Yeah I didn’t think so.

Well I did. It was an accident. I was helping a friend change his CPU from an Athlon 64 6000+ (125W) to a 5000+ Black Edition (65W) because his room is so hot that the CPU is overheating, and rather than buy a new heatsink, this was his solution of choice. Whatever.

Here\'s the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ in question

So I told him “okay, I’ll take that 6000+ off your hands and give you a 5000+ Black”. I took the new CPU over to his house, put it in his machine, took the old CPU, put it in the plastic clamshell from the new CPU, and slipped it into my pocket “temporarily” until I could put it down somewhere.

**later that night**

Oh no. Linus forgot to do his laundy this weekend. Better get cracking. Chuck everything into the washer, put it in the dryer overnight, wake up and find an empty clamshell package floating around in the laundry in the dryer. At this point I realized what happened.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the pins were bent to crap, but it appeared (on the outside) to be otherwise undamaged. Electronics in general (and from now on I will assume this also applies to CPUs) are not actually harmed by being wet for a short period of time as long as they are not powered on while wet, and allowed to dry before using them.

After bending the CPU pins back to normal (or close to normal) using a metal tipped mechanical pencil (every geek should have one, just for bending pins), I tested the CPU today at work and it’s functioning. Full speed, boots into Windows, the whole deal.

pins have been bent back to normal

Please bear in mind I am not endorsing “washing machine” as a legitimate way of cleaning your CPU (cotton buds and rubbing alcohol are far more effective, take less time, less risky, etc), but it looks like all is not lost if you (like me) accidently wash a CPU.