and y), tick the blade left and right and you will find that all are in a perfect line..... i hope i make my sell clear :) old school from P4 ... and Athlon ...... Cyrix and so on... ehheheheheh by the way good job soldering that pin, they are smaller that the old ones, but same technic can be applied.
How about an alu pin matrix (socket like) on top of all pins and aerial heat? Even if you resolder some othe pins matrix will keep them in position. And you will ha a universal tool and method for more then 1 pin. Maybe even could be helpful to straighten pins if it would have 0,35 ish diameter.
I saw that you had hot tweezers that you used in the 12900K repair, would it have been possible to use the hot tweezers to hold the pin, then just solder it down using that?
How are pins soldered at the factory? Probably placed into a template and soldered all at once. How small is the smallest tool on your cnc? If you could replicate the socket, then place pin where it is missing and heat whole thing up from the bottom till solder melts, let it cool.. perfect result.
I'm wondering if you could take a soldering iron tip, drill a 0.3mm hole in the bottom and repair pins this way? The mechanical pencil seemed to work well. . .now it just needs some heat!
Ive done this a lot in the past. What works for me to grip the CPU down is just put capton tape on the bottom plate where the CPU can rest on. Its heat resistant and grips fairly well.
Damn! that pen think is a great idea - would have saved me so much time, trying to rescue 5 Ryzen and one Bulldozer chips... Also... those hands are steady AF!! german surgeons must be next level, if Roman is an average :D
Anyone watching this and doing it in the future should know to heat the pin, not the solder. See how he knocked the one on the left off? That happened because his iron touched the pin...which melted the solder and allowed it to move. Tweeze the pin, heat the pin, melt solder in socket with hot pin, place pin down.
I think a soldering iron tip thats hollow might work. The pin could go inside the hollow tip so you can heat and hold the pin at the same time. a loose fit should stop the pin from sliding out.
or tweezers that are a soldering iron that way you only heat through what you are soldering. Helps with not fucking with the pins in the general area that you arent trying to mess with.
