pins came off cpu...

[Josiah]

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?

[ScarleTomato]

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

[Josiah]

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

[Clavin12]

That would be a very horrifying experience indeed. Hope you didn't trash the old one.