Athlon 64 packaging messed up

[Son Goku]

My AXP mobo is dieing as is the CPU fan. Needless to say it's on it's last legs where randomly I'm seeing crashes for no apperent (software wise). It's random and completely unpredicatable, as would tend to be consistent with hardware degredation.

As such, I'm upgrading my computer, and all components have now come. However the CPU has one oddity. The CPU was a boxed processor (but also about the cheapest I found for an Athlon 64 3500+ using the lattest Venice core.

The box that the processor's box was in arrived fine with no signs of it being banged up or damaged in shipping, and the CPU's box was packed in foam. In fact the outside of the CPU box looked fine, but opening it up the cardboard enclosure that held the chip (in it's plastic container in place) was disintegrating. It was in about 5 or 6 large chunks, with a lot of it having degraded to saw dust, and those chunks feeling rather dry and ready to crumple in one's hand. Because of this, the chip in it's plastic thingy was sitting there a bit off center (it had shifted a tad in AMD's box).

I plan on putting it altogether tonight and prior to doing so there's no testing to see if it's all OK. But does anyone think the CPU would be OK after this happened with the interior packing materials that help hold it in place in the inner box which AMD provided?

Edit: What's up with highlighted ad links now appearing in our posts?

[Rytr]

Should be OK as long as the cpu's container was not damaged. However, the deterioration of the packing material sounds like a chemical reaction of some kind. Was the material discolored? I would dispose of it safely and not handle the material.

[Son Goku]

thx The CPU seems to be OK now, and the system (at least in BIOS) looks to be running at a system temp of 27 C with a CPU temp around 35-40 C, even if the fan is kept spun down a bit...

One problem I have had is getting online though, and I couldn't figure it out nor could my ISP's support dept. Everything at both their end and at mine (from link lights, to activity lights on the modem, to device manager detecting the nForce's integrated NIC, to everything suggested it should go. However it wouldn't. I've given up for now and am on a spare PCI NIC which I plugged in and am successfully connecting to the Internet with.

There wasn't mention of a jumper for this (and if there was, I wouldn't suspect that either nVidia's nForce driver or Device Manager would be seeing it), and it's set to auto (auto or disable) in the BIOS. Else there's some software setting burried somewhere that is preventing connection. Course that's assuming there isn't just something physically wrong with the integrated NIC on my new board here. I've been stumped for hours on that one... Well it's getting out again, if by an add on expansion card, and yes using all the same cables and DSL bridge.

I haven't had much time to test it, as I've been pretty much setting up, installing Windows, Service Pack, and then drivers. Still need to hit Windows Update here, and then I might start installing some stuff, else go to bed. It's after 6:30 am now :lol:

BTW, with the nForce's integrated NIC on this board, when clicking for networking details on the PC, it would see outgoing packets (as the number sent increased), but the number received remained 0.