Foxxcon vs LOTES- I'm scared!

[StarSolitude]

I'm buying a new PC and I don't want my cpu to fry because of this socket problem... Apparently we must avoid Foxxcon and get a mobo with a LOTES socket, but how do you know which one has a LOTES socket?

I intend to OC my core i5 to 4GHz at some point and don't want to destroy it...!

 

[MeatLoaf]

It will be fine mate as long as you dont put crazy volts through it.

And the onbly way to be sure what socket you get is by looking at the actual board

 

[Corasik]

While high stress overclocking makes the problem show up faster, its still a fact some of the Foxconn LGA1156's pins are making poor contact with the cpu, and if the CPU is at full load it will be putting additional stress on the good contacts, and potentially overheating the poor contacts.

Foxconn will no doubt improve the socket, but the only way to tell if you have a good one, is install the chip, fit a heatsink (ideally without applying the compound, you just want the pressure of the heatsink on the cpu/socket/motherboard, and then remove it all.

Inspect the bottom of the chip, every pad should now be marked from the pins in the socket. If there are batches of pads with no insertion marks on them, the socket is defective.

Nobody knows the long term effect of a CPU with a large number of poor contacts, when I build a PC I want to know that the CPU will be fine several years down the line, I would not trust the current revision of foxconn LGA1156 socket, and if I received a board with one I would use the distance selling act to return it.

I suppose that Distance Selling act can still be called on if you do a contact test with cpu/motherboard and that you can still return the board if you can prove to yourself the socket is defective.

The more you overclock, or overvolt the faster the problem will show up, and potentially destroying both CPU and Motherboard, but there is absolutely no guarantee that the bad socket will stand the test of time even at stock or modestly overclocked configurations. Aandtech noted minor darkening on a i5/750 after a few thousand hours, well thats only 3 months or so constant use, so whos's to say what even stock chips will be like after 15 to 20,000 hours use.

For what its worth, I dislike the abuse of the Distance Selling Act (for example to return a CPU that works perfectly at stock but doesnt overclock high enough, or in the early days of LCD when defects were more common but within "spec" returning screens with 1 or 2 minor defects). But if a product is clearly unfit for its job, then either Consumer protection laws, or Distance Selling act are perfectly acceptable options.

 

[PwnDirect]

How likely is it I wonder is to occur at stock volts?

Given a great enough load & period of time.

 

[Greebo]

How likely is it I wonder is to occur at stock volts?

Given a great enough load & period of time.

Depends on how many pins are not making contact. The more that don't, the more juice is going through the rest that are.

As Corasik says, I'd be wanting to swap it for one that touches all the pins just for security long term.

Also think resale value later. When selling it to people who are aware, the first thing they are going to ask you is whether all the pins touch. If they don't then you will get less for your board. Worst case if this does indeed cause long term problems is that nobody will buy it from you and you will be trying to get a replacement from the manufacturer under the "design fault when new" rule if it is out of warranty.

 

[thebandit]

As Corasik says above, Anand have seen minor effects on stock i5's after just 3 months use. I think the best way to proceed is to install your chip, then take it back out and check for the witness marks (indents in the pads on the CPU where contacts have pushed into the pad), again like Corasik said. In fact, I think I'm actually just repeating all the stuff in his post ..... so I'll stop .

 

[ETNiES]

So what happens if the processor/mobo do fry? Are you covered by anything?

 

[Greebo]

So what happens if the processor/mobo do fry? Are you covered by anything?

Tricky one. Obviously mobo will be replaced under warranty. You "should" be able to claim for the cpu from the mobo manufacturer so long as you can prove it was a design flaw but it gets messy. The cpu manufacturer certainly won't replace it under warranty.

That's why I would much rather swap the board now before any problems arise.

 

[entireweb]

As Corasik says above, Anand have seen minor effects on stock i5's after just 3 months use. I think the best way to proceed is to install your chip, then take it back out and check for the witness marks (indents in the pads on the CPU where contacts have pushed into the pad), again like Corasik said. In fact, I think I'm actually just repeating all the stuff in his post ..... so I'll stop .

I am not sure its as simple as that. Becuase if the contact is poor you will still see a mark, but you will get a resistance flucuation across the contact. If this contact just so happens to be is a key signal pin then it could course erratic behaviour, eg random crashing etc.

The 1156 has I think 175 main voltage VCC pins. Even if some of these are not contacting or have a bad contact it wont make any difference since the majority are contacting. So my point is witness marks dont really mean much, because it depends on the pins and also it doesnt show poor contacts.

Infact you are more likely IMO to introduce some contamination into the socket or pin side of the cpu by clamping it down then removing it for inspection and reclamping.

BTW even a finger print on the cpu pins will introduce more resistance than a poor contacting pin.

Also reseating and reclamping your CPU after inspection doesnt guarentee the pins will contact in exactly the same way.

So IMO I wouldnt recommend this "inspection" method.

Also there is no evidence at all if you read anandtech or extreme forums etc that this is an issue unless you are doing an very high overclock with high voltages.

I managed to get 3.8gtz out of my i7 860 without any vcore increase.

 

[kitfit1]

So what happens if the processor/mobo do fry? Are you covered by anything?

As Greebo said, "Tricky one". But as this is now common knowledge and is well documented around the net, and the mobo manufacturers are fully aware of it.
I can't see them having a leg to stand on if anyone took them to the small claims court for the cost of a replacement cpu.

I wouldn't be surprised if just the threat of taking them to court, caused them to cough up the money for a new cpu anyway.

 

[kitfit1]

Also there is no evidence at all if you read anandtech or extreme forums etc that this is an issue unless you are doing an very high overclock with high voltages.

Read it again, 3 months at stock.

 

[entireweb]

Read it again, 3 months at stock.

Quote from anandtech, which was my point really regarding pin inspection

We also realize that partial responsibility for some of the less than acceptable CPU installations may be in fact due user installation errors.