Help! CPU Socket Damage causing memory issues

W

WeApOn

New Member
I just purchased a new CPU fan, got it in today, and just finished installing it.

But during the process, while reapplying thermal paste, a little went on the side around the CPU socket. So before securing my CPU i took a paper towel and wiped near where the CPU sits. Another edge of the paper towel snagged on where the CPU plugs into and it looks like the pins shifted a bit.. Only two of them or so.

I didn't know what to do, so I put my CPU in, and finished everything else. I connected my computer, and it booted(phew!). I got to windows, and everything looked great, CPU temps were 20C lower than before, but what??? It says I have 4Gb of RAM, but only 1.99 usable inside Windows.

I quickly researched the issue, panicking that it had to do with the pins. I found one single post where someone said it did fall back to the pins and that's what caused this. Shit.

I took my computer apart again, and got some tweezers and did my best to make the pins point upwards. They looked perfectly aligned with all the others, but it was SO hard to see without a magnifying glass, which I don't have.

I connected everything again, and STILL the same issue. Shit.

I checked my BIOS and it says 2048 is my max memory, inside Windows it KNOWS I have 4GB, as it says. But it says I only have 1.99GB usable.

HELP! I don't know what to do, the CPU socket pins look fine, but I'm almost sure they're the cause. What can I do? This really sucks. :(

Additional details:
CPU: Lynnfield i7 860
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2 LGA 1156
 
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Alright, so this morning I woke up, went and bought a magnifying glass, and came back how to inspect further. A buddy of mine was sure that it wasn't the socket pins being bent, but probably more to do with the RAM, perhaps the bottom of the RAM got something on it that was causing the error.

So I checked out the socket pins with the magnifying glass(SO helpful) and there were some that were slightly not lined up.. using a very small tip mechanical pencil to move them around. I didnt do the trick where you put the pencil over the pins themself, not sure if that works with LGA 1156, just use it to push the pins around CAREFULLY. After everything looked lined up as best as possible, I used compressed air and sprayed the entire socket. I think there was some paper towel lint on some of them from when I originally cleaned the sides of the socket and slightly bent the pins.

So now that I blew out my with air, and made sure the pins were in the best shape I could, I used isopropyl alcohol on a paper towel to clean the bottom of my RAM sticks, then I blew more compressed air on the bottom of the sticks. I re-applied thermal paste and put everything back together. Beyond this, the only thing I could do would be to try and test the RAM one at a time, or in a different machine. But I doubted that my RAM was faulty.

So I booted up into Windows, and saw a lovely sight of the full 4GB of memory available to me. :) :D *PHEW* All the anxiety and stress turned to relief.


Unfortunately, I don't know exactly what was causing the issue. I'm going to call Gigabyte on Monday and see if they know what it was exactly. It would be nice to know.
My guess is that it had more to do with the paper towel on the top of the socket pin.


Hopefully someone who runs into the same problem comes across this thread and it helps them out. Try everything I did, have tons of patience, and triple-check everything.
 
in 32 bit Operating Systems, the RAM will never go above 2 gigs. i have 4 gigs in my XP machine and it only shows up as 2 gigs. but obviously that wasnt the problem.
 
Are you using onboard video or do you have a video card plugged in to your motherboard? If you have no video card plugged into your mainboard the video in your motherboard is likely using up 1 gigabyte of memory. If you are also using a 32-bit operating system that is going to also cut an additional 768 megabytes of RAM out of your 4 gigabytes.

3.25 gigabytes of RAM should be plenty for most programs if you have a decent video card.
 
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