EDIT: We decided not to pursue further diagnosis, because we wouldn’t know what the hell we’re doing anyway, and decided to start the RMA process instead. It might not even be the reason why the PC won’t turn on, but I’m not comfortable with putting that CPU back into his PC again. Once we get a replacement, we’ll see what happens. If it’s still busted, we’ll just take it to a local shop. Thank you everyone for your for your suggestions and insight, they are very much appreciated.
My friend called me to take a look at his PC that wouldn’t turn on. Upon inspecting his CPU, I noticed a silver bump at the bottom. I’ve never seen this. Can anyone tell me what it is?
Last year GamersNexus covered something similar. Can't remember the exact video, but I think it was in the series of videos this one comes from https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fFNi3YNJXbY&t=0s.
Can't remember all the details, but (I think) something was causing a part of the die (I guess not near a temp sensor) to heat up way out of spec, enough to litterally melt the solder on the CPU, and have it drain out.
CPU is likely dead, and certainly not to be trusted. Is it an Asus or gigabyte motherboard? Potentially it's one that's affected and hasn't had the bios update that fixes the issue applied
That's super useful information, much appreciated. MSI motherboard actually. I'll ask my friend when he last updated the BIOS, if at all.
I would suggest not trying to use it anymore though, and just go straight to the RMA process for wherever they were purchased. Or maybe post on the GN discord to see what they say (annoyingly they don't have forums or anything, just a discord and subreddit).
If this is just something that's come from somewhere else, you don't know where else this mysterious metal may have gone, and there's a potential fire risk on your hands at worst, or a mobo that could fry any cpus (or memory, etc) plugged in.
If it's indeed the issue talked about by GN, it's dead, and if it's not completely dead, it's actively dying in an irreversible way.
If it's some other, new issue, I still can't imagine plugging it back in will make anything better.
That's not it. Even if the overheating melted something in there, it wouldn't just ooze out to some spot and form a neat blob without a trace.
The photo is almost identical to one shown in one of the GN videos. Gonna be a bad internet denizen today though and ask that you take my word, because I really can't be arsed to try to look up specific videos and times.
If you don't take my word, thats completely understandable, but as I said, cannot be arsed with looking it up, so I'll just accept that you don't believe me.
That's fair. Though I still do believe you since everything you said seems completely plausible. I'm skimming through GN's videos right now, but there are loooooads. Hopefully I'll find it eventually, because I really am curious. In any case, my friend and I decided to start the RMA process as suggested in your other comment, because if nothing else, the CPU looks really dodgy. Thank you for your time and insight!
It could actually, the Heat spreader is usually bonded to the Chip with some form of Indium Solder, which usually has a melting point of up to 210°C (most compositions are around 120-140°C).
Solder likes to form a similar ball around traces and components, since the solder does not stick to the silk screen of the PCB.
And I remember that this is exactly what happened in the Gamer Nexus video, the Indium Solder was melting due to Overheating.
Yes it would. That's exactly how solder would bahave in this case. The fact that you call what is obviously solder... "something"... means you don't know what you're talking about.