So I have this i7-920 that was pulled from a Gateway FX computer. I live in North Carolina and we were impacted by the flood and this CPU was in a motherboard under a foot of water for about 36 hours. Now no power has been sent to the CPU since being pulled from the board. I did not even try to power the board as it is brown and I know probably wont work. I don't even want to try to bring it back to life and risk frying this 920. So here are some pictures of it, and notice there are two contacts on the top of the cpu that are discolored. Maybe damage? Maybe won't affect anything. Does anyone have a board they'd want to ship me so I can test this 920? And I ship the board back after the test? It would cost me the same to ship a board as it would this CPU. I've checked even sending the CPU from where I live to Seattle and it'd be roughly $7. I ship motherboards for the same cost 99% of the time using USPS.
It should still work... if the idea of deciding doesn't scare you I'd suggest popping the heat spreader off to make sure it's dry and clean as an extra precaution but it shouldn't be necessary if the heat spreader is 100% air tight like its supposed to be, but you never know.
I'm sure it still works, just don't want to spend a fuck ton of money on a board and it not work. Even just searching X58 motherboard on Ebay I see the cheapest is $89.99 or $99.99. I just want to make sure it still works before I sink an ounce of money into it. I mean, it is a 920. lol!
It should be fine. The IHS is sealed so chances of water penetration are unlikely, especially in a low pressure scenario.
The proper fix would be to bake the chip on/in a IR heater.
Too bad you don't live in Canada I have a board that my son is using for his I7 920. It is beside me about 5 feet away.
Lol that sucks. Shipping out of Canada is way to much to spend for either party just to test a CPU
I highly doubt that the CPU would permanently stop working because of water, especially if it wasn't powered on.
You may need to clean the gold contacts on the underside of the CPU (makes contact with the motherboard) to remove any contaminants and oxidization so that it can make a good connection to the board. Aside from that, it really should work fine. I don't think you have to delid it either.
Not always almost every delidded Intel CPU I gave seen has sealant all the way around but never connected at each end leaving a few mm gap between both ends of the seal.
Like this:
Ok, so water get's underneath the heat spreader? Then what? There's soldermask covering all of the traces, and then another layer of silicon protecting the CPU, plus the thermal paste underneath the heat spreader. It's super unlikely that if water did get underneath, that it would do anything at all, because the die and traces is still protected.