About 8 months ago I build my first computer with an Intel CPU and messed up with installing the CPU. I managed to bend 3 pins a little bit and freaked out, but figured I would put it together and see if it still worked or if I had ruined the motherboard. As it turned out, the damage was not significant enough to effect the performance or stability of the system and I managed to get comparable results on benchmarks to those I found online.
8 months go by without a hitch, but then something happen and the computer will not power on. I turn it in for troubleshooting and the company concludes that it is the motherboard that is the faulty part. So I send it in to the retailer and explain what happen.
Yesterday they got back to me and said that since the pins are somewhat bent, they will not even look at it more, and neither will the manufacturer. So even tough the bent pins are not, as far as anyone can tell, the issue nothing will be done with the board and the guarantee is void.
At the moment I am at a loss, don't know what to do. I chose a top end motherboard with the hopes of better support and some protection against this type of things should they occur.
Is there anything I can do here, or just suck it up and buy another board?
The motherboard is a ROG ASUS MAXIMUS VI HERO and I live in Sweden, in case that matters.
TL;DR I bent some pins in the CPU socket then the motherboard broke 8 months later. Help?
Go contact Asus about this. Retailers are sometimes not the best way to go with a warranty. Contact Asus directly and explain what happened. I am sure they should be reasonable. I have never dealt with Asus before, but people on this forum high recommend them all the time.
laptop sockets tend to have pins on the CPU still (unless they're BGA)...
Can't remember the reason why intel switched to LGA but i think it's firstly so they dont get CPUs sent back for bent pins and it's cheaper to replace a socket on a MB than a CPU? ;)
But yeah, with regards to repairs it's often the case that any damage will deem the entire part or product out of warranty. Sony VAIO took that stance with their laptops (i.e. any damage anywhere meant the entire laptop warranty was invalid) whereas HP...depended really...it was a part by part warranty usually but damage to the MB, even a USB slot and the fault you had was no POST, was deemed to be out of warranty.
So yes, expect CPU pins bent to invalidate the warranty especially if it's a POST/power/boot issue.