yep, you read that right... when I carefully lifted the cpu out of the socket, all of the 775 pins were still sitting in the socket. they were cleanly unattached. When I say unattached, I mean unbent, unbroken, or any other something that I may have done. My mobo is an ASUS P5N32-E SLI. I had taken the fan off very carefully, so as to not pull the cpu out, but when I did lift it out(the cpu) it was not attached to the pins.
I had purchased a new mobo because the p5b32-e's bios went bonkers, and the backup chip was corrupted. I would have rma'd it, but I lost the papers. It was old, so I bought a new one, never thinking to order another cpu, cause it was more recent.
once I find the papers for the cpu, I'll send it in, but I'm not sure if intel will fix that; does anyone have any past experience with this kind of thing?
some sockets have the pins on the socket instead of the chip. Make sure your socket isn't one of those before you send it in. I think my quad core is like that.
Edit: in fact it appears your motherboard has one of these sockets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_775
I wouldn't know, cause it was given to me, and all I've ever dealt with is p3's and p4's. looks like your right, but man, I was about to go scream at intel because I'm used to the pins being on the cpu, not the mobo.
<has shrunken to the size of a flea from embarrassment>
EDIT: and 939's
That would be a very horrifying experience indeed. Hope you didn't trash the old one.