Let's see how many observant ppl there are out there. What's wrong with this picture...

Umm...should that be attached to the MB?

Not the first time I've seen that, to be honest... Always worth a laugh, though!

Alien, let me guess, you work for an RMA department?

I Built a barebones system [case (no PSU), mobo, CPU, heatsink, & 2 case fans] for a friend, & posted it to her by Special Delivery. For those not in the UK, Special Delivery is supposed to be a sort of premium service offered by the Royal Mail, our national mail service. I paid £18.30, which includes insurance to cover upto a value of £250, & guaranteed next [working] day delivery by 12pm. They are also supposed to take better care of stuff sent by Special Delivery than by normal mail.

It arrived with her this morning. She emailed me [from her old PC] to tell me that it had, but that the HS had come off. My 1st thought was that the middle lugs had broken off of the socket, & that the HS being able to move freely around the interior of the case may have caused further damage. After sending pics that I had taken of the way it was supposed to look & asking her to describe what she could see [she doesn't have a digital camera or webcam] it seemed apparent that the socket had literally come off the mobo, still attached to the heatsink!!! I got her to sit it on her scanner, so I could see it for myself, & that pic is what she sent. Apparently all the little metal pins/contacts/whatever of the socket are still sticking out of the mobo.

I've seen this happen to other connectors if they were pulled much too hard, but never heard of it happening to a CPU socket. I had even taken the fan off of the heatsink to reduce weight attached to the socket, & secured it elsewhere inside the case. I got her to weigh the heatsink, fan adapter, CPU & heatsink, which were all still joined together, & they only came to 330g, which is only 30g over AMD's max reccomended limit, & then there's the chip & socket as part of that weight too, so the difference is even less.

Hopefully the company from which it was ordered won't have a problem exchanging the board for you... What a pain, though!

I would loev to see you try to get your money from royalmail , they are useless, my new cold cathode light wassent to me by them and it arrived in 6days, not 3 as intended. Apparently they had tryed to deliver but there was no card so maybe they had forgot to drop a it off and even forgot to knock considering there was 3 people in the house the time they said it was delivered.

Adam, I was the 1 who put it together, & I very much doubt the company I got the mobo/CPU/HSF bundle from would replace it free.

Mark, RoyalMail will be coughing up the cash for it. I've already phoned customer services, & they said all we need to do is for my friend to take it to her local post office to show them the problem, & for us [not sure, either her or me] to fill out a form, & they'll cough up the money. @ least Special Delivery is insured upto £250, which more than covers the replacement cost of the parts that need replacing [£130].

AT least our mail service provides good compensation! :p

8) How many Gs to make it seperate cleanly like that ;(

That's amazing

Just one question: you didn't write "fragile" on the packaging anywhere did you? ;(
That's like a red rag to a bull when dealing with the Post Office: they all seem to read "fragile" as "throw around as hard as you can"

AndyF

2 words: manufacturing defect 8)

just don't tell the Post Office that! LOL