Marks on CPU after mounting and removing

tgfyhre · 17 Jun 2016

I was having trouble mounting my new Skylake CPU to my new Gigabyte Gaming 7 motherboard. I'm new at PC building (only my 2nd build) but it took a ton of force to close the lever down on the motherboard. I was so afraid it was breaking something I lifted up the lever and tried again. After some boot errors I discovered I have some bent pins on the motherboard. I already have a new replacement motherboard, but now I'm worried about the CPU. There are 2 little nicks that are actually centered on the two "wings" of the metal top shell of the CPU. It looks almost identical to this (not my picture obviously):

Do you think the CPU is okay? I'm guessing those little digs are from the motherboard socket mount. It took a lot of pressure to pull that lever down. I'm afraid that if the pressure was enough to carve those little digs into the wings, between the motherboard mount and the Noctua D15 cooler, was it enough to have put excessive force on the CPU itself, and possibly caused any internal damage or strain?

ignatzatsonic · 17 Jun 2016

"digs into the wings"?

The "metal top shell" is the heat spreader.

In your picture, are you referring to the small dark blotches seen at 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock at the extreme outer edge of the heat spreader, opposite the word "Malay"??

You say it's not your picture. Did you add those blotches with Photoshop?

If so, I'd doubt that is significant. All you can do is try it.

The CPU should just fall into the socket with zero force, assuming you have that gold triangle to the lower left.

That spring-loaded lever can be disconcerting if you've never played with it before. You should familiarize yourself with the force required in a test run without actually putting the CPU into the socket. It's a significant amount of force and would certainly break an egg easily, but not "a ton".

You should have good luck with the D15 Noctua. Remove the fans before you mount it. Mount the cooler and RAM before you put the board into the case. There are some good videos at the Noctua site on how to do it. Pretty much foolproof--the best mounting system around.

Just put a dot of the Noctua thermal paste right in the middle of the heat spreader--maybe the size of a BB or rice grain, smaller than a green pea.

Here's a pic of a 6700K with the heat spreader removed, showing the CPU die. As you can see, it's quite small and in the middle of that circuit board, nowhere near the outer edges where the blotches are seen.

tgfyhre · 17 Jun 2016

I can't take a decent picture of my CPU with my lousy camera so I found an image online that had the same kind of marks that I have on my CPU. I saw several images online with marks on the "wings' of the Intel CPUs just like mine, so I'm guessing it sometimes happens when mounting? I'm guessing those little marks are harmless.

Thanks for the tips - I do appreciate it.

RoasterMen · 18 Jun 2016

You should worry more with the pins on the motherboard. You can bend them back into it's own position very carefully if it bent little too wide. Few scratches on the heat spreader of the Processor won't kill it.

Layback Bear · 19 Jun 2016

Those little marks on the heat shield I see in the picture where probably made by the cpu mounting and hurt nothing.

What you must be careful of is the other side of the cpu and the pins on the motherboard.
You shouldn't even touch those surfaces. Even the oil from your skin can make things go crazy if you touch the other side of the cpu or motherboard pins.

AddRAM · 19 Jun 2016

In no way should it take a lot of force to lock in the cpu.

Did you put it in correctly ?

It only goes in one way, there are round notches on the cpu and round notches on the motherboard where the cpu sits.