Spent 11 hours on a no-boot job that turned out to be one bent pin I made worse
Client brought in a custom build last Tuesday, said it worked fine until he tried to install a new CPU cooler. No post, no fans, nothing. I swapped the PSU, reseated the RAM twice, tested the board on a bench, cleared CMOS three times, even tried a different socket chip to rule out the board, and burned through most of a workday going in circles. Around hour 8 I finally pulled the chip out under a magnifier and found one bent pin in the socket corner, looked like it got nudged when he set the cooler down. Then I made it worse trying to fix it with a needle instead of a proper pin tool, so now the board needs a socket reflow or replacement. Ended up eating the labor and quoting him $85 for the repair plus parts. Any of you got a go-to trick for straightening LGA pins without snapping them, or do you just send it out every time?