Sell Used Server Processors

They are refused. GTR Supply does not buy processors with bent pins, and that is a refusal rather than a reduced number, because a part with damaged contacts cannot be sold on to anybody. There is no buyer at any price, so there is no honest figure to offer for it.

Where the pins physically sit depends on the platform. On LGA parts the pins are in the motherboard socket and the processor carries flat gold contact pads, so the risk to the part is scraping or contaminating those pads. On PGA parts the pins are on the processor itself and a single bent one will stop a machine starting.

Either way the damage almost always happens after the part leaves the machine, during handling and packing, not during years of service.

So the practical answer is that this is entirely within your control, and the packing question below is the one worth reading.

Individually, with the contact face protected, and never stacked directly against one another. This is the single piece of preparation that changes what a processor lot is worth, because contact damage is a refusal rather than a deduction.

Original plastic trays are ideal and worth keeping if you have them. Individual clamshells are equally good. Failing both, antistatic bags with each part separated, packed so nothing slides around in transit, will do the job.

What does not work is a box of processors poured in loose. They shift, the heat spreaders and contact faces rub against each other, and what arrives is a lot with units that have to be pulled out of it.

If the processors are still in the servers, the simplest option is to leave them there. A processor sitting in a socket under a heatsink is better protected than almost anything you could pack it in.

Printed directly on the metal heat spreader, on the top face of the processor. There are usually several lines of small text there, and the one you want is the part or spec number, a short alphanumeric code rather than the marketing model name.

The model name is useful too, but on its own it does not settle the specification. Parts sold under the same family name can differ in clock speed, power rating and whether they are an OEM specific version keyed to one platform, and the spec number is what separates them.

The printing is small and low contrast against the metal. A phone photograph taken at an angle under good light is usually easier to read than the part in your hand.

If the processors are still installed, the management controller or the operating system will report the model for every socket at once, and GTR Supply can work from that.

Yes, and where the servers are being sold anyway it is usually the better route, because a processor in a socket under its heatsink is protected in a way that no packing method quite matches.

If the chassis are staying with you and only the processors are leaving, pull them carefully. Let the machine cool, release the socket retention properly rather than levering the part, lift the processor straight up rather than tilting it, and put it into a tray or clamshell before you pick up the next one.

Thermal paste is worth dealing with at your end if you have the time. A part with old paste caked across the heat spreader has to be cleaned before anything else can happen to it.

Either way, tell us on the list which way the processors are coming, since a tray of loose parts and a rack of populated nodes are valued as different things.