Maker of expensive printer ink HP and Chipzilla are rethinking how people carrying out processor upgrades in servers.

The worry is that tired, possibly drunk, server admins might stick a chip in the wrong way around, upside down, or in the wrong machine.  This normally involves just blowing up the chip but sometimes something more tragic happens like the admin burns his finger and can't play beer pong for a few days.

Now the three are have come up with a new chip-slotting technique that could reduce the chance of errors, and ultimately prevent system failure. The Smart Socket technology in HP's new Gen8 servers uses a clamp on the motherboard to mechanically upgrade processors. Instead of manually placing a processor inside a socket, a clamp with the processor can be pushed down on the improvised socket for a safer chip upgrade.

The system was shown off at the HP's Industry Standard Servers at the HP Global Partner conference being held in Las Vegas. Each motherboard has a clamp that has a processor inside, and is aligned with the socket so it can be slotted correctly. The clamp goes down sideways to insert the processor into a socket, after which it can be locked.