AMD Phenom II X4 965 CPU: a pin fell off but it stilll works?

[Twario]

Yesterday, I was having complications with a very poorly designed CPU fan (it was the one that came with the CPU in the box). I needed to clean it, and it was a hassle to pull off. However, I was really stressed and wasn't focusing, so one thing led to another and now a good amount of CPU pins were bent and I don't even know how it happened. I chalk it up to both my own incompetence and that horribly designed fan.

Anyways, I panicked and pulled out a credit card to try and fix the pins. I did an okay job but noticed there was a little divot where a pin should've been. I ignored it and hoped it might've been designed that way but today I found out I was very wrong. On the desk there was a little gold pin, so now I'm very confused why the CPU is still working even though a pin fell off, and my computer seems to be running fine. It's weird because I read that even with one CPU pin gone there's going to be a 99% chance it won't work

TL;DR If the CPU is still working even if one CPU pin fell off, am I in the clear? Will there be a performance hit?

 

[Solarstarshines]

Yesterday, I was having complications with a very poorly designed CPU fan (it was the one that came with the CPU in the box). I needed to clean it, and it was a hassle to pull off. However, I was really stressed and wasn't focusing, so one thing led to another and now a good amount of CPU pins were bent and I don't even know how it happened. I chalk it up to both my own incompetence and that horribly designed fan.

Anyways, I panicked and pulled out a credit card to try and fix the pins. I did an okay job but noticed there was a little divot where a pin should've been. I ignored it and hoped it might've been designed that way but today I found out I was very wrong. On the desk there was a little gold pin, so now I'm very confused why the CPU is still working even though a pin fell off, and my computer seems to be running fine. It's weird because I read that even with one CPU pin gone there's going to be a 99% chance it won't work

TL;DR If the CPU is still working even if one CPU pin fell off, am I in the clear? Will there be a performance hit?

Could be the little piece that is left is still making contact

 

[Twario]

Could be the little piece that is left is still making contact

I don't know, no piece of the pin was sticking out, it was just the base underneath the pin. I'm not sure how that would make contact.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

It sounds like you may have gotten very lucky indeed. I guess it's not a problem till it's a problem. Always be very careful with the CPU's and handle by edges and drop them in their OEM plastic cases even when cleaning !

 

[Twario]

It sounds like you may have gotten very lucky indeed. I guess it's not a problem till it's a problem. Always be very careful with the CPU's and handle by edges and drop them in their OEM plastic cases even when cleaning !

Yeah, it seems likely that I might've gotten extremely lucky. I read up on it and it could've been a grounding pin which to my understanding is relatively useless. Anyways, I'm usually careful with PC parts but like I said I was very stressed yesterday, and things kept going wrong.

The thing I really want to know is if there's going to be a performance hit. Can somebody answer that? I'm not the most tech savvy person around, so I can't be sure.

 

[kbrady1979]

You are right. Several of the pins are ground pins and can be completely gone and won't affect anything. Trick is, there is no "road map" that tells you what the pins do. Consider yourself extremely lucky! For the one that fell out, there are probably 100 more that do the exact same thing.